Originally published: 2024-10-29T09:00:00+00:00. Historical source article: benefits, rules, amounts and deadlines may have changed. Check the official source for current information.
WASHINGTON —Today, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced it delivered more care and more benefits to more Veterans than ever before in fiscal year 2024 — exceeding last year’s record totals.
These outcomes for the nation’s Veterans build on continued efforts by VA and the Biden-Harris Administration’s Unity Agenda to expand and improve care and benefits for those who served, much of which has been made possible by the PACT Act — the largest expansion of VA health care and benefits in generations.
VA encourages all Veterans, family members, caregivers, and survivors to learn more about VA and apply for their world-class health care and earned benefits today.
“Veterans deserve the very best from VA and our nation, and we will never settle for anything less,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “We’re honored that more Veterans are getting their earned health care and benefits from VA than ever before, but make no mistake: there is still work to do. We will continue to work each and every day to earn the trust of those we serve — and ensure that all Veterans, their families, and their survivors get the care and benefits they so rightly deserve.”
Key outcomes for Veterans and their families, caregivers, and survivors from this fiscal year include:
- Providing more world-class health care to Veterans: VA delivered more than 127.5 million health care appointments, representing a 6% increase over last year’s record. During this fiscal year, wait times decreased and VA health care outperformed non-VA care on independent reviews for patient satisfaction and care quality.
- Delivering more earned benefits to more Veterans: VA delivered $187 billion in benefits (including $173 billion in compensation and pension benefits) to 6.7 million Veterans and survivors this year — all of which are all-time records. VA also processed 2,517,519 disability benefit claims, a 27% increase over last year’s all-time record.
- Earning Veteran Trust: Veteran trust in VA reached 80.4% this year, an all-time record and an increase of 25% since 2016. Veteran trust in VA health care also reached 92%, another record.
- Encouraging Veterans to apply for health care and benefits under the PACT Act: Thanks to the largest outreach campaign in VA history under the PACT Act, more than 796,000 Veterans have enrolled in VA health care since the PACT Act was signed into law — a nearly 37% increase over the previous equivalent period; VA has received 4,414,334 claims for disability compensation benefits over the past two fiscal years — a 29.8% increase over the two years prior; and 913,459 Veterans have upgraded their priority groups, making them eligible for care with fewer copays.
- Supporting Veterans in crisis: VA provided no-cost emergency health care to more than 50,000 Veterans in acute suicidal crises. Additionally, the Veterans Crisis Line is supporting more Veterans than ever, receiving 1,123,591 million calls, texts, and chats — surpassing last year by 12%.
- Supporting Veterans experiencing or at risk for homelessness: VA housed 47,925 Veterans experiencing homelessness in FY 2024 and ensured that 96% of the Veterans housed during this time did not return to homelessness.
- Supporting a record number of survivors of Veterans: 519,453 spouses and dependents received survivor benefits from VA, representing a 4.5% increase over last year’s record and totaling an estimated $10.6 billion in earned benefits.
- Supporting a record number of Veteran caregivers: VA provided services, resources, and assistance to a record 88,095 Veteran family caregivers, representing an 18.6% increase over last year’s record.
- Supporting a record number of women Veterans: A record 741,259 women Veterans received compensation payments from VA this year, representing an 8.2% increase over last year and totaling an estimated $20.4 billion in earned benefits. Additionally, 52,130 women Veterans enrolled in VA health care in FY 2024. VA now has more women Veterans enrolled in its health care system than ever before.
- Providing record dental care to Veterans: VA dental clinics provided over 6 million procedures to more than 630,000 Veterans, representing 9% and 12.5% increases over last year’s records, respectively. Through community care, VA delivered a record additional 3.4 million procedures to more than 330,000 Veterans.
- Providing life insurance to Veterans, service members, and spouses: VA provided $1.5 trillion in life insurance coverage to 5.6 million policyholders, matching last year’s record.
- Helping Veterans, service members, and spouses become and remain homeowners: VA guaranteed over 416,300 home loans, saved over 158,000 borrowers from foreclosure, and approved 2,439 Specially Adapted Housing grants.
- Processing record numbers of Veterans’ appeals: VA processed 116,192 Veteran appeals, representing a 12.5% increase over last year’s record.
- Commemorating more Veterans on the Veterans Legacy Memorial: Nearly 10 million of the nation’s heroes now have individual commemorative pages in the Veterans Legacy Memorial — the nation’s largest digital platform dedicated to the memory of Veterans and service members. This is an all-time annual record, reflecting an increase of more than 5,055,400 Veterans over the past year alone.
- Giving Veterans final resting places in VA National Cemeteries: A record 5,572,495 million people — including 3,981,362 million Veterans — are now buried in VA national cemeteries.
Throughout this year, VA took action to expand and improve care and benefits for Veterans. Key actions from this year include: expanding eligibility for VA health care to all toxic exposed Veterans years earlier than called for by the PACT Act; housing nearly 48,000 Veterans and awarding over $800 million in grants to help Veterans experiencing homelessness; expanding access to care across the nation through VA’s Access Sprints, adding night and weekend clinics, and increasing the number of Veterans scheduled into daily clinic schedules; decreasing new appointment wait times for primary and mental health care by 11% and 7%, respectively; removing copays for the first three outpatient mental health care and substance use disorder visits of each calendar year through 2027; expanding access to VA cancer care through establishing new cancer presumptive conditions, expanding access to genetic, lung, and colorectal cancer screening, and expanding the Close to Me cancer care program; expanding access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) for eligible unmarried Veterans and eligible Veterans in same-sex marriages; calling for the implementation of a targeted moratorium on foreclosures for Veterans with VA-guaranteed loans through 2024; expanding access to VA care and benefits for some former service members discharged under other than honorable conditions; launching tele-emergency care for Veterans nationwide; and launching VSAFE.gov, a new government-wide website and associated call center to protect Veterans from fraud and scams.
Moving forward, VA will continue to aggressively reach out to and engage Veterans to encourage them to come to VA for the care and benefits they have earned.
Source: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Its Veterans is an independent publication and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. government.
