VA reaches historic milestone in backlog reduction

Disability Claims Backlog dips below 100K – Lowest Ever in VA’s History

COLUMBIA, SC – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reached a significant milestone this week when the disabilityclaims backlog fell below 100,000 – an 84 percent reduction from its peak 29 months ago in March 2013 and the lowest everin our history. The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) Columbia Regional Office has contributed to this reduction bycompleting 54,560 disability rating claims since October 2013. This means that nationwide, Veterans with a pending claim arewaiting, on average, 172 days less for a claim decision, from a peak of 282 days in March 2013, to 110 days today.

“Across VA and in Columbia both, our claim accuracy has also shown improvement since 2011. Our claim decisions arefound to be 91% to 96% accurate depending upon the type of review. We can and must continue to improve in timelinessand accuracy. We want more Veterans get an answer quickly on their disability claims while we also need to ensure it is theright decision the first time,” said Columbia VA Regional Office Director, Leanne Weldin.

The Columbia Regional Office backlog peaked at 16,027 in April 2012. As of August 1, 2015, the backlog has reduced to 3,145 Veterans who have waited more than 125 days – a 79 percent improvement.

Since 2011, VBA has undergone the most significant transformation in its history to improve the delivery of VA benefits andservices. This aggressive transformation involved people, process, and technology initiatives to streamline and modernize theway VBA processes claims so that many Veterans do not have to wait more than 125 days for a high-quality decision.

VBA posts data on the disability claims backlog, the non-rating workload, and other publicly available data on ourperformance on a weekly, monthly, and annual basis through our reports web site: www.vba.va.gov/reports.  For more information about disability and other Veterans benefits, visit www.ebenefits.va.gov.