A good reminder from National Journal a few days ago that while the media seems most interested in the still-huge backlog of the Veteran’s Administration’s disability claims, a variety of other claims are clogged up as well.

The VA loves to talk about how it’s on track to reach its goal next year of completing all disability compensation and pension claims within 125 days—keeping them off the dreaded “backlogged” list. Frequently overlooked? The other two-thirds of VA claims—or more than 1 million requests—aren’t subject to the department’s 125-days, 98-percent accuracy goal. . . .

What are these other claims clogging up the VA’s system?

They run the gamut from aiming to change the amount of disability pay a veteran receives to appealing previous decisions by the department. They also include responses to congressional inquiries. So while the number of pending VA disability claims has shrunk in recent years, the number of overall claims has mushroomed to roughly 1.64 million. That’s compared with 941,666 in late 2009.

Full Story

The backlog in Veterans Benefits Administration disability application processing continued to shrink in May, with the number of claims pending over 125 days reduced by 33,000 and the average days pending down by just 2.4 days.

May  was the fourth consecutive month of progress after stalls in November and December of 2013.

Chart and table below detail changes month-to-month, week-to-week and year-over-year.

Data is take from the VBA’s weekly “Monday Morning Workload Reports” that track claims processing progress. We think monthly tracking is a better barometer of actual progress because it flattens out some of the temporary ups and downs the weekly reports reflect.

View earlier progress  summaries.