The U.S. Department for Veterans Affairs announced Wednesday that it has processed a record 2.5 million disability benefits and pension claims so far this fiscal year.
VA Secretary Doug Collins highlighted the impressive statistic during an interview with Scripps News, calling it "exciting news about the VA putting the veteran first."
What changes at the VA have led up to this?
"I've always had a philosophy: what gets measured gets done," Collins said. "And for the longest time we had a backlog claim of over 125 days that was over 260,000 when I was sworn in on February 5th. We now know it's under 160,000 — that's over 37%, over 100,000 — because what we did is we put more time and attention on it, we put more people on it, we detailed people, we used overtime, and we're continuing that process. It's not over yet."
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"What was said was 'these people are waiting on a decision from VA. A veteran should not have to wait that long,'" Collins added. "And this is something that we have been prideful in looking at and saying 'we are gonna do better.'"
What percentage of these claims were approved?
"It depends," Collins told Scripps News. "And those are all dependent on what the instance is and how they go about it. Some are approved — maybe not in full — some are approved partially. There's other ways that we go about this, getting it. But what they're getting is an answer. And then if they don't like, or they have an issue with the decision they got — let's say they were told 'no' — then they can always appeal those claims and that is a process that we have in place."
"We're not the agency of just simply saying 'no,'" he added. "And I think our agency, there's times when we have to say 'no' because there's not a statutory benefit applied to that. But what we're trying to do is make sure that we give the benefit of the doubt to the veterans so that they can apply and make sure they get every possibility to be heard."
Watch Scripps News' full interview with VA Secretary Doug Collins in the video player above.
