The Waco Veterans Affairs Regional Office will soon add 100 new employees to expedite benefits claims processing to reduce back-logged claims.

The jobs were announced at a press conference Thursday with U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, and U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki.

The positions, which are being funded from the $787 billion stimulus package passed last year, are scheduled to begin March 1.

“Our veterans have earned this support,” said Edwards, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs.

Not a gift

“They deserve this commitment. This isn’t a gift. This is giving veterans what they have already earned. . . . They shouldn’t have to wait when it comes to receiving their earned benefits.”

The regional office services veterans in 156 North Texas counties and processed 126,000 claims in the 2009 fiscal year.

Pending claims totaled 18,647 at the end of the 2009 fiscal year. A backlog of 3,731 — 20 percent — had been pending for 125 days or longer.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funded 91 new claims positions at the office last year, including 80 temporary posts that were scheduled to end this September.

Edwards said stimulus funds will now make those jobs permanent.

Shinseki said the additional jobs are part of a nationwide effort by the VA to increase the number of claims processed and reduce the backlog.

The VA has pilot programs in Pittsburgh; Baltimore; Little Rock, Ark.; and Providence, R.I., to study the process and explore automated and administrative methods to speed things up.

Complex process

“(The claims process) is complex and it’s grown over time and created a backlog that we are trying to go after this year,” Shinseki said. “Those four pilots are intended to pull apart this complex process, do improvements on each phase of them and put it back together in a helpful way.”

Shinseki said improving the process is especially important now.

The VA is bracing for an influx of numerous claims from Vietnam-era veterans in the wake of last October’s announcement that Parkinson’s, ischemic heart disease and B-cell leukemia will be considered presumptive illnesses related to Agent Orange.

With the additional posts, the regional office will now split the claims workload into two shifts.

Ninety-one workers will be on the job for the 6 a.m. shift. The new hires will report for the 3:30 p.m. night shift.

The change will help create enough space for all the claims processors and expand the hours spent processing.

“We’ll have 16 hours now of claims processing and more hours means more claims getting processed to help us reduce some of that backlog,” said Carl Lowe, director of the Waco VA regional office.

Hiring is under way for the new positions. About 500 applications were received since the jobs were first posted.

About 35 people, all of whom are veterans, already were hired. Pay is $38,790, plus health care and retirement benefits.

“Veterans want veterans to process their claims,” Lowe said. “That’s the first thing a veteran will ask when they come in to meet with a claims processor, they ask, ‘Are you a veteran?’

“Because for them, it helps to know that the other person across the desk understands your struggle and knows what you have been through and can relate because they went through it, too.”

Two audience members agreed — Army Sgt. Jay Fondren, 30, and Marine Cpl. Luke Connally, 26.

Iraq war veterans

The two men are Iraq War veterans who now work as claims processors.

Fondren said many of the cases he works with include Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who were seriously injured and are struggling with the transition to civilian life.

“That month or two when a veteran is first discharged from active duty can be difficult when the veteran is missing their VA benefits and not prepared for that loss of income,” said Fondren, a Robinson resident who had two legs and a thumb amputated after he was injured by an improvised explosive device in 2006.

Fondren and Connally had their respective claims processed within a month of their return home. Connally said while that is “above average service” from the VA, increasing the number of claims processors and extending hours may eventually make that the standard for all veterans’ claims.

“The biggest thing is we don’t want a veteran’s claim to be held up because it was sitting on our desks and we couldn’t get to it to make an award determination,” Connally said. “Processing claims for more hours in the evening will give us more time to get in contact with veterans that we might miss in the day because they may be at work, so that may help process claims quicker.”

rdennis@wacotrib.com

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