Veterans Appeals Delayed Years – Whistleblower Suggests Leadership Issues

News | October 2014

By Sandra Basu, US Medicine, The Voice of Federal Medicine

WASHINGTON — A VA whistleblower told lawmakers last month that veterans’ cases waited hundreds of days for a final decision at the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, even though some of them required nothing but a signature to be completed.

“Most of the cases involved decisions on appeals of waiting veterans that already had been prepared by board attorneys,” VA Board of Veterans’ Appeals (VBA) Senior Counsel Kelli Kordich told lawmakers in written testimony last month.

Lawmakers were flabbergasted by the delays, with Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN) incredulous that someone might be waiting more than 600 days for his or her disability claims case to be resolved in the appeals process.

“I have to go home and look at one my colleagues who served in Vietnam … did that for our country and they are waiting for somebody to take … their pen and sign a chart?” Roe asked.

Kordich agreed that cases shouldn’t take “200 days or 606 days,” to complete, suggesting there was a leadership problem at the BVA.

Kordich made her accusations at a hearing held last month by the House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee, where Laura Eskenazi, VBA Executive in Charge/Vice Chairman of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, also testified.

C-123 Veterans Seek VA Whistleblower to "Drop A Dime" And Inform New VA HOTLINE

The VA's new whistleblower hotline is vital to urging VA corrections from within its own ranks.

We hope it succeeds.

We also hope that a VA staffer, familiar with the weird three years we've gone through of VA redefining exposure, introducing extra-legal requirements for our claims, and denying Agent Orange exposure claims on the basis that the toxin is harmless, will come forward.

Many know of the conversations and withheld emails. Do what's right. Now.

Drop a dime on the VA and tell the hotline what's been done to us!

Here's the Fox News story about the VA Whistleblower Hotline.