LITTLE ROCK, Ark. An inspection of the Little Rock veterans benefits center found that staff members were marking overlooked claims many almost 2 years old to make them appear as if they had just been filed.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports (https://bit.ly/1K4ZmL5 ) the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office reported that the practice threatened to further delay benefits to Arkansas veterans. It was unclear whether any claims were delayed because the office implemented its own protocol to track them.
Inspectors found 48 instances in which old claims had been marked with the dates when they were discovered and not the dates they were originally submitted.
The Little Rock location is one of the agency’s 56 regional offices nationwide that determine entitlement to disability compensation for service-related injuries or illnesses and other benefits.
