Veterans need help with VA benefits. This Kansas law would make it easier | Opinion
No veteran should have to become an expert in federal paperwork in order to simply access the benefits they were promised in return for their service. And anyone saying the Department of Veterans Affairs disability claims process is simple has never opened up and stared at a denial letter wondering what to do next.
I lived that moment. And right now, Kansas lawmakers are debating a bill that could help thousands of veterans avoid the same fate.
When I left the U.S. Army after 23 years, I assumed the VA disability process would be cut and dry: You’d find a Veterans Service Organization, get free help, submit your claim and move on with your life. I quickly realized that’s not the case. Thousands of veterans are left to navigate a broken claims process riddled with confusion, lost paperwork, endless delays, unreturned calls, dead ends and decisions that are often simply wrong.
This is why I started Veterans Guardian. It was built around the idea that veterans deserve competent benefits consultants on a timeline that matches expertise with real-life needs. Most of the folks on our staff are veterans and military spouses who have a passion for helping people whose plight they deeply understand. And the work itself isn’t much different than helping those who seek tax expertise during tax season.
So, it should be no surprise that we support legislation such as House Bill 2214, which would bring more regulation to the veteran benefits consulting process in Kansas. It extends fee regulations, caps fees and allows consultants to be compensated only when they successfully increase VA disability benefits for their clients.
It would also mandate a stronger contractual and disclosures process, ban the use of foreign call centers and make it illegal to guarantee higher benefit ratings. It would bring privacy, barring any consultant from using a veteran’s login credentials to access benefits information, among other things. And finally, it would bring strong punishments for those bad actors who break these new regulations.
We welcome this, and we believe the focus of conversation should be on these veteran protections.
Unfortunately, the debate over that bill has been shaped through recent, well-intentioned news coverage that misstates how this ecosystem functions.
Some have stated that only accredited consultants can help file claims and that those services are always free. But that’s not true and, in fact, the VA itself says that accredited attorneys and claims agents can charge fees at later stages of the claims process — and that the VA pays approved fees out of a veteran’s past due benefits.
The VA has just begun publicly posting those fee totals, which often go to attorneys. In just the last 12 months, the VA paid these attorneys $394.7 million to help veterans with their claims. Fee-based assistance also exists inside the accredited world, and veterans often choose to rely on it because the claims process is daunting without help.
Another common misconception is that for-profit consultants may be inadvertently violating federal law, because 38 U.S.C. 5901 restricts consultants from acting as agent or attorney in the preparation, presentation or prosecution of a claim unless recognized by the VA Secretary.
That statute is real, and it should be taken seriously, but it is often flattened into the idea that any help around a claim is unlawful unless the helper is accredited.
For instance, benefits consulting firms such as mine do not take power of attorney. And we don’t communicate with the VA as the veteran’s representative of record. The veterans we work with are the claimants and manage their own advocacy. Our role is to help them understand the landscape ahead of them and avoid pitfalls that can lead to costly delays and even costlier decisions.
These misconceptions are why Kansas House Bill 2214 is so important. We support this bill because it puts enforceable guardrails around a marketplace that already exists and can offer solid solutions to our veterans. It also helps veterans understand the reputable help available to them. Finally, it brings powerful consumer protection enforcement tools to keep bad actors out of the market.
The right way to protect veterans is to target deceptive conduct and abusive fee practices, not to build the entire debate around the premise that anyone offering a fee-based consultation is working in bad faith.
House Bill 2214 stands on its own merits, and it would move Kansas in the right direction. It would protect veterans while protecting their right to choose between free and professional help.
William Taylor is the chief operating officer and co-founder of benefits consulting firm Veterans Guardian. He is also a 23-year veteran of the U.S. Army who graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point.