A whistleblower in the Atlanta office of the Department of Veterans Affairs warned President Trump on Tuesday that the VA is preparing to throw out hundreds of thousands of benefit applications due to an error the VA itself made during the Obama administration.
Scott Davis, a well-known whistleblower who has testified before Congress, wrote an open letter to Trump saying that more than 500,000 of these applications might be scuttled in March unless he intervenes.
“I am sending this whistleblower disclosure to your office due to the urgent need for executive intervention,” he wrote. “VA is planning on declaring over 500,000 Veteran applications for VA health care as incomplete and abandoned at the end of March 2017.”
Davis said those veterans’ applications had errors that prevented them from being processed over the last year. The VA categorized them as applications that are about to be tossed out because of errors made by the applicant.
But Davis said he has evidence that the errors were instead made by the VA.
He provided a December email from the VA’s Matthew Eitutis, which acknowledged that 440,000 letters were sent out to veterans asking for “means test information,” when the VA actually needed the veterans to provide “military information and vice versa.”
Davis said another 105,000 veterans were mistakenly told to provide more financial information.
And while the VA set a March 2017 deadline for correcting the forms, Davis said the VA still can’t confirm if the forms have been corrected.
“Although Mr. Eitutis stated he turned the matter over to the Office of the Inspector General to investigate, no such investigation has taken place,” Davis wrote. “As a result VA is planning to go ahead with this illegal action of purging these records without providing Veterans notification or disclosing that these Veterans are entitled to Equitable Relief for health care cost they incurred due to administrative errors by the VA.”
Read Davis’ entire letter:
Hello Mr. President: I am sending this whistleblower disclosure to your office due to the urgent need for executive intervention. VA is planning on declaring over 500,000 Veteran applications for VA health care as incomplete and abandoned at the end of March 2017.
These Veterans were placed in a backlog of nearly 900,000 (300,000 are Deceased Veterans) pending applications due to errors with the enrollment system and the lack of a standardized enrollment process (Please see attached OIG Report). Instead of separating these applications by modality and submission, VA leadership has chosen to illegally categorize all the pending applications as incomplete applications due to complainant (Veteran Applicant) failing to complete the application as stated in Title 38 USC section 5102.
However, Mr. President this statute does not apply to 90+ percent of these applications as most are in a pending status due to negligence by the agency. Furthermore the statute requires that VA notify Veterans that they have 365 days to complete the incomplete applications. The email below from VHA Member Services Acting Director Matt Eitutis, that was sent to then VHA Undersecretary Dr. David Shulkin on December 28, 2017 clearly indicates the letters were sent to the wrong recipients. Meaning 440,000 Veterans in a pending means test status were told to provide military service records and 105,000 Veterans in a pending verification status were instructed to provide financial information to complete their applications for VA healthcare.
Although Mr. Eitutis stated he turned the matter over to the Office of the Inspector General to investigate, no such investigation has taken place. Only an internal review by employees who report to Mr. Eitutis was conducted. As a result VA is planning to go ahead with this illegal action of purging these records without providing Veterans notification or disclosing that these Veterans are entitled to Equitable Relief for health care cost they incurred due to administrative errors by the VA.
It is for these reasons I have attached a formal request for your office to intervene in this matter.
Please feel free to contact me, if your office has any questions about this matter.
Thank you for your commitment to our Nation’s Veterans!
Respectfully:
Scott Davis
VA Whistleblower
