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Federal AffairsDispatch

Vol. I · No. 1Online edition

Veterans, service members and military families: the federal decisions that reach them.

BenefitsCongress

VA to hire 2,000 more claims processors as errors found on review climb

The department says it decided a record 3.1 million claims in fiscal 2026 with rising accuracy. Its own appeals data, a new outside analysis and two inspector general reviews of automated decisions point to a rising count of errors caught later in the process.

By Dispatch Staff

The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to hire more than 2,000 claims processors in fiscal 2027 to keep pace with record filings, as new data show reviewers catching sharply more errors in its decisions[1, 4].

The hiring push lands at a moment when VA’s two accounts of its claims system are pulling apart. The department says it decided more claims in fiscal 2026 than ever and did so with its best accuracy in years[1, 2]. An analysis of VA’s own appeals error reports by The Beam, an investigative newsroom at the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, republished Thursday by Military Times, found that the number of evidence-gathering mistakes identified after a first decision rose every year from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2026, the period in which VA brought an automated tool into claims work[4]. “Premature or erroneous denials lead to more appeals where timelines are measured in years and not months,” Rep. Mark Takano of California, the senior Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said at an April hearing[4].

What VA announced

In an Oct. 29 release, VA said it has more than 13,000 employees processing benefits claims and wants to add more than 2,000 in fiscal year 2027[1]. The department said it received more than 3.15 million claims submissions in fiscal 2026, an 80% increase from fiscal 2022, and tied part of that rise to outreach that included more than 11,000 live events aimed at unenrolled veterans[1]. VA is also recruiting transitioning service members through its Warrior Training Advancement Course, known as WARTAC, which offers a national-level training program on active duty that can lead to jobs at one of VA’s 56 regional benefits offices[1].

“These new hires will help continue this landmark progress,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in the release[1].

Two weeks earlier, VA reported that it processed 3,111,399 disability compensation claims in fiscal 2026, topping the prior record of 3,001,734 set in fiscal 2025[2]. The department said it granted 60.1% of claims, that only 3.2% of decisions were appealed to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, and that it processed claims with an accuracy rate of 93.88%, the highest in three years[1]. Its Oct. 15 release put the figure at 94% and called it the highest in two years[2].

That accuracy figure is an issue-based measure, which scores individual medical issues within a claim[3]. The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), the VA branch that decides claims, lists 96% as its target for that measure, a goal it has kept since an independent review in fiscal 2020[3]. VBA also publishes a separate claim-based measure, which counts a case as accurate only if it is entirely error-free[3]. At an April 15 House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing, Rep. Tim Kennedy, D-N.Y., cited a claims-based accuracy rate of 83.31%[5].

What the error data show

The Beam’s analysis drew on monthly appeals error reports that VA publishes under the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017[4]. It found VA counted more than 66,000 errors in collecting evidence for veterans’ claims in fiscal 2021 and more than 329,000 in fiscal 2026[4]. Over the same period, the share of decisions that higher-level reviewers sent back to collect more evidence and reconsider rose from about 23% to 35%, according to the analysis[4].

The Board figure VA highlights and the higher-level review figures measure different things. A Higher-Level Review, in which a more senior reviewer re-examines the same record, is a separate option from an appeal to the Board[9].

The period of rising errors coincides with the spread of Automated Decision Support, a tool that pulls evidence from records into summaries for human raters. It began with hypertension claims at the Boise, Idaho, regional office in December 2021[4, 6]. VA completed nearly 300,000 decisions using the tool in 2023, and by April 2026 it was taking action on claims more than 50,000 times a month, The Beam reported[4]. The department plans to apply the tool to 90% of all claims by the end of 2027, according to its latest budget request as cited by The Beam[4]. Nextgov/FCW reported that the fiscal 2027 request recommends $130 million for VBA automation and artificial intelligence[5].

VA disputes any link between the tool and the errors. “There is no evidence to suggest the Automated Decision Support tool is causing errors,” VA press secretary Quinn Slaven told The Beam by email[4]. Slaven said the number of denials appealed through higher-level review quadrupled from 2020 to 2026, which he said “is why more errors are being found at this stage of the process”[4]. VA does not publish error rates specific to the tool or separate tool errors from employee errors[4].

At the April hearing, Margarita Devlin, VBA’s principal deputy under secretary for benefits, said the tool “does not make any decisions and will not deny a claim”[5]. Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., said veterans service officers’ “impression is that errors are increasing”[5]. Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, said lawmakers were “eagerly behind the injection of AI models into the system so our veterans get what they need in a timely manner”[5].

What the inspector general found

VA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has examined automated claims processing twice. Its September 2023 review of the hypertension pilot found that 27% of the claims it tested, 16 of 60, contained inaccurate and inconsistent determinations about predominant blood pressure readings or about whether evidence was sufficient to decide a claim without an exam[6]. The OIG attributed those errors mainly to project guidance that varied from VBA’s claims processing manual, and it made four recommendations, including technology fixes and stronger quality assurance[6].

A second review, released April 30, 2026, examined a separate automated process that decides survivors’ claims for service-connected death benefits[7]. It found that almost all automated decisions and notification letters from September 2023 through August 2024 had legal or procedural problems, and estimated that at least 2% of decisions had deficiencies that caused at least $2.7 million in improper payments[7]. The OIG estimated that notices for at least 7,000 decisions omitted favorable findings, which federal law requires VA to tell claimants about[7, 8]. VBA concurred in part with the recommendations and raised “significant concerns” about the OIG’s sampling methodology[7].

If you’re affected

  • Check your decision letter for the date. A Higher-Level Review must be requested within one year of the date on the decision letter for an initial claim or Supplemental Claim[10]. New evidence cannot be submitted with a Higher-Level Review[9].
  • Use VA Form 20-0996 to request a Higher-Level Review by mail or in person, or file online. One optional informal conference with the reviewer is allowed[10].
  • Consider a Supplemental Claim if you have new and relevant evidence VA did not have before, or an appeal to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals for review by a Veterans Law Judge[9].
  • Look for favorable findings. Federal law requires VA’s decision notices to identify findings favorable to the claimant[8]. Those findings are binding in later reviews unless clear and convincing evidence overturns them[7].
  • Get help. VA says an accredited attorney, claims agent or veterans service organization representative can help file a review[9]. The VA benefits hotline is 800-827-1000; TTY users can dial 711[9].
  • Apply for a claims job. VA is directing applicants to its careers site and, for transitioning service members, to WARTAC[1].

Sources

  1. VA hiring 2,000+ employees to process rising number of Veteran claims. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, October 29, 2026.
  2. VA in FY 2026 processes the most claims ever. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, October 15, 2026.
  3. Detailed Claims Data (Monday Morning Workload Report). Veterans Benefits Administration, accessed 2026-11-05.
  4. As the VA leans on automation, errors in veterans' claims soar. The Beam, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism (republished by Military Times), November 5, 2026.
  5. AI is helping VA speed claims processing, but Dems worry about errors. Nextgov/FCW, April 16, 2026.
  6. Improvements Needed for VBA's Claims Automation Project (Report 22-02936-175). VA Office of Inspector General, September 25, 2023.
  7. Review of Automated Decisions for Veterans' Service-Connected Death Claims (Report 25-00153-47). VA Office of Inspector General, April 30, 2026.
  8. 38 U.S. Code § 5104 - Decisions and notices of decisions. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School.
  9. VA decision reviews and appeals. VA.gov, accessed 2026-11-05.
  10. Higher-Level Reviews. VA.gov, accessed 2026-11-05.

A note on sourcing

The year-over-year counts of evidence-collection errors and the higher-level review return rates come from The Beam’s analysis of VA appeals error reports; this publication did not independently retrieve or re-tabulate those monthly reports. VBA’s weekly claims inventory, backlog and accuracy pages render their figures with scripts that could not be read, and the most recent Monday Morning Workload Report spreadsheet available for download was dated Sept. 26, 2026, so current inventory and backlog counts are not reported here. VA’s fiscal 2027 budget request, cited by The Beam for the plan to apply Automated Decision Support to 90% of claims, was not retrieved directly. VA does not publish error rates specific to the automated tool. The April 15, 2026 House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing was reported through Nextgov/FCW and The Beam; the hearing transcript was not reviewed.

Filed underVA claims · disability compensation · claims automation · VA OIG · decision reviews

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