“House lawmakers are turning up the heat on the Department of Veterans Affairs after it failed to provide them with a plan for safely cutting down on its increasing backlog of disability compensation & pension exams.”
“In a letter sent to VA Secretary Robert Wilkie on Tuesday, five Democratic lawmakers expressed their frustration with the department’s lack of transparency on the issue so far. The letter comes nearly three weeks after the department did not participate in a virtual forum about the issue hosted by Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), chair of the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs, on May 27…”
“Veterans need C&P exams in order to receive a disability rating, but the department paused over 230,000 C&P exams on April 2nd to prevent further spread of COVID-19. While lawmakers said in the May 27 forum that they agreed with the decision to stop the exams, they also argued that the VA needed a back-up plan, such as conducting virtual C&P exams, so that veterans could still take the exams in order to receive disability ratings.”
“Experts from Veteran Service Organizations (VSOs) who were in the forum said VA was hamstrung in its efforts to conduct virtual exams by the fact that all but one of its virtual exams required in-home tele-practitioners, which doesn’t make sense in a pandemic when vulnerable patient populations ought to be social distancing…” Read the full article here.
Source: Lawmakers turn up the heat on the VA to explain how it’ll reduce its 125,000 claim backlog – By David Roza, June 16, 2020. Task & Purpose.
