Houston VA Employee Illegally Destroyed Benefits Cases

Houston VA Employee

Benjamin KrauseVA OIG caught at least one Houston VA employee illegally destroying 44% of veterans’ disability claims files in a fraudulent scheme to increase performance numbers.

IG confirmed that the Houston VA Regional Office employee was changing electronic claims files without properly annotating the action taken. The illicit action gave the false appearance to auditors that the claims were properly closed out.

According to IG:

“These actions had the adverse impact of misrepresenting the [regional office’s] claims inventory and timeliness measures, while impairing the [regional office’s] ability to monitor and manage its workload.”

The fraud scheme may have caused veterans to have never received any decision at all meaning these veterans may believe their claim is caught up in the backlog all the while it was actually destroyed.

Many veterans advocates, including myself, bemoaned the additional of the all electronic claims system for exactly this reason. There is no paper trail. Any disgruntled or deceptive employee can embark on a campaign to defraud veterans and taxpayers without anyone noticing until it is too late.

Now, my only question is how long will it take for the Houston VA to contact all potentially affected veterans to ensure they restart their disability claims?

I will put my money on the prospect that the Houston VA may try to avoid the task altogether. What do you think they will do? Like the country song, let’s hope God does bless Texas, and help its powerful veteran community root out these evildoers within VA.

Read More: https://washingtonexaminer.com/houston-va-staffer-tossed-benefits-cases/article/2554181

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6 Comments

  1. So…corruption is still afoot in the VA. I read 2 weeks ago that a veteran found a list of veteran’s names and their SS numbers in a VA’s public bathroom. What, were the employees using it for reading material or toilet paper? Does Sec. McDonald know that we are aware of these ongoing and new breaches and manipulations by VA employees?

  2. i think a whole bunch of v.a employee,s need to lose there retirement,s and face some real jail time, don,t think it will happen,, so far they have did nothing to them ,,maybe moved them to another job location, but that,s all i know of, some that were suspended are still on the pay roll with full retirement i do know that

  3. They’ve always been able to manipulate veterans files so they can get their bonuses and could care less what effect it has on veterans. Truth be known they owe a lot to us veterans that are still waiting for our just and right compensation. Those guilty should face jail time, starting at the top.

  4. Hi Benjamin! I’m in this region. I’ve been fighting one case for six years, one for five years. I’m in appeals status. I had my case go before video appeal. ‘The guy let my case sit around, then when TVC pressed Houston for an answer, they arbitrarily denied everything.

    They were supposed to set up another DRO medical meeting for me; they never did it. And, they’re telling us all, oh, they’re so behind, just wait your turn.

    44%? That’s almost half the cases! Meanwhile, Vets like me are waiting for funds that we were promised, while these criminals play mind games, make up reasons why we can’t have the money.

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