Will new VA plan fix national veterans backlog caused by Atlanta office?

By Brad Schrade

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced a plan this week it says will fix a pending backlog of veterans who had applications for health care but were never enrolled because of problems at a national health enrollment office in Atlanta.

But the whistleblower who helped expose the problem of more than 800,000 pending health applications in a series of stories in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2014 says the announcement is more of a public relations effort by VA, not a real solution.

“The veterans in the pending backlog are still not aware,” said Scott Davis, a program specialist in the National Health Eligibility Center in Atlanta. “VA has chosen not to make modifications in the enrollment system that continues to put Iraq and Afghanistan veterans into the pending backlog.”

VA Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson said in an announcement on Monday that the agency would extend the healthcare enrollment period for veterans in the pending backlog for another year. VA will contact veterans on the list to see if they still want to enroll.

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