The deadline for veterans and survivors to apply or submit their intent to file for PACT Act benefits has been extended in order to have their benefits, if approved, backdated to Aug. 10 2022.
VA officials late Wednesday announced that the new deadline is 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday, Aug. 14.
‘We encourage all veterans and their survivors to apply – or submit their intent to file – for PACT Act benefits now by visiting VA.gov/PACT,” officials said in an announcement.
The extension comes after the VA said on Tuesday that 18% of those attempting to apply or submit their intent to file on its website received an error message.
“As of 5:00 p.m, less than one-tenth of one percent of attempts to submit an `intent to file’ today (Aug. 9) had resulted in an error message,” the Wednesday night announcement reads.
The PACT Act – which makes VA health care and benefits available to veterans of all eras who were exposed to toxins as a result of their military service – was signed into law by President Joe Biden on Aug. 10, 2022.
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VA said the decision to extend the deadline was made “out of an abundance of caution” and that every veteran or survivor who has received an error message while applying for PACT Act benefits can consider their intent to file completely.
“We are working to contact these individuals to confirm directly to them that their intent to file will be honored and their effective date protected,” the announcement continued. “Most importantly, no veteran or survivor will miss out on a single day of benefits due to this issue.”
VA said it has also experienced a high volume of calls to its call centers throughout the week and is working to decrease abnormally long call center wait times.
VA added that it sent out communications from all channels, including social media, emails and via coordination with Congressional leaders and Veterans Service Organizations on Wednesday to reassure veterans and survivors that they would not miss out on their earned benefits due to the technical glitch.
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“We put an emergency banner on the VA website to tell veterans and survivors that their intents to file will be honored,” the announcement continued. “We changed the intent to file error message to confirm that, despite the error message, the intent to file has been saved.”
The glitch caught the attention of some in Congress, including Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), who chairs the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. In a letter to VA Secretary Denis McDonough, Tester pressed the department to make sure PACT Act intents to file are honored in spite of the glitch.
“VA must now follow through with its plan to accept the applications as being on-time and notify all impacted veterans they have successfully met the deadline,” Tester wrote. “It is critical that the men and women who have served our nation are able to access the health care and benefits they have earned.”
According to statistics from VA, it has received around 786,000 disability claims under the PACT Act, processed almost 435,000 and approved more than 348,000. In addition, nearly 111,000 veterans who believe they have been exposed to toxins have enrolled in VA health care since the law went into effect.
More than 4.1 million veterans have completed a toxic screening questionnaire which will help determine whether additional tests are required.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.