The Department of Veterans Affairs says it has granted benefits to 1.1 million veterans and their survivors – an all-time record - so far this fiscal year.
In total, VA has awarded $137 billion in benefits, including $127 billion in compensation and pension benefits, to veterans and survivors three-quarters of the way through the current fiscal year.
“Our goal is to make sure every veteran and every survivor gets the benefits they’ve earned for their service to this country,” said VA Under Secretary for Benefits Joshua Jacobs in a statement. “These veterans and survivors are now receiving monthly payments for the conditions that followed them home from war or took the lives of their loved ones – and there is nothing, nothing more important than that.”
To reach the milestone, VA says it has processed more than 2 million claims in 2024 – another all-time record, on pace to surpass last year’s record by more than 27 percent.
The grant rate for these claims is 64.6 percent and the average overall disability rating granted to veterans this year to-date is 70 percent, equating to over $20,000 per year in disability compensation.
Of the claims granted so far in FY2024, 655,808 were PACT Act-related.
VA is also on pace to deliver approximately 127 million healthcare appointments in 2024, surpassing last year’s all-time record of 120 million appointments. More veterans are enrolling in VA health care, with 412,867 veterans enrolling the last 365 days, an increase of 27 percent year over year – and the most since 2017.
Since the PACT Act was passed, more than 710,000 veterans have enrolled in VA health care, which represents a more than 34 percent increase in veterans enrolling compared to an equivalent period before the legislation was signed.
Veterans also submitted 2,433,729 claims applications in 2023 – an all-time record and 39 percent more than in 2022. Thus far this year, veterans are on pace to submit even more claims – outpacing last year’s record by 2.9 percent.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.