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Today, Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-Texas), the Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs, delivered the following opening remarks, as prepared at the start of the subcommittee’s oversight hearing to examine the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) efforts to reduce delays, cut through red tape, and ensure veterans get their VA disability compensation benefits faster.

The subcommittee will come to order.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here.

Today, we are taking a closer look at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ efforts to decrease delays in veterans’ disability compensation claims resulting from V.A. overdevelopment.

When a veteran files a claim for disability compensation, V.A. has a duty to assist them with proving their claim.

This means helping veterans obtain service records and medical records, or scheduling veterans for V.A. disability compensation exams.

V.A. cannot make a decision on a veteran’s claim until all development is completed.

Although I hear from veterans about how frustrating the wait for a decision can be, many times V.A.’s efforts to obtain records or exams lead to an award of disability compensation.

On the other hand, overdevelopment is when V.A. takes unnecessary steps to obtain records or exams.

For example, if existing documents in the veteran’s claims file are sufficient to support the claim, V.A. should not schedule a government-funded disability exam.

Overdevelopment forces veterans to wait longer than necessary for a decision on their claims, and can lead to incorrect decisions. Unnecessary exams also waste veterans’ time and money.

Further, if a veteran misses a V.A.-scheduled exam without good cause and they do not reschedule, V.A. automatically denies the veteran’s claim, even when it was unnecessary for V.A. to schedule the exam in the first place.

My bill, H.R. 2137, the Review Every Veterans Claims Act, would fix this injustice.

Overdevelopment also drives government waste because V.A. pays contracted exam vendors for every exam -- even those that were never necessary.

In fiscal year 2023, about 2.4 million exams were completed -- a number that rose to approximately 3.2 million in fiscal year 2024. Contracted exam vendors were paid for nearly 95% of these exams.

In a December 2024 report, the V.A. Office of Inspector General found that V.A. spent about $1.4 million dollars on unnecessary exams from April through September 2023.

However, the total amount of wasted taxpayer dollars each fiscal year is likely much higher, since O.I.G.’s review did not cover the full fiscal year or examine all types of claims of decisions – both approvals and denials.

We have heard from O.I.G. and V.A. employees that overdevelopment mistakes are due to inadequate training for both new and experienced claims processors, as well as confusing and inconsistent guidance.

To address overdevelopment, V.A. created an “Overdevelopment-Reduction Task Force”.

This task force recommended dozens of actions, including targeted quality reviews, updating policy guidance, and increasing training.

I look forward to hearing from V.A. today on the progress made in implementing the task force’s recommendations.

Particularly, I am interested in whether V.A. has implemented a plan to evaluate the effectiveness of its efforts using clear, results-driven metrics for success.

And I would like to hear about any efforts V.A. is undertaking to further enhance its strategies to decrease overdevelopment.

Finally, I look forward to discussing whether V.A. will implement technology to ensure that every claims processor who overdevelops a claim learns from their mistake.

The National Work Queue, also known as the N.W.Q., electronically distributes the majority of V.A.’s claims workload across all regional offices.

The N.W.Q. has largely decreased decision wait times.

A key feature of the N.W.Q. is that when a claims processor defers a claim for development, it’s returned to the N.W.Q.

The N.W.Q. often then routes the claim to a different claims processor at another regional office for additional action.

We have heard about cases where one claims processor after another makes the same overdevelopment error in the same veteran’s claim.

These repeated mistakes – or so-called “avoidable deferrals” – have resulted in months or years-long delays for veterans even before a claims processor realizes that the development efforts were unnecessary.

But the current system only notifies the most recent claims processor that they committed an overdevelopment error.

All the other previous claims processors who committed the same mistake in the same claim are never notified, and therefore do not learn from their error.

In a November 2024 letter, then-Under Secretary for Benefits Josh Jacobs informed me that there are no technological barriers preventing V.A. from notifying all claims processors who made the same overdevelopment mistake in a single claim.

Mr. Jacobs told me that V.A. would conduct a pilot study to determine the value of additional functionality. I look forward to hearing about the study’s progress and any findings under the new administration.

Every veteran and survivor deserves a timely decision on their claim.

Decision wait times will decrease if we can reduce or eliminate overdevelopment. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about V.A.’s efforts to do so.

With that, I yield to Ranking Member McGarvey.