VA Secretary Denis McDonough
CHICAGO — VA has had more than a half-million claims filed under the new PACT Act legislation, which expands care and benefits for former servicemembers exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances during their service. While that number might seem large, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said last month that he views it as far too small.
Speaking at a symposium hosted by the University of Chicago and War Horse News last month, he acknowledged that VA has significant work to do in terms of communicating the new opportunity to veterans, persuading them that they deserve these benefits and rebuilding trust in the department.
“We think there are roughly about 6.2 million veterans who we believe qualify for the PACT Act,” McDonough told the symposium crowd. “There’s a lot of record issues in there. … There’s a lot of Vietnam vets who we don’t have great deployment records for. So let’s take out those bad record numbers. There were at 5.3 million veterans. … You can see 450,000 and see a big number or a small number. I choose to see a small number. Especially when we’re working with a denominator north of five million.”
At the end of last month, the VA said that veterans and their survivors have filed more than 500,000 claims for toxic exposure-related benefits under the PACT Act since President Joe Biden signed it into law on Aug. 10, 2022. As of that date, VA had awarded more than $1 billion in earned benefits based on those filings.
McDonough acknowledged that the amount of press surrounding the issue of toxic exposure shrank after the passage of the bill, leaving the department to do the yeoman’s work of informing veterans of the scope of available benefits.
“There are a lot of vets who are unaware that this is out here, so that’s just going to be us having to get out there more aggressively,” he said. “And just having individual conversations with veterans.”
Then there are the veterans who know about the bill but either don’t think they qualify or think others deserve those benefits more.
“We had a reservist, a woman, deployed into combat zones,” McDonough said. “She had six different deployments, but she assumed that, as a reservist, she didn’t qualify.”
As for those veterans who hold off from filing claims because they don’t want to take opportunities away from fellow servicemembers who they believe are more deserving, McDonough explained that applying for benefits and care actually does help your fellow veterans.
“When you file your claim … it tells us a better story about your unit, about the unit of veterans who relieved you, the veterans who were in the unit that you relieved,” McDonough said. “Your filing doesn’t take from anybody; it helps us understand the bigger picture, so we can make better benefit decisions for anybody.”
As for the issue of trust, McDonough doesn’t believe there’s an easy answer.
“There is a lack of trust in VA,” he admitted. “It’s not everybody, and the trust numbers are getting better. But we have to get over the trust issue.”
He added, “Trust is a hard thing to earn and an easy thing to lose.”
One way McDonough hopes to earn, or re-earn, that trust is through transparency.
Last month, VA launched the PACT Act Performance Dashboard—a weekly report released every other Friday to measure the implementation of the legislation on veterans and family members. It contains up-to-date figures on the number of claims completed, average days for claim completion, VHA enrollment statistics, and more.
One figure that McDonough is proud of is the 2.2 million toxic exposure screenings that VA has performed since the PACT Act was signed into law.
“In 40% of cases, we’re hearing about an exposure [VA didn’t know about],” he declared. “We’re learning about that for the first time. That is a clinically, analytically important event. This veteran may be suffering from something that we don’t know about yet because they suffered from exposure.”
McDonough admitted that the PACT Act’s requirements, such as mandatory screenings, will put a strain on doctors and nurses who are already stretched thin and believes new hiring authorities will help relieve some of the pressure.
However, VA actuaries studying the long-term impact of toxic exposed veterans entering the system have identified the biggest hiring need over the next decade as mental health professionals.
“Because what we know about what we’ve experienced as a force and what we’ve experienced as a country [is that you] come and get treated for asthma because you have respiratory issues, but you may find it may be great to have an opportunity for counseling,” he explained. “And so the PACT Act may be the reason you come in, but your whole health, your wellness, will be the reason you stay.”
The VA advised that more than 3 million veterans have received VA’s new toxic exposure screenings, with about 42% reporting a concern of exposure. Since the PACT Act was signed into law, more than 215,000 veterans have enrolled in VA healthcare during that timeframe, a 15% increase from the same time last year.