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When Automation Fails Veterans: VA Claim Errors and Medical Malpractice

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The Department of Veterans Affairs is handing more of its work to software, and veterans are paying for the mistakes. A new investigation, published by US News on November 9, 2026, found that as the VA expanded an automated tool for gathering and summarizing medical evidence, errors in veterans’ disability claims climbed every single year.

That story is about VA benefits, not bedside care. But it raises a question every veteran who uses the VA health system should ask: when a federal agency cuts corners on medical records and evidence, who is accountable when a veteran gets hurt? For negligent medical care at a VA facility, the answer is the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), and the rules for using it are strict.

What the investigation found

The VA’s evidence-collection errors rose from about 66,000 in fiscal 2021 to more than 329,000 in fiscal 2026, according to the investigation by The Beam, the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism newsroom at Arizona State University. The count went up every year in between.

The tool at the center of the story is called Automated Decision Support (ADS). The VA launched it in December 2021 for hypertension claims at its Boise, Idaho, regional office. Here is what it does, as reported by KTAR and Military Times:

  • It pulls a veteran’s medical and service records and scans them for keywords and data points.
  • It decides whether a claim has enough evidence or needs another medical exam.
  • It writes a summary that a human “claims rater” uses to judge severity, service connection and compensation.

Widespread Use

The tool has grown fast. The VA used it on nearly 300,000 VA benefits decisions in 2023, and by April 2026 it was acting on claims more than 50,000 times a month. The VA plans to use it on 90% of claims by the end of 2027.

Meanwhile, the share of decisions that higher-level reviewers sent back for more evidence rose from about 23% in fiscal 2021 to 35% in fiscal 2026. Employees told Congress and veterans groups that the tool misses key details, misreads medical nuance, struggles with handwritten notes, and can catch “hypertension” while missing secondary conditions such as neuropathy.

The VA disputes the link. Press Secretary Quinn Slaven said there is “no evidence” the tool is causing errors and pointed to a fourfold rise in appeals since 2020. Margarita Devlin, the VA’s principal deputy undersecretary for benefits, told the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee in April 2026 that errors were decreasing. Veterans appeals attorney John Niles disagreed, calling expanded reliance on ADS a contributing cause of duty-to-assist errors.

The warning signs were there early. A September 2023 VA Inspector General review of the pilot found that automated summary sheets were inaccurate or inconsistent in 16 of 60 hypertension claims reviewed, or 27%.

One key caveat: these errors are only counted when a veteran appeals. Many never do, so the true number is likely higher.

Automation is moving into VA health care too

The claims tool is not the only place the VA is betting on software. The same push is happening inside VA hospitals and clinics, and watchdogs have documented real patient harm when the technology fails.

Artificial intelligence in clinical care. In a preliminary advisory reported in March 2026, the VA Inspector General warned that the Veterans Health Administration had no standardized process to manage patient-safety risks from generative AI chat tools, according to U.S. Medicine. Clinicians can use VA GPT and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat with patient information, and their output can end up in a veteran’s medical record. The OIG cautioned that these tools can produce inaccurate output, including omissions, that may affect diagnosis and treatment. The VA’s AI use cases grew from 128 in 2023 to 367 in 2025, with 253 of them in VHA. WMAR-2 News reported the same finding.

The new electronic health record. The VA’s Oracle Cerner record system has a longer track record, and it is not reassuring. Nextgov summarized the Inspector General’s findings:

  • At the Spokane, Washington, VA medical center, more than 11,000 clinical orders went to an “unknown queue,” and at least 149 veterans were directly harmed.
  • In Columbus, Ohio, a scheduling error meant a missed mental health appointment never triggered outreach. The veteran died of an accidental overdose about seven weeks later, and the OIG said the lack of contact may have contributed.
  • A coding error put roughly 250,000 veterans at risk of receiving medications they should not take.

The VA restarted its health record rollout in 2026, adding sites in Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky. Faster systems can help veterans. But when they fail, the people who pay are patients.

From paperwork errors to patient harm

A wrongly denied benefits claim is not, by itself, medical malpractice. Those errors are fixed through the VA appeals process, and veterans should work with an accredited representative or veterans benefits attorney to challenge them.

But the problems in both stories share a root: critical medical information gets missed, mislabeled or never acted on. In a benefits file, that means a denied claim. In a hospital, the same kind of failure can mean:

  • A missed or delayed diagnosis because an abnormal test result or imaging finding was never flagged or followed up.
  • A lost order for a referral, medication or lab, like the 11,000 orders routed to the “unknown queue” in Spokane.
  • No follow-up after a missed appointment, as in the Columbus case.
  • Medication errors from bad data moving between systems.
  • Clinical decisions based on an incomplete summary, whether written by a person or generated by an AI tool.

The law does not excuse a provider because software failed. VA doctors, nurses and staff still owe patients the standard of care, and the VA is responsible when its employees fall short of it. When negligent VA care causes injury or death, the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) is how veterans and their families hold the government accountable.

How a VA medical malpractice claim works under the FTCA

You cannot sue a VA doctor personally, and you cannot go straight to court. Under the FTCA, the claim is brought against the United States and must first go through the VA itself. The key rules:

  1. File an administrative claim first. Most claimants use Standard Form 95 (SF-95), though the VA says a written claim also works if it includes a detailed description, a “sum certain” (a specific dollar amount) and a signature.
  2. Meet the two-year deadline. The claim must be presented to the agency within two years after it accrues, under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b), as the Supreme Court explained in United States v. Kwai Fun Wong (2015). Miss it, and the claim can be barred forever.

Two more details matter:

  • Community care is different. The VA says the FTCA does not cover non-VA facilities, community care providers or independent contractors. Care you received through the Community Care program may need a different legal path.
  • Attorney fees are capped by law. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2678, fees are limited to 20% of an administrative settlement and 25% of a judgment or settlement after a lawsuit is filed.

Veterans may also be eligible for disability compensation for VA-caused injuries under 38 U.S.C. § 1151, a separate benefits claim that some attorneys describe as an alternative or companion to the FTCA. An experienced lawyer can explain how the two interact in your case.

How Rawls Law Group helps veterans harmed by VA care

As the VA leans harder on automation, veterans need advocates who know how to dig into the record and find what the system missed. Rawls Law Group focuses on medical malpractice claims against VA, military and federal health care providers, brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

  • Nationwide reach. The firm is based in Richmond, Virginia, and says it has helped veterans and military families in nearly all 50 states.
  • Built for FTCA cases. Its FTCA malpractice practice handles the administrative claim, the agency deadlines and the interplay between federal law and the law of the state where the care happened.
  • Expert review of the records. The firm reviews what happened and the medical records first, and many cases get independent expert review before it decides to proceed.
  • The cases that automation can make worse. Rawls handles VA hospital malpractice involving delayed and missed diagnoses, medication errors, surgical errors and failures to follow up on abnormal test results.
  • No fee unless you recover. Medical malpractice cases are handled on a contingency basis.

Past results include a $325,000 FTCA settlement for a failure to diagnose multiple myeloma and a $210,000 settlement for a veteran whose prostate cancer went undiagnosed for more than a year at the Palo Alto VA Medical Center. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

If you or a loved one was harmed by VA medical care, the two-year clock may already be running. Contact Rawls Law Group or call 804-344-0038 for a free case review.

This post is for general information and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

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