Whistleblower Says VA Is Manipulating Benefits System To Reduce Backlog

Joshua Peargin was born and raised in Sweet Home, Oregon. He joined the military shortly after 9/11 and was deployed three times.

A couple of years ago, he got a job comparing VA forms with veterans’ benefit claims.

“We would match it up and say, ‘They have a legitimate case for this, this and this' … and we’d compile all this evidence together and then we would schedule them for an appointment, so the medical doctor could evaluate them and then give us their recommendation on it,” he said.

It seemed straightforward enough. But after a few months, Peargin noticed many vets failed to show up for their appointments.

So he called some back, and said he found a disturbing pattern. “So I called one veteran and he answered and I said: ‘Hey, I see on your paperwork that you missed an appointment. Basically do you have a good reason?” And he  said: ‘Oh yes, my wife got a phone call from the VA yesterday when I was out hunting, and they said they’d call back. But when it came across my desk it said missed appointment,’” he said.

At that point, the veteran had been waiting months. And missing an appointment meant the claim would likely be denied  — if he didn't call back within 30 days.  But Peargin said, how would the vet know to call back if he was under the impression the VA was going to call him?

"It just kept happening … One vet said, his voice broke. He said: 'I would never miss this appointment. I'm about to lose my house,'" he said.

Peargin informed his superiors about the problem and said he was told it was not his job to call veterans. He said he told them what they were doing was borderline illegal, and was fired.

He has discrimination and wrongful termination complaints filed against the VA. He said he's hoping that his $3.5 million damages claim will force the case into court and reveal what’s going on.

Peargin said that it’s not that the VA system is set up to deny benefits. But he said, it is being manipulated to make wait times look shorter than they are.

“It’s all about timing and numbers," he said. "If the backlog shows six months for the average time for a veteran to be seen and for their case to be done, it looks bad. But if you — in maybe a year — drop that from six months to four months being the average, then it looks like you’re doing a great job.”

The VA said it cannot comment on ongoing legal disputes.

But James Stred, who works for the Veterans Hospital Administration in Oregon, was willing to talk generalities. He said if they call a veteran and don’t get an answer, they leave a message. They do the same the next day and then they send a letter, saying the veteran has 10 business days to reply.

Stred said he sees no evidence of staff manipulating the system. "There is pressure to move things along, but we also make sure to take care of each and every veteran as best we possibly can," he said. "We don't take short cuts. We always follow the rules."
 
Alan Deutmeyer is a manager at the Portland VA Benefits office.

He said the VA reduced its backlog with hard work, not tricks. “We literally work seven days a week. For about two to three years, the agency was on mandatory overtime. All the claims processors had to put in 20 extra hours per month.”

In Albany, Victor Kuhns runs a non-profit called “Vets Helping Vets HQ."

He said applying for VA benefits is a complex process and some veterans miss appointments because they're homeless or suffering from a mental illness, "So it's not all on the VA's back — it's a combination of both."

But he said, a lot of veterans fall through the cracks.

“They either don’t know they have benefits coming ... or, they have had a very bad experience with the VA and have gotten very angry and don’t want to deal with the government system any more.”

A couple of years ago, there was a national outcry when it emerged that more than 800,000 veterans were waiting more than four months for their benefits.

The VA said that backlog has now been reduced by about 90 percent.