Scam or lifeline? Nevada veterans split over paying for help securing VA benefits

Proposal in Congress aims to ban predatory tactics in VA benefit assistance

Jonathan Bey reviews disability benefit paperwork at his home in Gainesville, Fla., on Oct. 16, 2017, more than three decades after first filing his claim. Stories like his are at the center of a congressional debate over whether veterans should be able to pay private companies to navigate a system many find too complicated to handle alone. Photo by: Eve Edelheit / The New York Times file (2017)

By Ava Chatlosh (contact), Tuesday, July 28, 2026 | 2 a.m.

Editor’s note: Este artículo está traducido al español.

Roger Loesch spent eight years fighting the Department of Veterans Affairs for benefits he believed he had already earned. It took an unaccredited company two months to finish the job — and charge him for it.

That’s the trade-off at the center of a growing fight that has reached Congress.

In June, Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., signed on as a cosponsor of the SAFEGUARD Veterans Act, which calls for reinstating criminal penalties against unaccredited companies that charge unauthorized fees and aims to ban predatory tactics in VA benefit assistance. The bill has companion legislation in the U.S. House.

But for veterans like Loesch, who watched the official system fail him for nearly a decade, the choice isn’t between a scam and a safety net — it’s between paying and waiting.

Vegas-based company Veteran Benefits Guide Photo by: Courtesy

He received his benefits with the help of Veteran Benefits Guide (VBG), a third-party service based in Las Vegas.

“There was no pressure for me to use their service. They were definitely not as aggressive as some of the other groups that I have heard about and did not charge crazy fees,” Loesch said.

Veterans can begin the process to claim their VA benefits up to 180 days before leaving the military, though most wait until after they’re discharged.

They can file with the help of a Veterans Service Organization or an accredited lawyer. Veterans Service Organization, or VSO, refers to groups or trained individuals like the American Legion that help military veterans at no charge.

The average claim took 77.7 days to process, according to the VA.

But a partial or full denial by the VA sends the veteran back into the system — filing a supplemental claim, requesting a higher-level review or launching an appeal, any of which can add months or years to the process.

Claims get denied for many reasons, said Richard Keirn, senior service officer for American Legion Post 40. A veteran who was treated at a civilian hospital, for instance, could be denied for lack of medical evidence if that hospital’s documentation wasn’t included with the claim, Keirn said.

Loesch knows the pattern firsthand.

His initial claim was approved at 90%, which meant the VA determined that his service-connected conditions substantially affected his daily life and ability to work, and it entitled him to healthcare and substantial tax-free monthly compensation.

But the remaining 10%, which he said unlocks the broadest range of benefits, was denied. He spent the next eight years trying, and failing, to get fully approved. That failure is what eventually led him to VBG.

“What worked for me might not work for others, but I know there needs to be a choice for veterans to make sure there is not a single point of failure,” Loesch said.

Keirn attributed the lengthy wait times to a lack of staff within the VA.

“Everybody has a lack of people,” he said, noting the VA also deals with processing millions of claims.

When Loesch left the Air Force in 2012, he was part of a large wave of troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to a VA performance report, the agency received 1,080,342 disability claims in the first nine months of fiscal year 2012 alone — a number that has only grown since. In fiscal year 2025, the VA processed what it said was a record of more than 3 million disability compensation and pension claims.

Loesch did not disclose how much he paid for VBG’s services, only that he considered it a reasonable amount. VBG says its fees are based on several factors but generally amount to five times a veteran’s monthly benefit increase, capped voluntarily at $12,500.

So if a veteran’s monthly benefit rises by $500, the fee would be $2,500 — equivalent to the veteran’s first five months of that increase. Those fees are agreed upon up front and charged only if the benefit increases, which is why Loesch doesn’t consider VBG a claim shark.

“I don’t see VBG as a claim shark because of what they have done for me, and I know that there are other companies out there that charge outrageous amounts to help veterans,” Loesch said.

By law, going through a Veterans Service Organization like the American Legion comes at no charge to a veteran, and VSOs have better, secure, authorized access to the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS) — the VA’s internal digital platform.

That’s not true for third-party companies.

Accredited lawyers can charge fees for appeals — though federal law bars them from charging for initial claims — but those fees are capped and must be documented and approved by the VA.

They typically run around 20% of backpay benefits, rising to as much as 33.3% in special cases.

Sen. Jacky Rosen, center, D-Nev., speaks during a news event at the Las Vegas Metro Police Department Air Support Hangar at the North Las Vegas Airport Tuesday, July 7, 2026. Photo by: Steve Marcus

Rosen, in a news release last month announcing her co-sponsorship, said, “Our veterans deserve to be protected from criminals seeking to prey on their benefits. The bipartisan legislation I’m joining will help safeguard veterans’ benefits and protect them from abuse.”

Turning to a third party to save time may be becoming less necessary.

The 2017 Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act sped up the claims process and helped clear a backlog at the VA.

It has now dropped below 70,000 claims for the first time since 2020, according to the VA — even as the 2022 PACT Act, which expanded eligibility to more veterans, has pushed more claims through the system than ever.

Still, rather than eliminating third-party organizations, as the SAFEGUARD Act proposes, VBG spokesperson Patrick Holmes recommends more targeted legislation: fee limits, transparency requirements, data protection standards, clear disclosure of free resources and penalties for fraud.

“That framework punishes the bad actors without stripping veterans of their right to choose the support that works best for them,” Holmes wrote in an email to the Sun.

Eleven states, including Alabama, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia, have included these types of standards into legislation, according to Holmes.

“Our concern with the SAFEGUARD Act as written is that it doesn’t distinguish between bad actors and ethical providers. It targets the industry as a whole instead of the fraudulent or deceptive practices that are the actual problem,” Holmes wrote.

Keirn says any organization that charges veterans fees for their benefits shouldn’t exist.

“I think we have to tie them all up and put them in jail,” Keirn said. “To charge a veteran for something that’s rightfully his, that’s wrong.”

That feeling isn’t shared by all veterans, officials with VBG say.

The organization commissioned a Harris Poll survey of 2,000 veterans to gauge whether they want the option to use third parties. The poll, conducted in late 2025 with results released July 15, found that 94% of respondents said veterans should be free to work with a private partner “if it helps them secure the benefits they deserve.”

The poll also points to a system many veterans find confusing and slow — an argument, VBG says, for keeping third parties around. Eighty-four percent of veterans said they needed help making sense of the benefits process, calling it too complicated to navigate alone.

Forty-three percent reported waiting more than six months for their benefits, and 23% waited more than a year.

Keirn agrees the process is complicated, but he wouldn’t recommend veterans handle their own claims. He also doesn’t agree with the survey results.

“A person probably should never do his own, because he looks at it differently than a VSO would look at it and sometimes it gets declined,” Keirn said.

He offers his services for free in Henderson, where he says there’s plenty of staff to assist. Nevada also has more than 50 VA-accredited representatives and nine Department of Veterans Affairs offices statewide. Funding for VSOs to offer their services to veterans comes from a mix of nonprofit revenue, grants and state and local governments.

Both the Senate and House versions of the SAFEGUARD Veterans Act have been referred to committees for consideration.

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