Report Reveals the VA Wrongly Processed Over a Third of Camp Lejeune Claims
An audit by the VA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) showed that about 37% of disability benefits claims related to toxic water exposure at Camp Lejeune were processed incorrectly. As a result, thousands of veterans’ claims were underpaid or not paid at all. According to the OIG, some claims were even denied without giving veterans the chance to provide evidence, and others were assigned incorrect effective dates for receiving benefits.
“The premature denial of these claims potentially resulted in some veterans not receiving the benefits to which they are entitled,” the report states. “Some of these veterans’ claims could have been granted if (representatives) had informed the veterans of the evidence needed to support their claims, and sufficient documentation had been submitted in response.”
What are these claims for?
The claims for disability benefits come from over three decades of exposure to toxic water at the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps base in Jacksonville, North Carolina. From 1953-1987, contaminants from on-base industrial activities and an off-base dry-cleaning facility leaked into the water sources, affecting around one million people. The toxic water exposure has since been linked to a variety of illnesses in the people who lived on the base.
Camp Lejeune Presumptive Diseases Rule claims processed incorrectly
In 2017, the VA established a presumptive diseases rule, which provided veterans or other service members who lived on the base for at least 30 days between 1953 and 1987 automatic coverage for eight diseases.
From March 2017 to March 2021, the VA denied at least 71% of the 57,500 cases filed under the presumptive diseases rule. After the OIG conducted the audit, they estimated that around 21,000 of those rejected claims were processed incorrectly.
According to the OIG, many of the veterans who applied for disability benefits received a rejection without being asked to provide more evidence. For those that were approved, about 14% were given inaccurate dates, prompting a total underpayment of $13.8 million in claims.
What’s the VA doing about it?
The director of the VA’s Northeast District said that the Veterans Benefit Administration plans to review the accuracy of the claims process over time and “develop a plan to improve quality of presumptive Camp Lejeune-related claims processing, to include consideration for further centralization.”
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