When Will Veterans' Disability Claims Get Processed?

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Exposé: Veterans Administration Battles Backlog of Claims for Wounded Soldiers


"......Across this country, there are nearly a million veterans who are sitting, waiting to find out if the VA will give them disability compensation for the wounds that they received in war....

.....about 830,000 veterans....are waiting on their disability claims. And as we’ve previously reported at the Center for Investigative Reporting, these wait times are getting longer and longer. In cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, veterans are waiting over a year, on average, to get their claims resolved and get compensation for their wartime wounds.....

.....why are there such egregious delays? And what we found in this more recent investigation is that these delays paradoxically exist because the VA is putting pressure on people like Jamie Fox to rush through quickly, and then they make a mistake, and then the veterans who are wrongfully denied enter an appeal. And so, we found that almost a third of the veterans who are waiting are actually waiting on appeal. And we found that the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, which adjudicates this, rules that the VA makes a mistake 73 percent of the time that they rule on a case.....

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http://www.democracynow.org/2012/11/12/expos_veterans_administration_battles_backlog_of

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1. kicking