AUGUSTA — Maligned by some advocates and heralded by others, a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs policy change standardizing the process of claiming disability benefits took effect last week.
The changes affect veterans or survivors applying for disability benefits or pensions and veterans looking to appeal a disability claim. Before the change, veterans seeking compensation for a service-connected disability who didn’t use the recommended Internet filing process could once scrawl a letter on a scrap of paper saying that they wanted benefits.
They would get a packet of forms back from the VA, and benefits eventually awarded would go back to the date when the government got the note. But under the new system, the clock won’t start until veterans submit standardized forms, including a new form signaling intent to file for benefits.
The VA and a service officer who processes claims at the Togus Regional Benefit Office said it’ll streamline the process and help serve veterans faster as the federal government works to reduce a national claims backlog that peaked above 600,000 cases in 2013.
However, the abolishment of the “informal” claims process has raised hackles. Benefits lawyers and veterans’ organizations say it could indeed reduce backlogs – by making it more difficult for some older veterans without computers and those with certain disabilities to start claims.
Francis Jackson, a South Portland lawyer who focuses on disability cases, called it a move that’s “clearly motivated by a desire to reduce the number of claims in the system,” saying he’d be surprised if claims aren’t reduced by 10 percent nationwide and in Maine, where more than one in 10 residents are veterans, second-most in the nation.
“For all the reasons they want to put this on the veterans, it’s a burden,” Jackson said.
But the VA says it will make the process easier. In Maine, 1,600 claims were completed in February, but Phil Black, a Togus Regional Office spokesman, said he couldn’t give data on informal claims since there was no way to track all of the handwritten letters, saying the new process “standardizes the informal claim process now that we process our claims in an electronic system” and “we can now track them.”
It’s hard to tell how many veterans have filed for benefits informally nationwide in recent years, but it could be hundreds of thousands. In the rule making the changes, the VA said it gets an “enormous volume” of them and expects the number of claims submitted on standard forms to rise by 50 percent under the new rule, which national benefits lawyers have said proves the change could be far-reaching.
It takes only a few minutes to fill out the new intent-to-file form in the American Legion service office in Togus. It asks veterans to check a box to say whether they’re filing for disability benefits or a pension, then asks them for identifying information. Once sent to the VA, the records are digitized and the veterans get a set of forms to complete their claims.
Veterans’ groups, including the American Legion, have called on the VA to keep the informal process. But Amadeo Lauria, the service officer in the Legion’s Togus office, said there should be little impact, advising veterans to seek help from service offices in navigating claims. He said that some have a mentality that “change is bad” around VA benefits, but increased digitization is best for the system.
“They’re looking at it as the VA is taking an avenue for them to file a claim away,” said David Kern, the assistant Legion service officer at Togus. “In actuality, the new way will get their claim done faster.”
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