VA Secretary Press Conference

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs):  Welcome to our September press conference. As experienced reporters, I’m sure you’ve sleuthed out that I am not, in fact, our esteemed Press Secretary Terrence Hayes. Terrence is on a well-deserved vacation, and I am his far inferior replacement. Assistant Secretary of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs, Sue Fulton. This month we’re welcoming Chief Counsel Dave Barrans and Deputy Chief of Staff Maureen Elias to talk a bit about some of the ways we protect Veterans from fraud. But before we get to that, I’m going to turn it over to Secretary Dennis McDonough for opening remarks.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Awesome. Good morning, everybody, and Sue, thanks very much. And thanks for your flexibility. I know we moved this date around a little bit. That was to accommodate my schedule, so I appreciate your flexibility on that. I want to highlight in particular at the start the fact that we are currently in a special enrollment period right now for Veterans who deployed to a combat zone, never signed up for VA care, and left active duty between Sept. 11, 2001, and Oct. 1, 2013. If you are one of those Veterans, please enroll for VA health care today. And if you know one of those Veterans, please spread the word. VA is the best, most affordable health care in America for Veterans. And this is your chance to sign up. Even if you don’t need this care today, you might need it tomorrow or the next day, or 30 years from now. And once you’re in, you have access for life. So don’t miss this opportunity. The deadline for this special enrollment period is Sept.30. Get the care you deserve and that you have earned today at VA.gov/pact.

Just a little bit more information about this cohort of Veterans. There’s 1.7 million Veterans in this cohort. 1.3 million of them are already enrolled for VA care. For those roughly 400,000 Veterans not yet enrolled, we’re in a full-court press to reach you. We’re sending you emails, sending you letters, and for the first time in VA history, we’re sending you texts to ensure that you know about this deadline to take advantage of the chance to sign up. Thus far, this outreach campaign is having some impact. We’ve seen an 86% spike in this year’s enrollments over the past month from 8,500 enrollees during–during the period until October–sorry, Aug. 15 to nearly 16,000 today. And we’re going to keep pushing to get as many of those Veterans into VA care as possible. One last comment from me before going to Maureen and Dave. It’s been a great week here at VA. We swore in earlier this week our Deputy Secretary, Tanya Bradsher. I am a massive Tanya Bradsher fan, having worked with her now over many years. I’m also really appreciative of the Senate that we now have confirmed Deputy Secretary, confirmed Assistant Secretary for IT, and confirmed Undersecretaries for memorial affairs, benefits, and health care. I remain concerned that our general counsel, whose nomination has been pending for a year, actually more than a year, and who performed in her hearing very well has not been confirmed.

We have 680 attorneys that work at VA. We are constantly working with Congress, with the courts, constantly making sure that we’re carrying out our business consistent with the statutory obligations of the agency. It is meaningful to have a confirmed General Counsel in that slot. So we are very thankful to have Tanya, Deputy Secretary Bradsher in the chair. I’m eager to have Anjali Chaturvedi similarly confirmed and sworn in. With that, let’s go to Maureen.

Maureen Elias (Deputy Chief of Staff):  Good morning. My name is Maureen Elias, and before restarting my career journey to become VA’s Deputy Chief of Staff, I was a stay-at-home mom raising two small children, while my husband served as a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army. Money was tight. And then one day, a man came to our door in a fancy suit, telling us he was with the VA and talking about how much lower our monthly payments would be with a cash-out refinance loan. It turns out he was not with the VA. And after all the paperwork was said and done, we lost the equity we had in our little home for pennies on the dollar. We had become victims of fraud. And unfortunately, that story is all too common among Veterans and service members. That’s why, for the past year, VA has supercharged our efforts to, one, help inform Veterans about how to protect themselves from fraud in the first place, and two, help them find resources to recover if the worst does happen. This department-wide initiative is called V-SAFE, which stands for Veteran Scam and Fraud Evasion. Through this effort, we’re providing help to Veterans exactly when and where they need it from all across the VA. As part of this work, we’re providing targeted communications to educate and warn the Veteran community about fraud schemes, especially when the risk is highest. For example, the risk of fraud is higher after natural disasters. So we provided fraud protection information to Hawaii Veterans after the tragic fires last month. Another part of this work lies within VHA. Our team is analyzing millions of claims every month to identify, duplicate and potentially fraudulent claims to protect Veterans and VA from fraud and waste. In fiscal year 2022 alone, VHA identified over $50 million in wasteful or potentially fraudulent claims from community providers. And in the Veterans Benefits Administration, we’ve been proactive in catching fraud as quickly as possible and working to make Veterans whole when a bad actor tried to take their hard-earned benefits away from them.

In the last year alone, we’ve sent email notifications to more than half a million Veterans when their direct deposit banking information changed, just to double-check that those changes weren’t made by anybody else. We’ve investigated 12,474 referrals for potential benefits fraud and provided one-to-one remediation support to 1,164 victims of payment redirect fraud. And we’ve protected $847,494 of Veterans benefits from being stolen by fraudsters through prevention or recovery.

Finally, when it comes to Camp Lejeune, we’ve done a public service advertisement letting Veterans know that they don’t need to pay anyone or use a lawyer in order to file their VA claim. And we’re also spreading the word that Camp Lejeune Justice Act claims fall under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which means that there’s a 25% cap on attorney’s fees for those who do use lawyers to file a claim with the Navy. And the VSAFE work is just beginning. We are continuing to grow this program and later today we will launch VA.gov/vsafe, which is a one-stop website for the VA information Veterans need when it comes to fraud prevention because we want to prevent any Veterans from having the experience that I had when that man knocked on our door all those years ago.

Now, there’s one more really important part of this, which is protecting Veterans from claim sharks, especially in the aftermath of the PACT Act. And that effort is being led by our Office of General Counsel. So with that, I’ll turn it over to Dave Barrans our Chief Counsel in charge of this effort, who can share more about our efforts on that front. Thank you.

Dave Barrans (Chief Counsel):  Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being there. I’m Dave Barrans, Chief Counsel for Benefits Law. The Secretary has asked me today to talk about the vital role that the accreditation process plays in protecting Veterans from predatory practices related to claims assistance. So at the outset, I want to say that under current law, no one may assist claimants in preparing or submitting their claims for VA benefits unless they have been accredited by VA to do that. Additionally, it’s illegal for anyone to charge a fee of any kind for help on an initial benefits claim before VA has issued its first decision. VA’s Office of General Counsel, or OGC, accredits and oversees the conduct of representatives who assist Veterans with their claims. This includes Veterans Service Organization representatives, or VSO reps, as well as attorneys and claims agents. The accreditation requirement allows us to ensure that those who are assisting Veterans with their claims possess the qualifications and the character to do so responsibly and meaningfully.

The accreditation process contains several safeguards that help ensure that Veterans receive quality representation and that they’re not going to be taken advantage of by their representatives. First, we require all accredited representatives to pursue continuing legal education training on a periodic basis for as long as they are accredited and to report those trainings to us. Similarly, we require VSOs to maintain training programs to ensure that their reps remain qualified. Second, to ensure that accredited representatives are accountable for their conduct, OGC has a disciplinary process that we can use to investigate complaints regarding their conduct, and we can suspend or remove their accreditation for incompetence or misconduct. Third, a claimant can request that OGC review the reasonableness of any fee being charged to them for legal services with respect to their claim. If OGC finds the fee to be unreasonable, we can reduce the fee. And in fiscal year 2022, we directed the return of approximately two and a half million dollars of benefit payments to Veterans from funds that were initially held as potential attorney fee payments.

Now, when companies operate without VA accreditation, these same safeguards just are not present. When VA finds that an unaccredited company is charging illegal fees, we notify the company that that unlawful action needs to cease. Unfortunately, there are not currently any criminal prohibitions in federal law related specifically to that conduct of the charging of illegal fees on VA claims. Accordingly, if the company is not going to stop the conduct on its own, VA’s recourse is to work with federal, state, and local enforcement agencies and refer the matters to them for possible prosecution under their laws. To help strengthen enforcement in this area, VA has submitted a legislative proposal to Congress to reinstate criminal penalties specific to charging illegal fees for VA claims. We want Veterans to know that you can always file a claim directly on your own. You don’t need a representative to file a claim, and you can do that in person at any VA regional office or online through e-benefits. VA will help you with your claim, will help you gather the evidence needed to support your claim. And there’s no cost to file a claim with VA. If you would like assistance in filing a claim, even an initial claim, Veteran Service Organizations and their representatives are authorized to assist. They stand ready to assist and they never charge a fee for their services.

So to help protect you against these unaccredited companies, we would urge you to be cautious about selecting a representative and ensure that they are accredited by VA. There are currently over 14,000 accredited representatives in the VA system. You can search on VA’s website to determine that an individual is accredited by VA before you share any personal information with them, before you sign any contract with them. Just go to VA’s main website, www.va.gov at the bottom of the page where it says More VA Resources, you can click on the Accredited Claims Representatives link and that will take you to our website where you can search for accreditation and there will be other helpful information and fact sheets there that hopefully will assist.

So thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning and we’d be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Good job, Dave.

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs):  Thank you. At this time, we welcome your questions. Leo.

Leo Shane (Military Times):  Thanks for doing this, Mr. Secretary. I wanted to ask you about the possibility of a government shutdown next week. Looks like we’re potentially headed that way. What’s your anxiety level for Veterans? I know there is advanced appropriation, so there’s quite a few things that will stay open, but I don’t know what potential impacts you’re looking at and ways to mitigate some of those as we move ahead.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yeah, thanks very much, Leo, for the question. We’re working very diligently in preparation for a lapse. We’re working internally across the administration’s OMB, and the White House is pulling the Cabinet together on a regular basis. And obviously, the President’s Management Council is also working this. And I’ve been talking to our members on Capitol Hill as well, including our Chairman. So I don’t have a complete answer to your question, but here’s what I can say, Leo. In the case of a shutdown, there would be no impact on Veteran health care. Burials would continue at VA national cemeteries. VA would continue to process and deliver benefits to Veterans, including compensation, pension, education, and housing benefits. And the board would continue to process appeals. However, we would not be able to conduct outreach to Veterans. Our public-facing regional offices would be closed, and many regular operations like career counseling, transition assistance, and cemetery grounds maintenance would not be available.

So this is why I’ve been saying we need a full-year appropriation, especially at a time when we’re providing more care and more benefits than more Vets than ever before. And that’s why we’ve been so supportive of the bipartisan budget agreement that was struck several months ago. So we’ll, as I said at the start, continue to closely monitor this situation, staying close with our administration and health partners, and hope that this gets resolved. And obviously, as we’re doing that, we’ll stay in close touch with you.

Leo Shane (Military Times):  I know, as you said, with the hospital staying open, medical centers staying open, most of the staff won’t be affected. But have you started to reach out to folks who will be furloughed or could be furloughed or is that building?

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  We’ll make sure that we understand with great precision who are what we call accepted employees and who are not. We have not begun that outreach.

Leo Shane (Military Times):  Okay, thank you.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yep.

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs):  Thanks. Next, we’ll go online to Ellen Milhiser.

Ellen Milhiser (Congressional Synopsis):  Hello, sir. Thank you for doing this. I appreciate your answer to Leo. That was very thorough. But the Veterans Health Administration has been emphasizing their hiring and onboarding of thousands of new employees. Will that be able to continue, or will the human resources personnel be furloughed?

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yeah, Ellen, I’m just not ready to go beyond what I’ve said already. So that’s among the things we’re looking very closely at. We’re sharpening our pencils here on this, and when we’re ready to go beyond what I’ve just spelled out, I’ll make sure that we come and talk to you guys about it. But HR executives and our HR teams are one, and training, for example, are among the things we’re looking at very closely.

Ellen Milhiser (Congressional Synopsis):  What about things such as the solid start calls that go out to newly transitioned? You said transition assistance will be impacted. Will those calls end? Because that’s part of suicide prevention.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Right. So, again, I’m just not ready yet, Ellen, to get into that level of detail, because I just want to make sure that we are as precise as we possibly can be. So I want to just stand by what I’ve said in my first answer to Leo before I get any more granular than that.

Ellen Milhiser (Congressional Synopsis):  Okay. Thank you so much.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yep.

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs):  Jory.

Jory Heckman (Federal News Network):  Good morning and thanks again for doing this. Let me just check my notes here. So, regarding the PACT Act deadline, the health care enrollment that you mentioned at the top of your remarks, we saw with the benefits deadline, there was that 11th-hour rush of claims coming in, and there were some glitches on the technical side of things. Obviously, we’re dealing with a different population, a different population size with this upcoming deadline. But in terms of the preparations and everything that went behind the scenes there, any concerns or any additional efforts that are being done there?

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yeah. So I should have said this before you know, I think Leo said something like, how nervous are you about and you just asked, are you concerned about? And anytime you guys ask me a question that starts with that phrase, let me just you know me now, I think well enough to know the answer to that is yes. Am I concerned? Yes. Are you anxious? Yes. Those are attributes that go to the heart of my personality, sadly. But we spent a lot of time during the course of Aug. as we ramped up the outreach, as we learned lessons from the outreach around the Aug. 10 period, as it related to the back effective date for claims filed before Aug. 10. We applied our lessons learned there and then took a hard look at what the outreach related to this open enrollment period would mean for us. And I’d say two things here. One, we recognize that enrollment uses a different set of inputs to include our call centers. So we are taking a really hard look at and have taken a really hard look at and are prepared for a significant upswing in calls in our call center–call centers. For example, the Veteran Experience Office reported to us earlier this week that we’ve seen a steady 15% increase year over year on calls at myVA411, which we attribute to the aggressive outreach on Sept. 30. So far, that has not impacted call time, that has not–sorry, wait time to be answered, has not impacted abandonment of calls. And so we think that we’re ready for it. We gave this what we call the full del, Benny, to make sure that we are ready to handle this, and we’ll make sure that we stay on top of it.

Jory Heckman (Federal News Network):  And regarding returned office plans for the VA workforce, you guys made that announcement back in May of this year.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yep.

Jory Heckman (Federal News Network):  There was some things that were left up, specifically, the details that were still pending at that announcement was going to be in the fall was what we heard.
Is that there was going to be that more regular in-office presence? Are there specifics? Is there a date set at this point? And I know you’ve made it a point of sitting down with VA employees, grabbing lunch with them.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yeah, I’m really glad you asked the question. The kind of stipulations in your question are all correct. Meaning we’ve been actively working with our workforce, talking with our workforce, our managers, supervisors, been working with their teams. That’s all happening. And I’m very proud of the work that’s gone into that. We have set a date. The date is Oct. 8. And so we’re proceeding toward that. And you’ll recall that in the National Capital Region so what happens on Oct. 8 is that within the National Capital Region, VA employees will be expected in any given pay period to be in the workspace as often as they are in a flexible space. So basically, five days in office space, five days in a flexible work setting starting Oct. 8.

Jory Heckman (Federal News Network):  All right, thank you.

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs):  Okay, we’re going to go online next to Bigad.

Bigad Shaban (NBC Bay Area):  Thank you so much for the opportunity. Mr. Secretary, when it comes to specific Veterans who were given a discharge status relating to their sexual orientation or gender identity, the White House under President Biden has put that number at more than 100,000 Veterans impacted. But the Department of Defense says it’s likely only a third of that. I realize the VA isn’t the one in charge of tracking these figures, but the VA does seem to be the one somewhat caught in the middle working to get Veterans the benefits they’re owed. I know many times you’ve spoken about your commitment to get all Veterans the benefits they deserve. Are you concerned about the VA’s ability to do right by these Veterans if the federal government still can’t seem to agree on just how many were impacted?

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Thanks so much for the question. There’s another one of those are you concerned questions. You’re not always here with us yet, but you’ll be here long enough to know that I’m a generally concerned person. Let me just say directly to Veterans for a minute that the status of your discharge, for example, an other than honorable discharge in many cases does not impact our ability to provide you care. So we urge you as a Veteran to please come see us first, and most importantly, please come see us. Second, we have, since we arrived a couple of years ago, made it a priority to find the Veterans whose discharge was related to their orientation. And while I don’t claim that we have reached everyone, we have turned every knob on this outreach to ten.

So normally in any given year, we had been reaching, say, 3,500 or 4,000 Veterans to work with them to examine what we call the character of their discharge. In the course of the last two years where we have reached closer to 12,000 to 14,000 such Veterans. Again, that’s not yet enough because we won’t rest, as you suggested in your question until we’ve reached every Veteran. But it’s more and we’re going to keep pushing on this.

Lastly, so I think in direct response to your question, we’re not structuring ourselves to reach 100,000 Veterans or fewer than 100,000 Veterans. We’re structuring ourselves to reach every Veteran, and we will work with them and use every flexibility that we have in statute to provide them the care that they’ve earned, irrespective of the character of the discharge, because we have flexibility under statute to examine that character of discharge. I hope that answers the question, Bigad.

Bigad Shaban (NBC Bay Area):  Yeah. And, sir, you mentioned the character of discharge reviews. Right now, the VA is reviewing character of discharges about two and a half times faster than what the agency was doing five years ago, but it’s still taking on average, more than 233 days.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yes.

Bigad Shaban (NBC Bay Area):   What do you say to Veterans who think the process is still taking far too long and do you have plans to speed it up?

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yeah, what I say to Veterans who think that what I say to Veterans when they give us feedback about anything, I say to them thank you. Because at the end of the day, the lifeblood for us to operate as a Veterans-centered organization is the feedback from Veterans. And so I think you said more than 200 days. That’s too long. Veterans are frustrated with that. I understand that frustration, and we are going to continue to work at this as aggressively as we can through outreach and then through review of those characters of discharge. And we’ve been reviewing the whole basket of other than honorable discharges now in this department for many, many years. I’m bound and determined to resolve that process, not because the rules are that important, but because the rules represent individual Veterans’ lives. So we don’t have news for you on that today, but we’re working that very, very aggressively, as aggressively as we can.

Bigad Shaban (NBC Bay Area):  Thank you, sir.

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs):  Thank you. Are there any more questions? Yes, Leo.

Leo Shane (Military Times):  Yeah, I wanted to get a little bit more information on the new site that’s being set up. What is going to be on there that wasn’t available when you said you were a victim of fraud? And can you just talk about some of the resources, some of the things that you’re seeing that are going to be more helpful to folks? Because I think identifying that is one of the key problems for a lot of Veterans. I don’t know who’s a bad actor and who’s not.

Maureen Elias (Deputy Chief of Staff):  Yeah, happy to answer that. At the time when our family fell victim to fraud, there really wasn’t anything on the website about how to verify and how to vet fraud, period. And so one of the things that this website does that I think is really important is it talks in plain language to the Veterans and their families about what the frauds and scams might look like and then where and how to go for resources. So it has a training video on it that talks about fraud. It has a bunch of kind of frequently asked questions that are written in a way that a Veteran can look and understand. And then it also has on it a link to find trusted help to file your claim. That’s right at the very top of the web page because sometimes when you’re talking to Veterans, they don’t understand what accredited service rep means. But trusted help, I think, relays a little bit better. So the most important thing is we’re pulling it all together in a way that a Veteran can easily access and understand the variety of fraud, scams, and predatory practices that are rising up. And it’s also a page that’s going to continue to grow and thrive as we learn more about from our Veterans, from our federal partners, from what we’re seeing across the enterprise, that webpage will be dynamic and updated as we see new things.

Leo Shane (Military Times):  And what are the outreach efforts with that? I mean, obviously it’s a website, but is that going to be something that’s available at VA medical centers being pushed out from the benefits offices?

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Let me take that real quick and then see if you want to add anything on top of that. So we’re kind of all systems go on this, Leo. I was just in Atlanta last week, actually the week before last and we did a roundtable there on Friday. And so by there, I mean at the Atlanta Max Cleveland VAMC. And importantly we had Veterans there, representatives of Veteran Service Organizations and we had our federal partners there. So one of the things that we’re trying to do with the aggregation of the data in one place is to make sure that the enforcement and regulatory actors like the CFTC, the SEC and the FTC are available to our Veterans too. So not only do we get their information about the kind of frauds and scams that they’re seeing, so our collectability on sharing potential fraud scenarios with Veterans is dramatically increased. The Veterans access then to enforcement mechanisms through the regulatory bodies, I gave you those three, is also a really important effort of the VSAFE, which is, as Maureen talked about, all of VA effort, but it’s an all of federal government effort that the White House is really pushing us on to make sure that, as I say, Vets have access not only to information, but also to the enforcement authorities that come with those regulatory bodies.

Leo Shane (Military Times):  I guess part of the fundamental question here is one of the reasons that folks can be susceptible is just the complexity of everything here. So I’m thinking of the Camp Lejeune case where there’s a lot of attorneys involved. There’s this new Navy settlement. There’s just a lot of elements. So when you’re talking about simplifying it, I guess, how are you getting the message out of, hey, Veterans, come to us first. Come see us so you can figure out if this is something real or if this is a scam.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yeah, well, one of the ways we’re doing it is we’re having this press conference today and we’re trying to communicate in every way. But we did see the announcement of the application of the Federal Claims Tort Claims Act, which was decided last week, late last week, I think, by the Department of Justice. And that’s the kind of thing that we want to make sure that Veterans know, not what the particular Act is, but the fact that there is now a cap on any fee a Veteran can be charged by a lawyer, and abrogation of that cap by a law firm would be criminal. So there’s real teeth behind it. So we’re trying to aggregate this information. When it comes out, we hear something from the Department of Navy, from the Department of Justice. We’re making sure that it’s on our website. It’s out in the hands of our regional office outreach directors. It’s in the hands of our VAMC teams, so they can be talking to Veterans in very plain language about this.

Leo Shane (Military Times):  Great, thank you.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Do you have anything you want to add on that?

Maureen Elias (Deputy Chief of Staff):  Just one thing, sir. I think the goal here and what you’ll see if you review the PACT Act materials, we put out is we’re weaving fraud education into what we’re rolling out whenever we’re talking about health care and benefits being provided to Veterans. So it’s not just you only have to know about this website. We’re going to oversaturate Veterans with fraud and scam information so that they know how to recognize it and what to do when it comes to them.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Can I just say I’m sorry, just one last thing? Our major partners in this effort are the VAs themselves, you know, we just finished the convention season. At every convention that I went to this year, fraud and fraud prevention was a major issue both in terms of what we are talking with our VSO partners about, but also what VSO partners are talking to their members about and then jointly what we’re training VSO members about so they can share with their buddies, their neighbors, their fellow members. So I want to make sure that we don’t lose that thread, which is the VSOs are great partners. They’re also, as they always do, pushing us to do more, and as they push us to do more, we work more closely together with them in then we can get more information in the hand of Veterans.

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs):  Great.

Leo Shane (Military Times):  Thank you.

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs):  Next we’re going to go online, quill Lawrence.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yes.

Quil Lawrence (NPR):  Thanks a lot. Nice to see you all. In terms of the fraud prevention, how much are you seeing in terms of fraud activity on the PACT Act? I know we all imagine that the thieves are licking their lips at this massive boost in benefit money going out but are you getting a lot of cases where people are successfully ripping off Veterans already on this? And I was also wondering with the Lejeune issue, what’s your rate of success in getting Veterans to just file a claim for free instead of going to lawyers? Do you know sort of what percentage or how successful you’re being at saving them that money on unnecessary legal fees?

Dave Barrans (Chief Counsel):  So thank you for that question. So I don’t have data on how the number of complaints we’ve seen related to PACT Act, and it may be that our Veterans Benefits Administration is tracking information related to that so we can see if we have any more on that. We do encourage Veterans who have complaints, particularly about unaccredited claims to file not just with VA, but with the Federal Trade Commission’s Sentinel website, where those complaints are accessible to other law enforcement agencies. With respect to the Camp Lejeune claims, I would point out that part of what we’re communicating to Veterans, and we have been trying to communicate to Veterans, is that the ads you’re seeing on TV are not related to VA claims. Those are related to the actions before the Department of Navy and the Department of Justice. And so we don’t want anyone to be confused by all the advertising that you need a lawyer to file a VA claim. So we have encouraged people to come in and file their claims with respect to Camp Lejeune as with respect to PACT Act and all other benefits.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yeah. Quil let us see if we got I think it’s an interesting question. Let’s see if we’ve got a way to parse out the data that you’re asking for. I think it’s a really interesting question. Just to amplify the point for a minute. There are presumed–there are presumptive service connections for Camp Lejeune Veterans that go back many years, right? So we want to make sure that this relatively new line of effort, we want to make sure, as Dave said, our Vets are not confused about that. But we also want to make sure that vets know that there are existing presumptions of service connection for Camp Lejeune-connected Veterans. And we’ve been working those claims now for years. And so hopefully the benefit of the attention on this will lead some of those Veterans to come straight to VA and file those claims.

Quil Lawrence (NPR):  Anecdotally, are you hearing about fraud with PACT Act yet, or is it too early?

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Anecdotally I’m hearing about the threat of fraud, right. Maybe Maureen or Dave can talk about whether they are hearing specific anecdotes, but it’s very much, and logically you understand why it’s very much as it was, for example, at the conventions in the daily chatter around here. But I have not seen specific anecdotes, have you guys?

Maureen Elias (Deputy Chief of Staff):    We don’t have specific numbers or data on that, but we have received plenty of anecdotal information. Anytime there’s new benefits or new money that’s being allocated to individuals, there’s an opportunity for fraudsters and scamsters to come in. What we are seeing is a large increase in unaccredited service reps where they’re charging Veterans to file their initial claim, which is not legal. They’re operating in the gray area and some of them are charging up to six times whatever that Veteran receives. So we don’t have specific numbers, but we are definitely seeing an increase in those who are taking money from Veterans that should not be.

Quil Lawrence (NPR):  Thank you.

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs):  Thanks, Quil. We’re going to go to Patricia Kime online.

Patricia Kime (Military.com):  Thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it. If you are aware of individuals or companies that are charging fees for initial processing and you’re contacting them, what’s holding you all back from publishing that on your VSAFE website, so that Vets know exactly who to steer clear away from?

Dave Barrans (Chief Counsel):  Yeah, so when we send out those letters, our hope is that the companies will realize that what they’re doing is wrong and will stop. And in some cases, historically, there has just been genuine confusion on the part of some practitioners about whether or not they’re able to do what they’re doing. As Maureen said, we’ve seen a rise in companies who seem to be very purposefully doing things that they know are crossing the line with respect to PACT Act. And so we’re going to have to change the way we approach this. We do think it’s important in that environment to get as much information as we can out to Veterans. We just need to be sure we’re doing that in a deliberate way and that we’re in accordance with whatever protections need to be in place with respect to information disclosure and disclaimers about what we can prove, what we know, and what we’re accusing the companies of. So we are looking to make more information public and we’re working on that now.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yeah, [crosstalk] I think what Dave is saying, Patricia, is we’ll have more to say about that soon.

Patricia Kime (Military.com):  Okay, just a follow-up to that on the VSAFE, have you all vetted then everybody that is now on that website or cited as places where Vets can go for help, are those all vetted? You did previously have one of the bad actors on your resource website, like a few months ago.

Maureen Elias (Deputy Chief of Staff):  Thank you for that question. Everyone that is linked to the accreditation site has been vetted. So we know that when Veterans are accessing the site, we know that they’re being directed exactly to someone who our Office of General Counsel has said is a good practitioner who will do right by Veterans.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yeah, let me just say, I think it was you. If it wasn’t you, Patricia, it was somebody else in this room or online who helped us identify that actor online. And so we are constantly looking at it, constantly updating it, and we really appreciate veteran feedback on that, and we appreciate your feedback on it. So if you see something that doesn’t add up, I hope you’ll let us know. As we’ve noticed, you’re not reluctant to do.

Patricia Kime (Military.com):  Just one more question, Mr. Secretary, about the 0% disability ratings for PACT Act claims. Undersecretary Jacobs yesterday said that you all are looking at perhaps the rating scale. Would you like to comment on that process and why you think this is important for Vets?

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  I read what Josh–the exchange that you and Josh had yesterday. I thought it was, as usual, very good question from you and very informative answer from Josh. So I don’t want to add anything more to that. As we have more to announce, we’ll obviously be coming back to you.

Patricia Kime (Military.com):  Thank you, sir.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Thank you.

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs):   So we’ll go back to Jory.

Jory Heckman (Federal News Network):  Total change in topic here. But Mr. Secretary, I wanted to circle back to your remarks a couple of weeks ago at the VA AI summit. You had mentioned that VA was the first agency to roll out an AI trustworthiness framework. Obviously, this is a priority for the VA. I think at both the VHA and VBA roundtables this week, AI was a topic that came up as far as use cases.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yes.

Jory Heckman (Federal News Network):  As far as what’s important from your perspective about VA getting this right, I won’t use the word concerned again, but what’s important to you? That the VA gets this right and that Veterans trust it and that VA employees trust it?

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yeah, what’s most important to me is that Veterans don’t lose trust in us because we placed a bad bet on a new AI technology. We take very seriously the fact that Veterans choose to come to VA to get their care and that initial investment of their trust in us, we hope we build that over time. So I’m very mindful of the fact that as potentially meaningful and impactful AI can be, particularly in healthcare, that the downsides, particularly as it relates to trust, are really important. And this was why it was so important to Sharif to convene that conference, which is we want to maximize the upside of new AI interventions without compromising one bit the trust basis of the relationship between our Veterans and their clinicians. And in fact, if we do this right, I’m confident that we can increase the trust. So that’s what I’m focused on. I’ve watched our clinicians now very, very closely for almost three years. I think they’re exactly the right team to be doing this because they really start as members of an HRO. They really start from that Veteran-clinician relationship and build out from it. And I think so I think it makes us exactly the right place for us to work this AI question.

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs):   Going back online to Bigad.

Bigad Shaban (NBC Bay Area):  Thank you so much Mr. Secretary. I know you mentioned the absence of criminal penalties. Have you made an appeal to Congress that’s separate from your previous support of the Guard Act? And then another question. I know my colleague Lucy Bustamante helped raise the issue of one of these bad actors when it comes to the claim sharks. I know you said there’s more to come and to stay tuned. Is that in reference to the possibility of actually publicly releasing all these names so that Veterans would be even more aware of who they are and to steer clear?

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yeah. Let me have Dave answer the question about what specifically we’ve asked of Congress. One, and then two in reaction to the earlier question, I think, to Patricia’s question. What I meant there is the public release of information is surely one tool to incent better behavior. So we’re looking very closely at that. So that’s what I meant on that. And when we have news on that, we’ll let you know. But on criminal request.

Dave Barrans (Chief Counsel):  Yeah, I’ll just that for I believe it’s the past five years at least, VA, as part of its annual legislative package, has put forth proposals to Congress to reinstate criminal penalties for charging unlawful fees on VA claims. There were criminal penalties in the law up until about 2006 when the law was changed. Given the rise that we’ve seen in predatory practices, we believe it’s important to reinstate those, and we have been proposing that for the past five years. I believe the Guard Act is largely in line with things that we have proposed over that period.

Bigad Shaban (NBC Bay Area):  And then, Mr. Secretary, if I could also talk to you about suicide awareness for a moment. Sunday is Gold Star Families Day. Can you talk to us about the latest status on giving survivor benefits to families of Veterans who died by suicide? And then also, I don’t know if you have a sort of status check on where we are so far this year when it comes to suicides.

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Well, obviously, I think what I’d like to do, Bigad, is get you we kind of released. This is obviously Suicide Prevention Month, and I think it’s important that we as a country use this month to talk very publicly about the number one clinical priority for VA, which is getting to zero Veteran suicides. But I also hasten to say here that this is our number one clinical priority every day of every week of every month of every year. One, consistent with it being September we’ve put out a release on Wednesday that hits some of the issues you’ve just asked about. So let us get you that, and then if you have additional follow ups on that, I’ll make sure that one of us will be available to you on that.

Bigad Shaban (NBC Bay Area):  Thank you, sir.

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs): Okay, let’s go back to Quil.

Quil Lawrence (NPR):  Oh, no, my hand was down. All the good questions have been asked. Thank you.

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs):   Okay. Is there—-

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  I just want to say one last—-

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs):   Yes sir. If there’s no more questions?

Denis McDonough (VA Secretary):  Yeah, look, if you don’t mind, let me just say one last thing. We, I know Leo in particular has reported recently on this, but I make it a habit to let you all know where the backlog is every time we come out and give you a sense of where we are on our PACT Act numbers and everything else. So let me just tick through a couple of those things and let me just say one additional thing about the PACT Act. Total health care enrollment since Aug. 10, 2022, is more than 379,000 additional enrollees. Disability claims received since Aug. 10, 2022, is 1,040,908. Disability claims processed since Jan. 1 are 570,808. And in that period, disability claims granted are 443,564.

As it relates to the backlog, as of Sept. 16, the backlog was 292,499. We anticipate the backlog reaching 300,000 sometime in the next several days. Could be this weekend, could be early next week. I don’t know precisely. And I just want to say a couple of things. One is it’s a great thing that record numbers of Vets are applying for their earned benefits. In fact, we’re currently executing the largest outreach campaign in VA history because we want every single Veteran, family member, and survivor to apply for the care and the benefits that they’ve earned. And when they do apply, we will stop at nothing to deliver those benefits quickly and accurately.

To that end, VA right now is delivering more benefits more quickly to more Veterans than ever before in processing claims at the fastest rate in VA history. We’re doing this by dramatically increasing the staff that processes Veterans’ claims, increasing the productivity of those employees, and taking steps to automate the claims process. As a result of these efforts, our backlog as a percentage of all claims is down to 30%, unlike in earlier challenges when it was as high as 70% in 2013. And as we get further from the signing of the PACT Act, this surge in claims will subside, but our increased capacity will not subside, and that backlog will go down. All of this is to say to Veterans, please continue to file your claims. These are benefits that you have already earned, and you so richly deserve, and we will continue to process them.

We anticipate that the backlog will continue to go up, and we understand that, we know that, and we have a plan to address it. So one part of that plan is to make sure that I level with you guys every time that we get together to give you an update on where we are in that number. So I want to just give you that number about the 300,000 number. We do the same with Congress. So this is why we do our regular dashboard to make sure that we’re getting that information up there and elsewhere as well. But I want no Veteran to ever worry that because the backlog is a particular number, they ought not file their claim. Please file your claim, and we are resolving those claims more quickly than ever before at VA.

So thanks, everybody, for the opportunity to be out here today. Thanks for always covering this, and I thank you one more time for your flexibility on the timing. And thanks, Dave, and Maureen. And, of course, Sue. Thanks, guys.

Sue Fulton (Assistant Secretary, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs):  This concludes the press conference. Thank you.