Originally published: 2024-08-09T17:00:00+00:00. Historical source article: benefits, rules, amounts and deadlines may have changed. Check the official source for current information.
WASHINGTON — Today, on the eve of the second anniversary of President Biden signing the PACT Act into law, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs released a new dashboard highlighting the impact of this historic law for Veterans and their survivors. Partly due to the PACT Act, VA is delivering more care and more benefits to more Veterans than ever before. Key results for toxic-exposed Veterans and their survivors to date include:
- More than 1 million Veterans and their survivors have received disability compensation benefits under the PACT Act: VA has delivered more than $6.8 billion in earned PACT Act benefits to Veterans and their survivors. VA is delivering these benefits to Veterans at the fastest rate in the nation’s history, on pace to break last year’s record of claims processed by more than 27%.
- Nearly 740,000 Veterans have enrolled in VA health care: Since Aug. 10, 2022, 739,421 Veterans have enrolled in VA health care — a 33% increase over the previous two-year period. This includes more than 333,767 enrollees from the PACT Act population (Vietnam, Gulf War, and Post-9/11 Veterans).
- More than 5.6 million Veterans have been screened for toxic exposures: 5,690,117 Veterans have received free, 10-minute screenings for toxic exposures from VA under the PACT Act — a critical step to catching and treating potentially life-threatening health conditions as early as possible.
- Record numbers of Veterans are applying for earned benefits: Thanks to the largest outreach campaign in VA history, Veterans and survivors are applying for their earned benefits at record rates. Over the past two fiscal years, VA has received 4,414,334 claims for disability compensation benefits (including 1,774,158 claims with PACT Act conditions) — 29.8% more than the two fiscal years prior. There was an all-time record number of applications in 2023, and Veterans and survivors are on pace to break that record in 2024.
VA and the entire Biden-Harris administration continue to encourage all eligible Veterans and survivors to visit VA.gov/PACT or call 1-800-MYVA411 to learn more about the PACT Act and apply today.
“Thanks to President Biden, millions of Veterans are now getting the health care and benefits they’ve earned for their heroic service and selfless sacrifices,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “For decades, these Veterans bravely served our country while exposing themselves to hazards like burn pits or Agent Orange — and many got sick as a result. We want all of these heroes — and their survivors — to come to VA for the health care and benefits they earned and so rightly deserve.”
VA continues to conduct an all-hands-on-deck outreach campaign to bring Veterans to VA. In addition to hosting thousands of events since the passage of the PACT Act, VA has also sent millions of letters and emails, launched a nationwide advertising campaign, and enacted the first-ever text messaging campaign to reach eligible Veterans.
Veteran trust in VA has never been higher, increasing 25% to an all-time high of 80.4% since VA began administering the “VSignals” survey in 2016. Additionally, Veterans’ trust in outpatient health care has increased to 91.8%, also an all-time high.
With the increase in enrollments under the PACT Act, VA is on track to deliver over 127 million health care appointments in 2024, representing a 6% increase over last year’s all-time record number of appointments. Average wait times for new patient appointments have decreased by 8% in primary care and 9% in mental health compared to the previous year. Additionally, VA has processed 400,000 more priority group upgrades for enrolled Veterans since the signing of PACT Act compared to the two years prior. This includes more than 800,000 Veterans who were in priority groups 7 and 8 who received upgrades, meaning they are now eligible for more VA services without copays.
For more information about how two years of the PACT Act has helped Veterans, including state-level data, visit VA’s PACT Year-in-Review Dashboard. This dashboard is a special highlight edition of VA’s regular PACT Act dashboard, which is published monthly to document the implementation of this landmark legislation and demonstrate its continued impact on Veterans and survivors.
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.
