VA Can Reduce Excess Disability Payments by Improving Pay Data Exchange With the Military Services

GAO conducted a review to determine whether the Veterans Administration (VA) and the Department of Defense (DOD) have adequate internal controls to prevent VA from paying veterans' disability benefits to: (1) disabled veterans who return to active duty; and (2) disabled veterans whose separation pay VA has not recouped.

GAO found that, while VA instructs veterans to contact a VA regional office if they return to active duty, it has not determined whether veterans comply with the reporting requirement. GAO compared data from the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) with VA data and identified over 1,000 individuals who returned to active duty without notifying VA. In some cases, returning veterans did not mention their VA disability payments on reenlistment applications, but there were also cases where military recruiters did not notify VA. In addition, GAO found that VA does not always recoup separation payments before paying disability benefits because: (1) DOD separation processing offices do not always provide separation pay data to VA; and (2) VA staff either disregard separation data or do not realize that recoupment efforts have been unsuccessful. However, since VA can only withhold disability payments up to the amount of a veteran's monthly benefit, it may take years to recoup improperly paid funds.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Joseph F. Delfico Team: General Accounting Office: Human Resources Division Phone: (202) 512-7215