A Veterans Affairs staffer “blindly” approved thousands of disability benefits claims over at least a three-year period, resulting in millions of dollars of improper payments, according to a .
The VA Inspector General’s office investigated a hotline allegation and confirmed that a senior veterans service representative at the Philadelphia VA Regional Benefit Office authorized error-filled claims without even opening or reviewing case-related documents.
The staffer authorized about 85,300 claims — about 19 times the national average — from fiscal year 2022 through fiscal year 2024, spending an average of 4.7 minutes reviewing each claim, while the national average was about 21 minutes.
The Inspector General team found errors in 27 of 32 claims it sampled from just a six-month period last year.
Not all of the errors resulted in improper payments, but the watchdog estimated that the mistakes resulted in at least $2.2 million in improper payments during the review period.
The blind approvals continued despite concerns expressed by VA district officials, according to the Inspector General report.
“This seems to go beyond rubber-stamping. This is like creating a machine that automatically approves claims, 84% of them erroneously,” said , the director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, referencing the errors uncovered in 27 of 32 sampled claims.
Jim Lorraine, the president and CEO of , a group that works on behalf of veterans, said that the real scope of improper payments was likely much higher than the $2.2 million noted in the report, given the small size of the analyzed sample.
Lorraine said this is a big organizational mess for VA, but it should ensure veterans don’t pay the price for VA’s mistakes.
“The VA needs to make sure that the veterans are whole,” he said.
Veterans shouldn’t be asked to pay back the money, Lorraine said.
And he urged VA to give veterans who were accustomed to disability payments a “smooth landing” if their claim determinations are reduced or taken away.
Rep. Mike Bost, the chair of the , told The National News Desk via an emailed statement that he’ll “continue to right the ship at VA to hold employees who aren’t following protocol to the highest standard on behalf of the veterans they serve.”
Bost said this case highlights the “need to bring accountability back to VA for good.”
“Veterans shouldn’t have to worry if their disability ratings decisions are accurate, they should be able to trust that VA will do it right the first time to avoid overpayments and missteps that have a direct impact on veterans’ lives – that starts with quality service by VA,” Bost continued.
Lorraine said it appears the senior veterans service representative might’ve been neglectful in following procedures, but he said the problem started before the claims reached that person.
“I looked at it and was like, ‘So, why are there so many errors going to a senior reviewer?’” he said.
Lorraine also said this is a good example of why automating the VA claims process might help.
“This is a perfect place to put an (artificial intelligence) tool in place that can do them far faster than a human and that can be far more accurate,” he said.
There’s not a lot of subjectivity in the claims process, so it’s a good fit for AI automation, Lorraine said.
Cannon also pointed to problems that than this one staffer or one VA regional benefit office.
Congress is “overpromising and under-delivering” veteran benefits, Cannon said.
Technology might help, but so would funding more reviewers and more inspectors, he said.
Cannon pointed to the ongoing .
And he said more extreme reforms could ensure Congress is both a better steward of taxpayer dollars and more accountable to veterans, who were promised when they signed up for service that they’d be taken care of years down the line.
Cannon suggested that bumping up military pay so that present-day troops could buy a standard package of life, health and disability benefits from private insurance companies would be “a much better solution.”