VA Secretary Nominee Pledges to Speed Benefits Claims and Restore Priority 8 Enrollments

General Eric K. Shinseki, President-elect Barack Obama’s nomination for secretary of the VA, said shortly before his confirmation hearings that speeding the department’s disability claims process and restoring its benefits to Priority 8 veterans would be among his top goals in the position. Senate hearings on appointing Shinseki, whom Obama announced as his nominee on December 7, are scheduled to begin January 14.

In a statement obtained January 6 by The Associated Press, Shinseki told the Senate VA Committee that he would try initially to speed the VA disability claims process, which currently averages at least six months, to 145 days. He said that switching from paper applications to “an integrated, all electronic claims processing system” would be helpful in this regard. During the presidential campaign, Obama pledged to speed the claims process through electronic processing and hiring new claims workers.

The VA’s backlog of over 600,000 disability claims has been the subject of several recent controversies. In October, the department ordered its 57 regional Veterans Benefits Administration offices to stop shredding documents after the VA Office of Inspector General found that 36 claims documents had been placed in shred bins inappropriately. Eventually, the VA found that about 500 claims-related documents at 41 regional offices had been slated inappropriately for shredding. Also in October, the director of the New York Regional Office was suspended after an internal investigation found the office had backdated claims documents to falsely suggest they were processed within the required seven days. A November summary of the VA investigation said that 56% of that office’s claims carried incorrect dates. On December 18, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by Vietnam Veterans of America and Veterans of Modern Warfare that sought to require the VA to process claims within 90 days and resolve appeals within 180 days.