#Middlebury #Veterans #ClaimsProcessing #DEI
According to a recent headline, the Department of Veterans Affairs processed one million disability claims two weeks faster than they did in the last fiscal year. The VA has been averaging 10,000 claims processed each week. Recently, on one day alone, they processed 12,000 claims, the highest number they’ve ever reached. By January they’d processed benefit payments totaling $62 billion and saw their accuracy rate go up to 92%. This is all good news for those who are waiting for their claims to be processed.
While it’s all over the news that the VA fired 1,400 probationary employees in the latest round of forced dismissals, what you might not see touted anywhere is that the VA is still hiring for the 300,000 mission-critical slots it needs to fill. Those 300,000 mission-critical positions they need to fill are exempt from the hiring freeze and include 94,000 nurses, 3,000 physical therapists and 12,000 pharmacists – all necessary for health care services.
The 1,400 fired employees were “probationary,” which means they’d been on the job less than a year in non-mission-critical jobs or were in a different employment category for less than two years. The savings from that opens up $98 million to be put into health care benefits.
Additionally, per the blog put out by VA Secretary Doug Collins, the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the VA frees up $14 million for health care services. Halting the contracts for DEI training and materials adds another $6 million to the kitty.
And while it doesn’t add any dollars to the health care budget, the new VA flag policy does have value. Specifically, it limits the types of flags that can be on display at VA facilities. The U.S. flag, Prisoner of War (POW) flag and Missing in Action (MIA) flag are on the very short list of flags that may be displayed at the VA.
If you’d like to keep an eye on what Secretary Collins is doing and saying, go to Secretary’s Blog at news.va.gov/category/secretarys-blog and watch the videos.
© 2025 King Features Synd., Inc.
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