Benefits
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.
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].
Continued: see VA CLAIMS, with the full report, sources and what to do if you’re affected.