VA electronic claims system melts backlog, but costs alarm Congress

Over the past five years, since Republicans won back control of the House, the Department of Veteran Affairs has been flogged publicly many times, often for allowing a mountain of backlogged disability compensation claims.

As the backlog fell, lawmakers now are learning, they should have paid more attention to how much VA was spending on its primary tool for the task — a paperless claim system. They’re paying attention now.

The cost of VA’s electronic claims network, called the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS), is $1 billion so far and soon will reach $1.3 billion, VA conceded this month to the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

That’s more than double VA’s original estimate of $580 million for VBMS in 2009. Costs are continuing to grow too because, by design, VBMS gets a software upgrade every three months. And apart from quarterly upgrades, VA plans for major innovations to the VBMS starting in 2018.