VA AI Dramatically Increases Errors in Veteran Disability Claims
Data released by the Department of Veterans Affairs and reported by Military Times shows a serious increase in errors while processing VA disability claims. The increase coincides with the Department of Veterans Affairs’ expanded use of automated claims-processing software.
Errors in collecting medical evidence for VA disability claims surged from approximately 66,000 in fiscal year 2021 to more than 329,000 in fiscal year 2026. Critics say over-reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) may be to blame.
VA AI Dramatically Increases Errors in Veteran Disability Claims
The VA’s AI software, known as Automated Decision Support (ADS), gathers military personnel and service treatment records, scans files for keywords, decides whether an application needs an additional medical exam, and generates summaries for human raters.
The VA launched the platform in December 2021 to process hypertension claims at its regional office in Boise, Idaho, and has since expanded its use. By how much?
Some sources report the VA completed nearly 300,000 decisions using the automated tool in 2023. By April 2026, VA AI took action on claims at a pace exceeding 50,000 files per month. The VA intends to apply the system to 90 percent of all disability claims by the end of 2027.
This is despite the VA’s abysmal track record in software installation, as shown by the botched MHS Genesis rollout in 2017.
The introduction of MHS Genesis, the Department of Defense’s commercial electronic health records platform based on Oracle Health Millennium, created problems across clinical operations, military recruiting, patient safety, and technical infrastructure. But on AI, the Doug Collins VA seems more interested in defending the technology as a way to cut processing wait times and eliminate backlogs despite what the error count says.
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Congressional Testimony on VA AI Failures
At an April 15, 2026, hearing before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Margarita Devlin, principal deputy under secretary for benefits, testified that AI helped the VA process “record numbers” of disability claims while “reducing mistakes.”
Devlin claims errors were decreasing, citing an issue-based accuracy rate of 94 percent. But is that accurate? Or does that metric measure decisions on individual medical conditions within a larger claim, and not whole-claim accuracy?
The VA press secretary tried to maintain that “no evidence” shows the tool causes errors, pointing out that higher-level review appeals quadrupled from 2020 to 2026. But the paper trail says otherwise; congressional oversight, field audits, and other resources all point to potential defects in the system’s evidence-gathering capabilities.
Elected officials warn against rushing VA claims with AI, noting the system has caused wrongful VA benefit denials that push veterans into multi-year appeals processes and that America’s veterans deserve better.
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Worth Noting
- Reports published under the 2017 Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act show that Higher-Level Review officers returned 35% of decisions for medical evidence and reconsideration in 2026, up from 23% in fiscal year 2021.
- Oversight findings from the VA Office of Inspector General identified early systemic flaws in the platform. A September 2023 inspector general report examining the tool’s performance found Automated Decision Support routinely generated summaries with errors and omitted details.
- In a 2024 case, regional officials initiated steps to terminate a veteran’s service-connected benefits for hearing loss after the automated system failed to locate medical documentation in the service file. The veteran challenged the decision, submitted private medical evidence, and underwent a new examination, which led the agency to increase monthly VA disability compensation instead of ending those benefits.
- In a 2025 decision, a veterans law judge identified discrepancies between an automated summary and a veteran’s service medical records and ordered action after finding the agency denied an asthma claim without scheduling an examination.
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About the author
Editor-in-Chief Joe Wallace is a 13-year veteran of the United States Air Force and a former reporter/editor for Air Force Television News and the Pentagon Channel. His freelance work includes contract work for Motorola, VALoans.com, and Credit Karma. He is co-founder of Dim Art House in Springfield, Illinois, and spends his non-writing time as an abstract painter, independent publisher, and occasional filmmaker.
