WASHINGTON — Creating a single online space for the medical records of veterans could help erase the backlog of more than 500,000 record requests from U.S. service members, U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan said Tuesday.
The legislation would require the secretary of veteran affairs to create an online portal for maintaining the digital records of all former members of the Armed Forces.
The plan would further create an advisory committee that would oversee the maintenance of these records.
“Veterans should not be blocked from receiving benefits because of paperwork backlogs at the Defense Department, VA, or other government agencies,” Hassan said.
“We need to ensure that veterans are receiving the benefits that they have earned and deserve. This commonsense, bipartisan bill would modernize the system so that backlogs like this don’t happen again.”
Follows VA records reform law
Late last year, Congress approved a federal spending bill that included legislation Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Hassan had sought to help veterans get records from a federal clearinghouse.
The law required the U.S. Archivist to submit to congressional committees within 60 days a comprehensive plan to eliminate the backlog with a firm timeframe to meet the goal of resolving 90% of all cases within the 20-day period.
The records center received $20 million in the defense spending bill and its leadership has 30 days to inform Congress of any additional staffing it could need to meet the goal.
In 2020, Hassan helped get into a COVID relief bill $50 million for the National Archives and Records Administration that houses the National Personnel Records Center.
She sought this reform starting in 2021 after concluding the VA wasn’t doing enough to reduce the backlog.
The Union Leader profiled William Fuller of Littleton, who waited to receive documents qualifying him for veteran benefits 40 years after he had gone AWOL from the Army and suffered post-traumatic stress.
In 2021, Charlene Frye of Milford landed in the same predicament for more than a year as she searched for the military records of her father, Norman Levesque. With Hassan’s help, Frye received the documents but not before Levesque, 77, died in December 2020 from complications after contracting COVID-19.
