Racial disparities in benefits claims decisions are the subject of an ongoing Department of Veterans Affairs study.
During his monthly press conference on Dec. 1, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said the results of the study will be published, but it is uncertain when it will be completed.
“This is an issue that we’ve been pressing on with some urgency now for some time, but we’re also not waiting for the conclusion of that study to take action,” he said.
McDonough’s comments followed the filing of a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Connecticut on Nov. 28 which alleges that VA was more likely to reject disability benefits claims made by black veterans than white veterans from 2001 to 2020.
“The result of VA’s racial discrimination has been to deny countless meritorious applications by Black veterans, depriving them and their families of care and support that their faithful service had earned,” the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit was filed by Yale Law School filed the lawsuit on behalf of Vietnam veteran Conley Monk, Jr. The VA initially rejected his applications for disability, education and housing claims before granting them in 2015 and 2020. The lawsuit claims that VA never fully compensated Monk for the harm it caused him by denying his benefits applications.
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VA’s Center for Minority Veterans is now working individually with minority veterans through Veteran Experience Action Centers. From April through June, VA has assisted more than 650 minority veterans as a result of the centers.
McDonough said the VA plans to help more.
“Additionally, we’re taking steps to ensure that our claims process battles institutional racism, rather than perpetuating it,” he said.
McDonough also noted that VA has received 165,000 claims made under the recently passed PACT Act. He cautioned that it will take longer to reach a decision in some of those cases.
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“Some cases will be resolved in days, some in weeks, some in months,” he said. “Some will be resolved quickly, some will take longer.
McDonough pledged that VA will keep in touch with those who file. He also said that the rules are being changed to allow for partial payment on claims.
The agency is also changing its rules to allow for partial payment on PACT Act claims when it begins processing them on Jan. 1, 2023.
“Say, for example, a veteran files a package that has up to 10 claims, and we can resolve three quickly, but the remaining will take some additional time,” explained McDonough. “We will make that initial ruling, begin paying those benefits immediately and then go back to working on the rest of the claims.”
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VA has been aggressively hiring in response to an anticipated uptick in PACT Act claims and has begun offering PACT Act incentive awards to staffers, he said.
The current disability claims backlog at VA is around 151,000 cases, but McDonough expects that number to increase as more veterans file claims related to the PACT Act.
“Our commitment is to make sure that we have the staff in position to work through those claims aggressively to resolve those claims in a quality way, and to get to payment of those benefits rapidly and transparently,” he said.
From Dec. 10 - 17, VA is holding 90 events nationwide that focus on getting veterans to sign up for benefits under the PACT Act.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.