The U.S. Coast Guard has fallen short of its goals for timely evaluations of injured and ill service members and lacks key tools to track the performance of its disability evaluation system, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
The disability evaluation system (DES) determines whether members are medically fit for duty and whether they qualify for disability benefits. The service has been shifting to an integrated DES that combines its legacy process with the Department of Veterans Affairs’ evaluation system.
Coast Guard officials said all sites had completed the transition as of September 2025.
GAO reviewed the transition and found ongoing delays. Less than half of legacy DES cases closed from October 2022 through May 2025 were completed within the service’s 270-day goal. For the integrated DES, more than half of cases – 15 of 23 – closed from August 2024 through April 2025 met the current 265-day goal.
The Coast Guard plans to adopt the Defense Department’s – rebranded as the War Department by the Trump administration – 180-day target for integrated cases.
Officials told GAO they face hurdles in meeting those timelines, including staffing shortages, difficulty obtaining complete medical records, and increases in rebuttals and appeals. They said they are training clinic staff and studying trends in those challenges.
GAO acknowledged that the Coast Guard has taken some steps to monitor both DES processes but has not fully applied leading program-management practices.
According to the report, the service relies on informal monitoring, such as weekly staff discussions, and lacks a balanced set of performance goals that includes measures of decision accuracy. The Coast Guard also does not have a plan to track progress toward DES goals or identify risks.
Applying leading practices, GAO said, could help focus resources, improve performance, and reduce delays for members seeking benefits.
GAO recommended that the Coast Guard establish performance goals, create and implement a monitoring plan, evaluate results, and take corrective action.
The Department of Homeland Security agreed with the recommendations and outlined current and planned steps, noting some actions depend on available funding.