Thousands of benefits claims from Navy veterans who served during the Vietnam War were overlooked for more than a year when they should have been forwarded for a decision, according to a new report by the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Veterans Affairs. In this 2022 photo, Navy veterans salute during a Vietnam War Veterans Day ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. (Nicholas Bauer/U.S. Navy )
WASHINGTON — More than 10,500 benefits claims for leukemia, multiple myeloma and other diseases related to herbicide exposure were overlooked for more than a year by the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a new report by the VA Office of Inspector General.
The report, which was issued Wednesday, identified decision delays for a group of VA claims submitted in 2021 from Navy veterans seeking disability compensation and health care benefits for medical conditions developed after exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides during the Vietnam War. The U.S. military conducted aerial spraying of the toxic chemicals to clear trees and vegetation during the war.
The inspector general launched the review after learning about significant delays in claims from Navy veterans who had not received decisions for more than 365 days.
Passage of the Blue Water Navy Veterans Act in 2019 extended VA benefits for the first time to veterans who served off the Vietnam coast or in the Korean Demilitarized Zone.
Nearly all the claims identified involved medical conditions related to herbicide exposure, which required review by teams with specialized training, according to the report. Most Vietnam veterans today are in their 70s or older.
Claims were for medical conditions presumed to be caused from contact with the herbicides, including leukemia, prostate cancer, multiple myeloma, Type 2 diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
The agency processed 433,000 claims from May 2022 through July 2022 in 125 days or less, according to the report.
But auditors identified another 10,541 claims that were held for more than a year, the report said.
No action had been taken on the claims, though they were complete and waiting to be forwarded to regional VA offices for decisions as of Aug. 1, 2022, according to the report.
The VA handles claims through a centralized management division, which receives and distributes them to regional offices for decisions.
A national work queue is used as a tool to prioritize and forward the claims after veterans file them to qualify for disability compensation and health care related to medical conditions from military service.
The audit found the VA’s automated distribution tool for sending out claims was restricting the number of claims sent to specialized teams because they have small staffs, according to the report. It also had erroneously given a lower priority to some groups of claims related to herbicide exposure.
The report identified — as an example — a 566-day-old claim related to herbicide exposure that had not been distributed to a regional office for a benefits decision by Aug. 1, 2022, when an audit was done, though it had been determined to be complete and ready for processing.
The Vietnam veteran had filed the claim in January 2021 for bladder cancer and diabetes, which are conditions that can result from exposure to herbicides. But the claim “was not ranked highly enough to be distributed,” the report found.
The VA said adjustments have since been made to its distribution tool to prioritize older claims and claims related to herbicide exposure.
Auditors advised the VA to monitor the national work queue more closely. Employees told auditors that teams spot-check claims to determine if they are advancing in a timely manner.
The VA has dealt with an influx of so-called Blue Navy claims in the past five years.
In 2020, the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California ordered the VA to give a second review to more than 60,000 claims from Navy veterans denied disability compensation for herbicide exposure prior to passage of the Blue Water Navy Veterans Act.
