VA’s claims process has undergone a tremendous positive
evolution over the past eight years. It is now a ‘paperless’ system thanks to
the Veterans Benefits Management System and the digitally based National Work
Queue system. This evolution, led by VA’s dedicated claims teams across the
country, resulted in a claims backlog of over 600,000 claims in 2012 fall below
100,000 by 2017.
VA defines backlog as the number of claims pending over 125
days.
Two events have occurred that will, however, result in
significant claims backlog increases in the near term.
First, unprecedented claims processing delays caused by the
COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a current claims backlog of approximately
180,000, more than double its pre-COVID-19 backlog levels. After in-person work
restrictions at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) caused
a significant growth in the number of outstanding requests for military
records, VA collaborated closely with (and continues to collaborate with) NARA
to retrieve and scan records into VA’s electronic claims processing
system. Mitigating these COVID delays
will take more time.
Second, VA is beginning to now process claims related to two
significant benefits changes for Veterans enacted by law and expect these new
processes have an impact on VA’s ability to deliver benefits within 125 days.
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