The Department of Veterans Affairs has mistakenly declared thousands of veterans to be deceased and canceled their benefits over the past five years, a new snafu to emerge at the embattled department.

The VA has made the error more than 4,000 times over a half-decade because of employee mistakes or erroneous cross-checking of data by the department’s computers, among other reasons, according to correspondence between the VA and the office of Rep. David Jolly (R., Fla.) reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The VA has changed its procedures to address the issue, but it isn’t yet clear whether the new system is working.

“Although these types of cases represent a small number of beneficiaries in comparison to the millions of transactions completed each year in our administration of benefits, we sincerely regret the inconvenience caused by such errors and work to restore benefits as quickly as possible after any such error is brought to our attention,” a VA spokesman said in a statement Tuesday.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the latest data represented an increase in the rate of the errors or what prompted the VA to take action to address the problem.

For veterans, the mistake can be devastating, as benefits checks can suddenly stop showing up.

“Generally, I just don’t think people understand how bad it could be. It could be one day you’ve got a house, and the next you don’t,” said Navy veteran Michael Rieker of Dunedin, Fla., whose benefits were cut off last year. He was able to have his benefits restored initially, but a few months later, he was again cut off, and he had to go through the restoration process a second time.

Mr. Rieker, 69 years old, contacted Rep. Jolly, his congressman, and was able to prove to the VA that he was still alive; the agency then resumed his monthly benefits payments.

“Mistaken deaths by the VA have been a widespread problem impacting thousands of veterans across the country,” Mr. Jolly said in a statement.

Every year, about 400,000 veterans or others receiving benefits from the VA die and their awards are canceled by the department, according to department statistics. Of the roughly 2 million veterans declared deceased in the past five years, 4,201 cases involved incorrect declarations which the VA eventually corrected before resuming payments to the still-living beneficiary.

The VA notes that such errors make up less than 1% of all benefits terminations each year and that the accuracy rate of such terminations because of death is 99.83%, according to the department’s most recent figures. The department doesn't keep records of the causes behind such errors.

A clerical error led to the first instance of Mr. Rieker’s canceled benefits after a VA employee identified him as Michael G. Rieker—though his middle initial is “C”—and declared him dead in the system, according to a department letter sent in December.

Under the system that led to Mr. Rieker’s benefits cancellation, the VA’s system automatically cross-checked the name and Social Security number with the Social Security Administration’s so-called Death Master File, a system established to prevent such errors and to ensure deceased people are removed from the benefit-distribution list.

That system was created, in part, in response to another problem at the department: payments that continue to dead people.

Over the past decade, the VA has worked to crack down on fraud, using what’s called the death match program to prevent people from cashing benefits checks sent to deceased veterans. In 2010, the VA’s inspector general said the program had led to 382 arrests and recovery of $40 million in fraudulent payments.

Under a new system, instituted late last year, the VA sends a letter to the beneficiary believed to have died and waits 30 days for a response before terminating the benefits and declaring the person dead.

The department doesn't have statistics available on the new system and if it has reduced such errors.

Difficulty keeping track of veteran deaths poses other problems. In September 2015 the VA’s Office of Inspector General issued a report noting that about 35% of the department’s approximately 870,000 pending applications for enrollment into the VA health-care system as of September 2014 were for people reported as dead by the Social Security Administration.

The report notes that most of the pending records are likely outdated, though the record system makes it unclear. Such a convoluted system helps “create unnecessary difficulty and confusion in identifying and assisting veterans with the most urgent need for health-care enrollment,” the report said.

In March, the enrollment system updated more than 130,000 dates of death in conjunction with Social Security’s official rolls to cut back on pending applications.

Despite being declared dead twice by the VA—the second time was merely because the initial instance hadn’t been fully fixed by the VA—Mr. Rieker had good things to say about the agency.

“Every time I call they have been responsive,” said the veteran who was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam. “Personally I believe they are just inundated; they are so overstacked with things to do, they can’t keep up.”

The former boat crewman became well-known locally for a few days, thanks to television and newspaper coverage the first time around.

“I walked into the sandwich shop, and they were like, ‘Hey, it’s the dead guy!’” Mr. Rieker said.

Write to Ben Kesling at benjamin.kesling@wsj.com

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The 10 are among thousands of patients who have been warned to get blood tests since being treated at VA facilities in Murfreesboro, Tenn., Miami and Augusta, Ga. All three sites failed to properly sterilize equipment between treatments.

VA spokeswoman Katie Roberts said Friday that four Tennessee patients have tested positive for hepatitis B. Six have tested positive for hepatitis C, a potentially life-threatening form of the viral infection that can cause permanent liver damage.

She says the VA will make sure they get treatment even though it's not known if the infections came from colonoscopies at its facilities.

The VA recently warned some veterans who had colonoscopies as far back as five years ago at those hospitals that they may have been exposed to the body fluids of other patients and should undergo tests to make sure they haven't contracted serious illnesses.

"What if you had to worry about giving your wife AIDS?" said Wayne Craig, a 52-year-old U.S. Navy veteran who lives in Elora and had a colonoscopy at the VA's Alvin C. York Medical Center in Murfreesboro, near Nashville, about five years ago. "Why haven't I been notified within five years?"

The review of all VA medical centers and outpatient clinics followed reports in February that the department discovered "improperly reprocessed" endoscopic equipment used for colonoscopies in Murfreesboro and ear, nose and throat exams in Augusta, Ga.

Veteran Gary Simpson, 57, of Spring City had a colonoscopy at the Murfreesboro clinic in 2007. He said his blood has tested negative for HIV and hepatitis, but he's still worried because a nurse told him some diseases don't show up for seven years.

"He talks about it every day," said his wife, Janice. "It has really messed with him a lot. It is just too disturbing."

Nashville lawyer Mike Sheppard said his firm is preparing to file claims on behalf of up to 15 colonoscopy patients, including several who have since tested positive for hepatitis B. He said an elderly man who had cancer when he had a colonoscopy died shortly afterward.

"We are investigating the death," Sheppard said.

According to a VA e-mail, only about half of the Murfreesboro and Augusta patients notified by letter of a mistake that exposed them to "potentially infectious fluids" have requested appointments for follow-up blood tests offered by the department.

In February, the VA said it sent letters offering the tests to about 6,400 patients who had colonoscopies between April 23, 2003, and Dec. 1, 2008, at Murfreesboro and to about 1,800 patients treated over 11 months last year at Augusta.

The VA has now sent letters advising 3,260 patients who had colonoscopies between May 2004 and March 12 at the Miami Veterans Affairs Healthcare System that they also should get tests for HIV, hepatitis and other infectious diseases.

That revelation prompted two Florida lawmakers to demand an investigation by the VA Office of Inspector General.

Dr. Mark Rupp, president of the Society of Health Care Epidemiology of America, said the risk of infection following routine endoscopic procedures is 1 in every 1 million to 2 million procedures.

Rupp, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said that "tracking is very difficult" and that hospitals are not required to report mistakes that expose patients to infectious diseases.

"The people in the hospitals are encouraged to report," Rupp said. "If there is any kind of outbreak usually the Public Health Service is notified."

Janice Simpson said an employee in U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp's office in Chattanooga told her that the blood test notices sent to colonoscopy patients of the Murfreesboro clinic were timed to the date of a procedure on a patient with AIDS. A spokeswoman for Wamp said Simpson was mistaken.

The VA did say in an March 19 e-mail to AP that at the VA's Murfreesboro colonoscopy facility "one of the tubes used for irrigation during the procedure had an incorrect valve." The statement also said "tubing attached to the scope was processed at the end of each day instead of between each patient as required by the manufacturer's instructions."

The VA letter to Craig said he "could have been exposed to body fluids from a previous patient." Craig said his follow-up test did not show any infection.

He said he thinks the VA was saving money by not cleaning the tubing between its use on each patient.

"What if this was a public hospital?" said Craig, who has six grandchildren. "There's no reason in the world a veteran can't file a suit against a veteran hospital the same as a public hospital. This is veterans you are talking about."

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