Jim,
Love the new site. Have talked with you on several occasions over the years. To the point, wondering if you have any advice to help get my "new" claims to a decision stage. I have appeals that are over 7 years old and of course nothing will be done with them until the new claims (which date back to July 2009) are finished.
I know that the RO is very busy, and I fully expected them to take a year to 18 months, but the stress of my families' financial situation (we narrowly avoided foreclosure) and not knowing, is getting to me. I suffer from major depression and my private physician, as well as my VA doctor believe that it has been caused by my overall 20 years of attempting to gain my benefits. The RO even sent me a letter recommending that I apply for service connection for depression on those grounds.
However, I do not wish to "muddy the waters" any more, or place more burden upon the VA, as I know that there are many veterans worse off than I who are in need. I am very tired of this fight and want it to end, rather than taking more anti depressants. I have not been able to work for 9 years, btw.
I am currently rated at 50%. These new claims are for peripheral neuropathy due to exposure to chemicals/neurotoxins in service..(not agent orange), and cerebral spine/neck and head injuries, (sustained when another airman dropped a 50 lb. piece of metal off the back of a dump truck onto my head. This is documented in my SMRs.) The rating official who was working these claims, requested new exams to be performed (neuro and orthopedic) They were completed in October 2010. I have still not heard anything.
Thank you for your past assistance and any suggestions or assistance you can provide me. Sincerest apologies for being so long winded.
Reply:
Your message wasn't at all too long. In terms of what I receive here each day, it was brief.
Unfortunately, I have little or nothing to offer you. The fact is, and I teach this to all who will listen, that once a claim or many claims reaches the point where yours are, it is often a nearly impossible task to set things straight again.
This is usually able to be traced back to the beginning or shortly after the beginning of the first claim(s). I often see a trail that shows that the first steps were not well executed in some way. Often enough the claim wasn't clear; "I want a claim because I was hurt" rather than the clearer, "I am seeking 30% disability compensation for the event (described here) that occurred on 02/14/1978."
I don't know any details of your claim but quite often something has caused it to bog down early on. Then the veteran may go from one advocate to another advocate to try to fix things. Along the way newer claims are made and older claims may be seen by VA as blending in with the newer claims.
I speak with vets who proudly tell me they have 5, 10 or as many as 20 or more claims processing and in the same breath they ask me why their claims don't seem to ever go anywhere?
Complex claims sometimes are deferred because of any number of factors, some human and some procedural. "Raters", the experts who resolve your claim and issue a decision, work on a quota. While a claim may be "weighted" the rater still has to make a choice in his or her ability to clear 4 or 5 claims in a day or work on yours for 2 days. Once your folder is opened, if there is any data missing for any claim you've made over the years, your folder can be sent back to the previous level with orders for those people to retrieve the information that the rater needs to adjudicate your claim.
This can set up an endless loop of back and forth processing of your claim(s) where your folder is always at the end of a very long line. The object lesson here is that keeping claims to the very minimum and not interfering with the process by adding new claims before old claims are resolved is a primary goal.
Procedural issues often cause some claims to be delayed. A good example that is currently ongoing is that of the Nehmer class claims. VA is under some intense orders by federal courts to resolve Nehmer class claims by court imposed deadlines. In many Regional Offices today, routine claims are being sidelined as Nehmer class claims come forward and are assigned as priority #1. Another good example is that of the Blue Water Navy veteran claimants who waited for years as their claims went through a bumpy road in the courts. Eventually all those claims were denied based on court decisions.
There is no way to "speed up" the process. VA does not (or very rarely) respond to the financial plight of the veteran. If we accept that there are over 800,000 claims in process today that are backlogged and long overdue to be timely adjudicated, every one of those claimants will have a story of financial ruin to tell. The backlog of claims is causing a crushing burden of economic problems for deserving veterans who need help.
The majority of all disability compensation claims will eventually be adjudicated in favor of the claimant. While the claimant waits there will be divorces, bankruptcies, auto repossessions, foreclosures and suicides. The retroactive benefit award is often a whopper that runs into tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars and all too often, the damage done is irreparable. You can't repair a divorce that happened in the midst of a family falling apart arguing about finances.
VA can't respond to pleas of financial troubles because there is no way to know if moving your claim ahead will slow down the others who actually need the help more urgently than you.
I usually recommend that at the point of your claim that the veteran not do anything else at all. Stop writing letters, don't call the toll free number, leave your Congressperson alone and don't begin any inquiries. Be silent for a year. This gives your claims file the opportunity to float up and find its way to the desk of someone who may notice that there has been no new activity and then, with luck, that individual will try to sort it all out.
For more about how the process really works, click http://www.vawatchdogtoday.org/Your_Q___A.html