Jim,

I have been reading VAWatchdog for about three years. Following the principles you laid out, I was successful in my claims and am now TDUI P&T. It took sixteen months beginning to end. Not too bad considering the experience of other vets.

Your readers have sent you numerous examples of poor, or non-existent, service and treatment by theVA. It's seems to be the normal state of affairs. Maybe I was lucky but almost everything went right with my claims and I was helped on two occasions by VA personnel. Ya gotta give the devil his due. Sometimes the VA gets it right and that should be acknowledged.

In January 2011 I applied for benefits based on Agent Orange heart disease. I had a C&P exam six weeks later with a contract physicians assistant. She reviewed my private cardiologist records and commented that I had my ducks all in a row. She also noted that I was being treated for diabetes on her exam sheet. Within six months I received a 60% rating letter from the VA for heart disease and diabetes.

Included with the rating letter was information on how to apply for TDUI. I had mentioned to the physicians assistant that I had retired early because of an unusual form of peripheral neuropathy. I had not intended to make a claim on the peripheral neuropathy until my first claim was approved.

Two months later, after getting a letter from my neurologist, I applied for TDUI. I sent the information to the VA then waited. About three months later I received a VA letter denying my claim because I had not returned the requested documentation.

I thought to myself, here we go, I was running in to the infamous VA "delay and deny" machine. I didn't think it would do much good calling the VA but I was surprised. I talked to a VA representative, explained the situation, and asked if he could help. He did some checking and saw that the documentation the VA denied receiving was posted as received on some VA records site. He said he would get a message to the rating section to reconsider my claim and point out the documentation had been received. I had my doubts. I thought he was feeding me a bunch of bull just to get rid of me. Lo and behold, he did what he said he would. My claim was reconsidered and I was approved for TDUI.

Based on other vets comments on VA Watchdog, my case appears to be an exception. But, it shows that there are some good people working for the VA.

Reply:

Thanks for sharing.

You're correct. There are many good people working at VA. I respect and admire a lot of the people who I'm fortunate enough to talk with. They are as frustrated as we are. They want to be proud of their work and they want to be recognized as working for a great employer. That's not unusual. Most of us want to be able to get a pat on the back for a job well done.

Yes, on occasion, VA does a good job with a claim and they get it right the first time. For many years I've said that about 30% of all claims are processed correctly during the first attempt. It's unfortunate that the obverse of that is that 70% of all claims are failures and will have to be appealed. Of course, many veterans just give up at that point and never go into the appeals process.

I believe that is changing. Not the error rate but how veterans are learning about their rights to appeal. There are as many errors as ever before in how claims are adjudicated. Most errors are simple and shouldn't have happened. There are a lot of reasons behind the errors...a lack of skills, a lack of proper oversight and supervision,...the list goes on and on.

The big change is in how veterans are reacting these days. Rather than just throwing out any denial notices, veterans have learned that a denial is just a step in the process to be awarded the correct benefit. Todays veterans are pretty savvy and they don't simple walk away from a wrongful denial. They are appealing and more veterans than ever before recognize that they can use a veterans law attorney to manage their appeal.

Vets are also learning that to use an attorney doesn't really cost anything. Sure, the lawyer will make 20% of any retro pay you receive. But the math isn't hard to figure out. If you have an award worth $1000.00 coming to you and you're denied, you end up with $0.00. If you hire a lawyer and that claim is awarded, the lawyer takes 20% so you have $800.00. That's $800.00 more than you would have had if you had just dropped it so even then, you're ahead.

However...when the attorney accepts your claim and agrees to represent you, your case is about to get the most thorough review of all time. The attorney will use his/her skills and their team of professionals to review every word in your files. Often enough, they will discover other claims that you didn't even know you were eligible for.

Veterans law attorneys will dig out tiny bits of relevant evidence and use all that to hammer the VA into awarding you the benefits you deserve.

The bottom line is that rather than the $1000.00 you thought you deserved, the attorney may discover you deserved $10,000.00 and the lawyer will work very hard to see that you get exactly what you should.

Why would the lawyer do that? Because the lawyer will earn a higher fee. That's the name of the game for attorneys who work on a contingency fee. Oh sure, there are many lawyers who give freely of their time and they do "pro bono" cases and we admire and respect them for that. But lawyers have bills to pay too so they have to earn some money somewhere.

That 20% fee is a good investment for the veteran to see that his claim is properly adjudicated. Yes, you can use a veterans service officer for an appeal and it won't cost you a dime. But, as with most things in life, you get exactly what you pay for. If you use a free service, whether it's for a VA appeal or anything else, you lose the right to be surprised when the free service fails you.

The VA is full of promises and press releases telling us what a good job they're doing...they do enjoy applauding themselves when others won't do it for them.

I still believe in the old "trust but verify" philosophy. Veterans are going to have to be aware that in spite of all the flowery praise they give to themselves, the VA claims processing routine is badly broken. Your claim was an exception and shows that they can get it right on occasion. Until this happens 100% of the time, we won't be happy.