If you or someone you love has been denied benefits by the VA, your first reaction – besides disappointment – might be to assume that the organization was right to say no to you. After all, the Veterans Benefits Administration has been processing claims just like yours for decades – surely they know what constitutes a valid claim better than you do. The other thing to keep in mind is that they sometimes make mistakes.
As a disability attorney, no one understands the VBA better than I do. Most of the people there are honest, hard-working folks who are simply overburdened by the huge numbers of claims that they have to process. This is a big part of the reason that it takes so much time for most claims to go through. But it’s not the only reason. Just like any other agency, the Department of Veterans Affairs makes mistakes, and now more people are finally starting to acknowledge this and try to fix the problem.
Congress Criticizes VA over Errors… and Their Response to Them
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Most people probably know that the VA has been under fire for processing claims so slowly that a huge backlog of cases has built up. Congress and others have been pushing the VA for some time to find ways to speed things along and get Vets the help they need faster, but now they’re after the VA for a different reason.
Beyond the organization’s general slowness, Congress has now decided to “get tough” on them due to a number of errors that they say the VA continues to make. What kinds of errors?
Management errors. Though there has been some improvement in this over recent years, especially in the organization’s IT infrastructure, management and administration errors still cost many Vets by slowing down the claims process and even causing some claimants to be incorrectly denied.
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Medical errors. With an organization as large as the VA working with all kinds of medical professionals and constantly being pressured to do things faster, it’s not surprising that medical errors and mistakes occur from time to time. These run the gamut from misclassifying claimants to simply not providing medical professionals with all the information that they need to make the correct assessment. And then, of course, there are times when doctors simply get it wrong. There’s no way to stop medical errors from happening altogether, but more has to be done to catch them and prevent Vets from being incorrectly denied.
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If you really want to understand the process, check out our free eBook on Veterans Disability, and keep following this blog to stay up to date with the latest news. In the meantime, it’s good to know that Congress is finally starting to push the VA to get better, but anyone looking to give their claim the best chance of succeeding should still work with a Veterans Disability attorney who knows all the ins and outs and has your interests in mind.
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