Why Does My VA Disability Claim Take So Long?

I always tell my Veteran clients to expect long delays by the Veterans Administration in their attempts to get VA disability benefits.  It is a shame that I spend more time talking about the fact that there will be extraordinarily long delays by the VA in processing and deciding the claim than I do in talking about their actual disability claim itself!  In order to further explain to my own veteran clients that there will be long delays, I ask them to read the blog posts that I have written previously about this topic.

In addition to any discussion about VA delays with my Veteran clients regarding their disability claims, I like to tell this story with pictures and video.

Here are pictures, as taken by the VA Inspector General, of VA claims files sitting in the Winston-Salem Regional Office.

There is even more information available to explain this dilemma.  Although The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is now over, here is a look back at some of Jon Stewart’s most famous rants on the topic.  On several occasions, The Daily Show called out the VA for its backlog of VA disability claims.

Red Tape Diaries: A Modernized Department of Veterans Affairs

Red Tape Diaries: Veterans Benefits

VA-Men: Delays of Futures Past

I have written about this topic several times and I like to use these blog posts and videos to assist in explaining to my own Veteran clients about the inexplicably long delays in the process.   I also tell all of my VA disability clients that it could be worse.  Hopefully, when Veterans come to me for help, they are just fighting for a VA disability claim and not over actual VA health care.