February 3, 2010 by admin.

By Rick Maze - Staff writerPosted : Tuesday Feb 2, 2010 11:41:28 EST

The 2011 Veterans Affairs Department budget unveiled Monday by the White House includes what VA officials called an “unprecedented” 27 percent funding increase for the Veterans Benefits Administration, some of which will be used to hire 4,000 permanent employees to process benefits claims.The increase does not mean disability, pension and survivors claims will be processed faster, however.In an admission that comes as no surprise to few who have been watching VA struggle with a backlog of benefits claims, Michael Walcoff, VA’s acting undersecretary for benefits, said veterans should be prepared for the average claims processing time to be longer in fiscal 2011 than it is today.The reason? Even though more workers are being hired, VA officials expect a big jump in the number of Vietnam-era veterans filing Agent Orange-related claims due to newly expanded eligibility.It takes an average of 158 days to process a benefit claim today, Walcoff said. He expects that will rise to 190 days in 2011, at least for the first few months of the year, as new employees are hired and trained and a flood of complicated claims requesting retroactive benefits are received from Vietnam veterans.“Dealing with the claims backlog is complicated,” Walcoff said. “There is more involved than just the number of people we have handling claims.”VA officials expect to receive 1.3 million claims in 2011, part of a two-year, 30 percent jump that is greatly hampering VA’s efforts to achieve its goal of bringing the average claims processing time down to 125 days.In a statement, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said there are long-term plans to harness technology to speed claims, such as establishing a paperless processing system and changing procedures to reduce steps as part of promised transformation. But in the short term, there is no quick solution.In addition to the 27 percent increase in benefits funding, the proposed 2011 VA budget includes an 8.5 percent increase in medical funding.At a Monday press conference, VA Deputy Secretary W. Scott Gould called the 2011 budget a “watershed moment” for veterans, citing the big funding increases and the fact that the budget includes, for the first time, advance funding for health care for the following fiscal year.The budget calls for 5,715 additional permanent employees, a 2 percent increase over the current workforce. This includes the 4,000 claims processors, about 1,300 medical care workers and a smattering of additional workers in other departments.The 4,000 claims processors are not necessarily new employees; about 1,800 are currently temporary employees whose positions would be made permanent, said W. Todd Grams, acting VA assistant secretary for management.VA expects big increases in patient loads in 2011 and 2012 as the number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seeking treatment rises.About 382,500 recent combat veterans use VA today. A 15 percent increase is projected for 2011 and an additional 13 percent increase is expected in 2012, Grams said.

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February 3, 2010 by admin.

By Rick Maze - Staff writerPosted : Tuesday Feb 2, 2010 15:13:47 EST

The Veterans Affairs Department is seeking to recoup $3,000 emergency payments sent last year to about 80,000 people whose Post-9/11 GI Bill education benefits were delayed — including some active-duty members who were not supposed to get the checks.If the $3,000 checks were never cashed, they can simply be returned, VA officials said.If they were cashed, the $3,000 must be repaid either through reductions in spring semester GI Bill benefits for those who are attending school or by direct payments to VA for those who are not enrolled.People who got the payments, considered by VA to be advance pay of benefits, will be contacted about repayment options, officials said.Advance payments were issued from October through the end of December as an emergency measure after student veterans complained that delays in approving claims under the complex new program were leaving them unable to afford college. Student veterans advocates reported some students were paying out of their own pockets or considering dropping out of school.When VA officials announced the $3,000 payments, some congressional staffers raised concerns about the possibility of fraud and error. Paying people before certifying their eligibility and before they enrolled in qualified courses — two key steps of the claims process — would open the door to overpayments, House aides warned.Those concerns were overruled, however, when it became clear to VA officials that they would not be able to process claims in less than 30 days, the original goal, which guaranteed that student veterans who were counting on living stipends would not get them on time.Active-duty service members, who are eligible for Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits, were not meant to be eligible for advance payments, but some received them anyway.The payments were aimed at covering monthly living stipends available to student veterans carrying more than a 50 percent course load, something not available to active-duty members who already receive either housing or a housing allowance from the military.But VA officials did not clearly indicate that active-duty members did not qualify for advance payments until December, creating a situation in which some active-duty members — the exact number is unknown — received payments that will have to be fully repaid.The $3,000 advance payments were discontinued at the end of the fall term, and VA officials have no plans to provide them for the spring term because they believe they have the claims process under control.VA has received about 132,000 spring enrollment applications and has processed more than 105,000.

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