The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) inspector general estimates that more than 300,000 former troops died while waiting for health care, but serious issues with record-keeping make it virtually impossible to determine exactly how many veterans are seeking care from the VA.

In a report issued on Sept. 2, the department's investigative unit paints a bleak picture of the VA's "data limitations," supporting that last year's reports that many veterans died as their applications got stuck in a system the agency has struggled to overhaul. Some applications go back nearly two decades, the inspector general noted.

"Enrollment program data were generally unreliable for monitoring, reporting on the status of health care enrollments, and making decisions regarding overall processing timeliness," acting Inspector General Linda Halliday noted in the document's executive summary.

"As of September 2014, more than 307,000 pending (Enrollment System) records, or about 35 percent of all pending records, were for individuals reported as deceased by the Social Security Administration."

Halliday recommended a total overhaul of their record-keeping system that could take years, Stars and Stripes summarized. Scott Davis, a program specialist at the VA enrollment center in Atlanta, said the IG's analysis marked "a step in the right direction" that is likely to "force the VA to change their culture."

Upon the release of the report, Walinda West, a spokeswoman for the Department of Veterans Affairs, reiterated that the agency has publicly acknowledged that its enrollment process is confusing and that the enrollment system, data integrity and quality "are in need of significant improvement."

But the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson and Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal, slammed the "deficient oversight by the VA central office" in Washington, which they alleged led to the "significant failure" at the Health Eligibility Center, which processes the applications.

"We urge the VA to implement the inspector general's recommendations quickly to improve record keeping at the VA and ensure that this level of blatant mismanagement does not happen again," the lawmakers insisted.