The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) said on Nov. 24 it has eliminated its backlog of Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA) applications – a program that offers health care benefits to more than 900,000 qualifying beneficiaries – with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).
According to the VA, there was a backlog of more than 70,000 CHAMPVA applications when President Donald Trump took office in January. This left applicants waiting more than 150 days in some cases for the VA to take action.
However, the VA announced that, as of October, the application backlog has been completely cleared, with applications now processed in days. Currently, the VA program receives roughly 4,000 new applications per week.
The VA has also made progress in reducing the number of appeals waiting for processing. Since the Trump administration took office, the VA has cut the backlog from 20,000 CHAMPVA appeals to 1,000, and says the number continues to decrease every day.
“Veterans around the country knew it was taking far too long to process CHAMPVA applications, and that meant delayed coverage for their loved ones,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a Nov. 24 press release. “We listened, and now the application backlog that caused so many unnecessary delays has been wiped out.”
The VA said automation helped make this effort possible, as well as providing CHAMPVA application processors with overtime pay to complete the work. The VA said that it has implemented “process engineering and automation to sustain the gains going forward.”
The department plans to complete its transition in December to a more automated application processing system designed to increase throughput. Additionally, the VA said it can now process more than 90% of medical services and pharmacy claims electronically within days of receipt.
In a Nov. 25 LinkedIn post, VA Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Charles Worthington celebrated the milestone, writing, “Proud of the VA, and of the Innovation Unit in the Office of the CTO who helped the ChampVA program leverage AI and automation to speed document processing, as one part of a large effort to clear this backlog.”
Worthington, who also serves as the agency’s chief AI officer, told MeriTalk in an interview earlier this year that the VA planned to scale AI use cases across the department in 2025.
“The big theme for 2025 is to scale useful AI products across the VA,” Worthington said. “We’re focusing on trying to figure out what are some of the VA’s most pressing challenges and then line up where we think AI can help with those challenges.”