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DoD reviews claims for retroactive benefits

WASHINGTON — A Pentagon financing office said Thursday it has begun a review of a veterans’ claims program that a House lawmaker says has made payment errors reaching millions of dollars.

Tom LaRock, spokesman for the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, said the office’s director, Teresa McKay, “has expressed her commitment to ensure that the veterans receive the benefits they are due. If mistakes were made, we will take appropriate steps to correct them.”

On Wednesday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, wrote McKay, saying his office had calculated that nearly 2,000 severely disabled veterans were wrongly denied payments under a program that extends retroactive benefits for retired veterans whose disabilities were linked to combat or military service.

He said there were also inaccuracies — both overpayments and underpayments — for an additional 2,500 veterans who received benefits in excess of $2,500.

On Wednesday, Kucinich said the total cost of the errors in the VA Retro program was about $20 million. On Thursday, he revised that figure to about $12 million but said the number of affected veterans was unchanged. He urged McKay to recalculate all claims made under the program.

Kucinich blamed the errors on a weakening of quality control checks prompted by a rush to shrink a backlog of unprocessed claims.

LaRock said his office started a review of the program after the House Oversight subcommittee on domestic policy that Kucinich chairs held hearings on the issue last July. He said they have reprocessed about 10 percent of the 133,000 claims originally considered eligible for the program and hoped to complete the review by early spring next year.