Many eventually prevail, but years of battling bureaucracy take a toll
Veterans fight lengthy war over benefits
Charles Leist fought his way through a bureaucratic labyrinth for 10 years before finally winning an appeal on his military disability pension. The Buffalo veteran who fought in Vietnam and the first Gulf War is grateful for the more than $100,000 in back allowance he received a few months ago but says he could have used the money when it really counted.
“It would have been nice to have had that money when I needed it to put my kids through college,” he said. “After waiting for 10 years, my disability was raised from 30 percent to 80 percent.”
Leist, 60, has plenty of company in lengthy waits to settle disputed disability claims with the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Across the country, unresolved claims total 600,000 to 800,000, according to advocates for disabled vets.
Insufficient documentation of military service, improperly filed or lost paperwork and conflicting medical evaluations often cause delays.
Some, like Leist, wait a decade, others two decades or even longer.
“All too often, it gets bounced around, and no final decision is made,” said David E. Autry, a spokesman for Disabled American Veterans in Washington, D. C., who worries about the new generation of disabled veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
“With the VA having trouble handling disability claims from previous generations of wartime veterans, this new generation may be in for a long and bumpy ride,” he said.
At the VA’s Buffalo Regional Office downtown, processing a disability claim takes an average of 156 days, compared with the VA’s national average of 174 days.
About 2.5 percent of the local claims end up disputed and appealed. Preparation of the appeal takes about 288 days. The Board of Veterans Appeals in Washington, D. C., can approve, reject or send the appeal back to Buffalo for further review.
“It’s called churning. It can bounce back and forth,” Autry said.
On a national level, Autry says he has seen disputed claims that date back 50 years or longer, “and unfortunately there are a number of veterans who have died before their claims are finally resolved.”
As his appeal dragged on, Leist said, he wondered if he would live to see his case concluded.
Veterans advocates say the system, in fact, counts on veterans giving up or just dying off in order to get out of paying benefits.
VA Secretary James Peake has admitted much more needs to be done to improve the appeals process.
“I heard clearly the dissatisfaction with veterans waiting excessive periods of time to have their claims adjudicated,” he has told Congress. “A veteran should not need a lawyer to figure what benefit is due or to get that benefit.”
But the workload remains monumental. Last year, veterans filed 838,141 disability claims, up from 578,773 in 2000, a year before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The VA was unable to provide an exact number for unresolved disputed claims but estimated that about 400,000 claims in “pending inventory” range in age from a few days to a number of months.
Either way, the government’s figures are substantially lower than the 600,000 to 800,000 disputed claims cited by Autry, who says, “The VA plays with numbers.”
The VA says Autry is counting both rating-related claims, which determine a veteran’s degree of disability, and nonrating- related claims that range from changing the name of a beneficiary on an insurance policy to a change of address.
A push to speed up the backlog continues, along with efforts to hire 3,100 VA employees by the end of September, although training individuals to review claims takes about two years.
All of this upsets veterans who have waited years for resolutions.
Consider the case of Stephen
T. Banko III, a highly decorated Buffalo Niagara region Vietnam veteran, who takes a cynical view of the VA’s treatment of combat veterans.
Banko had been rated 100 percent disabled for a war-related knee injury. But after he had a knee replacement, his disability benefits were reduced.
“They told me I had a new right knee and many of the issues involving the knee were now resolved. But I had a metal prosthesis in my leg, and there were new issues. I appealed my reduced disability rating, and it took five years to resolve. I finally went to [Rep.] Brian Higgins, and, within a week, it was settled in my favor,” said Banko, who added he later received an apology from the VA “for how poorly I was treated.”
Leist says he was not treated badly, but “totally ignored. ” Twice, he said, he had to travel to Phoenix “to get my military medical records.”
Donna P. Terrell, director of the VA’s Buffalo Regional Office, acknowledges the VA has to do better.
“We’re not where we want to be, but we are making leaps and strides every day,” she said. “The burden is on us.”
The Buffalo office average of 156 days — approximately five months — to issue a decision on a disability claim might not seem that long, but it is long to the veteran.
For Mark Cheney, the wait was agonizing.
Though his case was resolved in about eight years, the 51-year-old Buffalo man says the wait and bureaucratic indifference exacerbated his depression and anxiety.
The Air Force veteran of 13 years said the VA improperly diagnosed his groin injury and he ended up spending $6,000 pursuing his appeal, which was settled in June.
He is now rated at 60 percent disabled and receives about $980 a month, but he says the VA continues to ignore other medical conditions that are service-related, and he plans to reopen his claim.
Asked how long he expects it to take, he said, “At least three to four years, but I’ve gotten used to it.”
