Willy P

2016- Initial Compensation Claim (denied) Dec 2019- Supplemental Claim adding IMO- Approved February 2020- Higher Level Review for effective date- Approved. I received the letter on Friday. The senior rater claimed that the VA made a CUE in the 2016 decision. This is exactly what I was hoping for.

Update 7/8. Money in the bank! Success! Looks like the back pay is all the way back to the time I left active duty.

Update 7/8. Money is in the bank! Success!

Update 7/3. It's official- the HLR on VA.gov shows up as closed and my ebenefits effective date on the disability tab goes back to the day after discharge. Success! Now my only question- it looks like when I try to generate a letter, it keeps showing an effective date of December 1, 2019. Is this just because that is when the 50% monthly compensation rate was last updated, or is there a mistake?

Update 7/3. It's official- the HLR on VA.gov shows up as closed and my ebenefits effective date on the disability tab goes back to the day after discharge. Success! Now my only question- it looks like when I try to generate a letter, it keeps showing an effective date of December 1, 2019. Is this just because that is when the 50% monthly compensation rate was last updated, or is there a mistake?

Right, my original intent was to use CUE as a last resort and simply file a HLR to get them to look at the effective date. Basically I only wrote a sentence or two on the HLR form talking about my situation. In my case it worked out favorably, but I think I got lucky with my reviewer to be honest. I thought that benefit of doubt should definitely apply, but since you can't argue that in CUE maybe the VA could CUE itself, if that makes sense...

Well I have an interesting update now... Yesterday 6/27 I received my informal phone conference that I requested for the HLR. The senior rater Agreed with my statement in the HLR that the 2016 denial was in fact a mistake. He made two points: 1) The denial letter I received stated that there was no evidence in service. This is incorrect because I did in fact complain of sleep problems and snoring during active duty. 2) The rater should not have overruled the VA examiner. This is exactly what I was hoping for- the senior reviewer went back and looked at all the details in the 2016 claim and found the error. I honestly thought I had little to no chance of getting this decision, but I'm glad I went this route. Great day yesterday!

Well I have an interesting update now... Yesterday 6/27 I received my informal phone conference that I requested for the HLR. The senior rater Agreed with my statement in the HLR that the 2016 denial was in fact a mistake. He made two points: 1) The denial letter I received stated that there was no evidence in service. This is incorrect because I did in fact complain of sleep problems and snoring during active duty. 2) The rater should not have overruled the VA examiner. This is exactly what I was hoping for- the senior reviewer went back and looked at all the details in the 2016 claim and found the error. I honestly thought I had little to no chance of getting this decision, but I'm glad I went this route. Great day yesterday!

This was at a VA facility, not even a contractor. I was amazed that I was still denied after that. But others pointed out that maybe the rationale wasn't quite right.

Thanks for the feedback Bronco. Just to be clear- I submitted the Supplemental after the 1 year appeal period (2016 denial and 2019 Supplemental claim). The HLR is basically just a hope that they recognize that the VA got it wrong in 2016- maybe by CUE'ing themselves? Do you think BVA would be effective still? I was thinking if HLR is denied, maybe I should jump to CUE...

Hey brother, HLR is still pending as of now, been going on 5 months. I'm not entirely confident, but I wanted to try HLR before submitting a CUE. I try to post all updates in my original thread so it may help someone out some day:

6/4 Update The HLR has sat with no updates since it first showed up in March. I figured this is pretty normal timeline (within 120 days) so no reason for alarm. Today, the va.gov site says that there is a new claim received. I have no idea what this means and of course details are lacking. Hopefully I'll get a letter in a few days or something. When I select the claim files tab, it shows what appears to be all of my claim documents previously submitted. Ebenefits has no updates.

Another Update. VA.gov site updated to show my HLR claim on Friday. I faxed it in February 19, so that's a little over 2 weeks to populate on the website. I requested a phone conference- I get a ton of robocalls, so it looks like I'll be answering a lot of junk until it's finally the VA that's reaching out. I'm keeping this going just to keep an accurate track of my claim progress, in case any one needs it someday...

I used Dr. Anaise. He reviewed my claim file and medical docs via email and agreed that he could help. After I paid him, I had the IMO in about a week. The IMO is what won my supplemental claim for sleep apnea, so I recommend contacting his office.

Another update. Based on some light reading I decided to use my HLR option instead of going after the CUE. I faxed the HLR request over a couple of days ago, and now it's just time to wait.