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Home»Defense»VA Fraud, Waste and Abuse: How Common It Is and How to Prevent It
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VA Fraud, Waste and Abuse: How Common It Is and How to Prevent It

Tim HuntBy Tim HuntOctober 23, 20258 Mins Read
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VA Fraud, Waste and Abuse: How Common It Is and How to Prevent It

Federal officials and lawmakers don’t deny that fraud exists due to some service members illegally gaming the system of benefits they receive through the government. But the numbers aren’t as drastic or obscene as some recent reports have indicated, according to the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA).

Fraud, waste and abuse has for years been a concern for the VA and affiliated committees within Congress going back years, in terms of veterans being both victims and perpetrators of such crimes. As of April 2022, the VA reported that veterans aged 65 and older who received pension benefits totaled 160,270 and were the age group most often susceptible to crimes.

Recent reports suggest, in accordance with government data, that veteran disability claims have exploded and put American taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars to resolve such disputes.

House Committee on Veterans Affairs Chairman Mike Bost (R-IL) told Military.com that he remains committed to the VA being “a proper steward of taxpayer dollars,” which includes working with VA Secretary Doug Collins and the Trump administration to guarantee that the care and compensation benefits veterans receive accurately reflect the injuries they sustained as a result of their service.

“Veterans earn their VA benefits through honorable service in uniform, and an overwhelming majority of veterans bring that same sense of honor and duty when it comes to seeking their benefits and care,” Bost said. “Whether the root of the problem is bad actors or bureaucratic dysfunction at VA, fraud, waste and abuse unfortunately exist in every federal program.

“Under my leadership, we have worked hard to find ways to fight bureaucratic waste, cut through the red tape, and implement commonsense reforms to the VA disability claims process to ensure that veterans and their families receive their benefits.”

Reasons For Receiving Benefits

VA compensation for about 6.9 million disabled veterans this year will be subsidized by U.S. taxpayers footing the bills for an approximate $193 billion total, according to an investigation by the Washington Post earlier this month. But not all money is allegedly going where it should.

The Post reported that the ability to work is supposedly hindered by more innocuous reasons such as hair loss, jock itch and toenail fungus—all of which don’t typically cause impairment.

In this May 24, 2013 file photo, a wheelchair sits outside the Atlanta VA Medical Center in Atlanta. An internal investigation released in June 2014 that looked at wait times for all sorts of care across the VA system showed that new mental health patients were routinely forced to wait a month or more to start treatment. Not one of the 141 medical systems examined was able to meet the department’s goal of getting all new mental health patients an appointment within 14 days. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

About 556,000 veterans receive disability benefits for eczema, 332,000 for hemorrhoids, 110,000 for benign skin growths, 81,000 for acne and 74,000 for varicose veins, they reported, citing the most recently available figures from the VA.

To the contrary, about 10,900 service members who’ve suffered “severe” or “penetrating” brain injuries since 2000 are eligible for benefits and fewer than 1,700 veterans who lost limbs in Afghanistan and Iraq receive disability payments, per the Post.

‘Misleading’ The Public

The report and data mentioned within the Post report was strongly refuted by the VA.

VA spokesperson Pete Kasperowicz told Military.com that the report was published by “out-of-touch liberal activists peddling [a] garbage story.”

“America’s veterans earned their VA benefits, and it should be easier—not harder—to get them,” Kasperowicz said. “Under President Trump, we are improving VA so it’s faster and more convenient for veterans to get what our nation owes them.”

Asked if taxpayers are being left on the hook to pay some of these funds, he said the Washington Post “is trying to mislead the public by citing a few documented instances of fraud in which the perpetrators were convicted of crimes, as proof that many veterans are cheating the system.”

“When VA sees signs of fraud or suspicious behavior, it works with the appropriate law enforcement authorities to protect taxpayers, veterans, families, caregivers and survivors,” Kasperowicz added.

Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) also criticized the Post piece, writing a letter Oct. 7 to the publication’s editors that it “is not just a disservice to veterans—it is a dangerously misleading piece that feeds into damaging stereotypes and ignores both the moral and legal foundations of the Department of Veterans Affairs disability system.”

FILE – A seal is displayed on the front of the Veterans Affairs Department building in Washington on June 21, 2013. The U.S. Defense Department and the Department of Veteran Affairs are making it difficult, and sometimes impossible for veterans to get infertility treatments, according to lawsuits filed Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023, in federal courts in New York and Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

In June of this year, the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) announced it was increasing its investigations to combat fraudsters and others exploiting veterans “to access their VA benefits for personal gain.”

“Predatory claims sharks are individuals that deploy wide-ranging fraud schemes to get veterans to pay them for assistance in filing VA benefits claims, when they are often unaccredited to do so,” OIG said. “They frequently offer to help obtain or increase a veteran’s benefits, while asking for direct payment or a portion of the veteran’s benefits awarded in exchange.”

They continue to work with law enforcement partners as part of the OIG-led “Operation NO SCAM” endeavor to pursue active cases nationwide.

Murky Digital Risk Environment

Jordan Burris, head of public sector at identity verification and fraud prevention at AI company Socure, told Military.com that by and large veterans will play by the rules and follow laws, translating to fraud not directly correlating with integrity but more broadly questions about the controls that have been put in place kept up with today’s digital risk environment.

“There’s always been this underpinning, or this thread or discussion, related to fraud in veterans’ benefits—specifically around claims and eligibility and understanding whether or not they should have received the benefit in question and how the process is always managed,” Burris said.

“The piece that I always like to highlight is that it isn’t only about the content of the claim, while that is an important aspect of it; it’s also about the integrity of the identity that is being asserted for that veteran across the entire life cycle,” he added.

Burris served across the Trump and Biden administrations as chief of staff in the White House Office of the CIO (Chief Information Officer). He said that everything from the initial intake to the representation, to every time a veteran’s account has changed, and ultimately to disbursement, should be taken into account.

“Even if you look over the last two years, from 2024 until now, there have been instances that have been highlighted, discussions and areas where the controls and the ways in which we’ve managed this today across the country have been lax and they have not been up to the task of better protecting the identity information for veterans,” he added.

That in turn, of course, impacts their ability to receive the benefits that they duly deserve.

Socure’s major efforts on behalf of clients involve two main objectives: verifying identities and then combatting any identity fraud that occurs. That is becoming increasingly more difficult in an age where fraud of all kinds—in not just the VA but in banking, financial technology, cryptocurrency or gaming—is becoming more complex.

In the VA’s case, Burris said one thing bad actors attempt is getting access to veterans’ information or the benefit itself from the adversary.

“You can make the adversaries to be China, Russia, North Korea, a number of them today that essentially are seeking to take these benefits and use them for other nefarious-type purposes,” he said.

Victims And Perpetrators

Burris said that while the figures and narrative painted by the Washington Post could be accurate, there’s a different way to look at fraud and how it occurs.

That includes finding out whether individuals are committing fraud themselves, part of more strategic schemes, or if veterans are simply playing by the rules but are being impersonated and taken advantage of by other people or groups like hackers or those with greater tech expertise.

The government takes responsibility in these matters, too, he added. A push to improve the underlying infrastructure may in turn better the way in which individuals’ identities are verified or proven; whether or not they are applying things that would be more phishing-resistant types of authentication every time they access platforms.

Sometimes the issue is a basic one, like an agency not checking and confirming whether a bank account that received a direct deposit actually belongs to a veteran.

He said the solution calls for what he describes as “modern identity rails” that protect veterans from being victimized. That involves improving what can be measured, like pushing companies and organizations to publish identity risk KPIs and better assess rate structures.

“Pair those with basic practices that are used today within the payment integrity circles within [the] federal government to get better insight into where things are not working, such that you can actually have more informed decisions, discussions around what could be done to make improvements,” he said. “And then, of course, look across the broader scam economy.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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