Wednesday, November 28, 2007

VA falls farther behind in claims processing

In an article published in the Miami Herald Chris Adams that it is now taking 6 days LONGER to process initial claims, than it did one year ago, so instead of getting better at helping veterans, the process is getting worse.

Gee I wonder what the VA Colonel James Nicholson is doing now, that he has left the VA worse off than when he took over in 2005.

PROCESSING SPEED

Congress and veterans closely watch the time it takes the VA to process claims, and the agency has vowed in previous years to pick up the pace. When it was asked about its processing speed last year, for example, the VA told McClatchy that hiring new workers would help it increase production and decrease its backlog of claims in 2007.

In fact, processing time increased by an average of six days, and the backlog of pending claims rose from 377,681 to 391,257, the agency's records show.

The VA said this week that it was aggressively tackling the issue, hiring more than 1,000 workers, boosting overtime and revamping training. The agency also said it was receiving more disability claims than it had at any time in recent history, and that it had received more than it had expected in 2007.


Then here are Senator Patty Murrays comments on this:
But for Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the report is more evidence that the agency hasn't been upfront with Congress about its performance or its needs.

''It is extremely frustrating to hear the song and dance that we are doing better when the reality is we are not,'' said Murray, a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. ``I want to say I'm surprised. But I'm not.''

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