Veteran Benefits Administration officials hold Pullman town hall to discuss PACT Act with local veterans
The Veterans Benefits Administration wants more veterans to apply for newly expanded benefits, explaining the new coverage for disability benefits under the 2022 PACT Act at a town hall in Pullman Tuesday .
Approximately a dozen veterans faced administrators “begging” them to apply.
“We want to make sure that everybody who is eligible, whether it is a veteran or a family member or survivor, that they have awareness of the expansion of benefits and services that are available to them,” Veterans Benefits Administration Seattle-division assistant director Chantile Stovall said.
Passed in 2022, the PACT Act expands VA health care benefits to veterans with toxic exposures who were not previously covered. These include veterans of the Vietnam, Gulf War and post-9/11 eras.
“Please, please, please, I’m begging you to apply,” Stovall said.
Toxins covered under the act include air pollutants, chemicals, radiation, warfare agents and occupational hazards. It also expands the number of presumptive conditions that are assumed to be related to military service, and eligible for benefits, even if a direct link is not established.
These changes mean previous claims that have been denied might now be accepted by the VA.
“A veteran, you know, may have filed a claim previously for one of these conditions and was found not entitled to benefit, and now under the PACT Act these are presumptive conditions. If a veteran has any of these conditions, we highly encourage you to submit a new claim,” Stovall said at the meeting.
Here is a list of the new presumptive conditions approved through the 2022 law for veterans who served overseas:
- Asthma diagnosed after service.
- Brain cancer.
- Chronic bronchitis.
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
- Chronic rhinitis.
- Chronic sinusitis.
- Constrictive bronchiolitis or obliterative bronchiolitis.
- Emphysema.
- Gastrointestinal cancer.
- Glioblastoma.
- Granulomatous disease.
- Head cancer.
- High blood pressure
- Interstitial lung disease
- Kidney cancer.
- Lymphomatic cancer.
- Lymphoma.
- Melanoma.
- Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance.
- Neck cancer.
- Pancreatic cancer.
- Pleuritis.
- Pulmonary fibrosis.
- Reproductive cancer.
- Respiratory cancer.
- Sarcoidosis.
Since beginning to process claims last year, the Veterans Benefits Administration has awarded $4.7 billion in PACT Act benefits, according to Stovall.
She also noted her agency has approved 75.1% of PACT Act claims – largely because of the “expansive” list of conditions that are now presumed to be service related.
The PACT Act also makes all veterans enrolled in the VA eligible for a toxic exposure screening, a 5– to 10-minute survey identifying and documenting any potential exposures to toxins during military service.
Conducted every five years, this screening creates documentation to ensure conditions are covered when and if they arise years later.
“Even if you are maybe not experiencing symptoms right now, but you believe you’re exposed, get that toxic screening. Because 20 years down the road, you might end up with something,” VA Office of Community Care chief Jan Pennock said at the meeting.
While admitting the VA has a bad reputation among veterans, Pennock said it is personal to many of her employees and co-workers – recalling when she asked her staff to stand if they had a personal connection to a veteran.
“We want to provide care for you. Most of the people – I would say at least half the people in my department – are veterans. And by the time you get to a significant other or a brother, a sister, a mother, a father, I didn’t have anybody sitting down anymore. So we have a lot of people that care,” she said.
Veterans can get more information on the PACT Act and how to apply for benefits online at va.gov/resources/the-pact-act-and-your-va-benefits/.