VA mistakenly ends benefits for living veterans, believing them to be dead

Human error and mismatched data has led the Department of Veterans Affairs to cancel benefits for veterans believed to be dead who are, in fact, still alive, Over the past five years, more than 4,000 veterans have lost their benefits because the department mistakenly identified them as deceased, reports The Wall Street Journal.

"Although these types of cases represent a small number of beneficiaries in comparison to the millions of transactions completed each year in our administration of benefits, we sincerely regret the inconvenience caused by such errors and work to restore benefits as quickly as possible after any such error is brought to our attention," a VA spokesman told WSJ in a statement.

Statistics from the VA indicate approximately 400,000 veterans or dependents receiving benefits from the VA die each year, and the department cancels their awards. In the past five years, approximately 2 million veterans were declared deceased, but 4,201 of them were actually still alive, according to the WSJ. In all those cases, the VA eventually was able to correct the misidentification and restore benefits.

The VA does not record the causes of the misidentifications, according to WSJ, but the agency said these incidents account for less than 1 percent of all benefit terminations each year.

In at least one instance, a veteran was mislabeled as deceased after his name — which was spelled incorrectly — went through a system that the VA implemented to avoid the opposite problem: continuing to send benefit checks to people who have died, according to the report.

The VA has been flooded with administrative issues, which one veteran who stopped receiving benefits due to this type of misidentification said is likely the cause. The veteran holds positive views of the VA.

"Every time I call they have been responsive," he told WSJ. "Personally I believe they are just inundated; they are so overstocked with things to do, they can't keep up."

More articles on the VA:

VA director: 'I have to compete with other medical systems' 
Antibiotic stewardship programs at VA facilities: 6 things to know 
Ann Arbor VA continues to cancel, move surgeries over surgical tool concerns 

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