WorkAHolic

Hello Mike S. I was once a Veterans Service Representative (or VSR) once upon a time, but I left the VA because... well.....let's just say management has no idea how to treat their employees. I've often thought that it is as bad working for the VA as it is trying to file a claim with the organization. But I still have friends that work there and they keep me up to date on the new things happening (or supposedly going to happen in the future). Anyway....on to your question/comment. E-benefits just recently updated their system. Now you have something like 8 steps in the claims development cycle, where as under the old e-benefits system, you only had 4. When you (the veteran/claimant) tell VA that you received treatment at a VA Hospital or Outpatient Clinic, by law, VA has to obtain those records, or keep trying until they get a negative response (such as they were somehow lost or are unavailable). A few years ago, we (VSRs) had to actually print out all records from the VA treatment center(s) noting your condition(s). That sounds easy for one or two conditions with a few years of treatment. However, we have a lot veterans who use nothing but the VA for their healthcare needs and would have 20 or more conditions treated at VA and claimed for VA compensation claims. As you can imagine, that creates a lot of paperwork. Some days, I would sit and do nothing else but print medical records from our electronic system. Now the VA is trying to move into the paperless era, even though the organization really isn't prepared to do so. So what they have to do now is copy your treatment records from one electronic system and paste it into a document into another electronic system (i.e. Virtual VA). I think that sometime in the future, Virtual VA will be the virtual claim for all veterans as you can electronically store service records, DD214s, Rating Decisions, and treatment records all on one database, but don't take my word on that just yet. It's is still in the beta process. As for your C&P exam situation, that depends. I agree with T8r that a medical opinion may have been needed, but it also could have been something scheduled in error. If you recently had a VA exam (within the past few months), the VSR may have forgotten to send the c-file, or the exam itself may have been inadequate to make a rating decision off of. VA doctors get paid for C&P exams whether they're right or wrong, however, they get paid on a hourly basis. If they are only paid for two hours to give you a VA Exam and your exam starts to go over, they don't get paid for that extra time,which is why sometimes they will rush the exam to finish on time. Also, they don't get paid when veterans fail to show up to a scheduled C&P appointment, which is why they ask that you please be on time. I wouldn't worry about it though. VA will notify you if you need to make it to another exam. The benefit to your claim status being in the stage of "Preparation for Decision" is that it should be in a Rater's hands relatively soon, as I have heard word that all VA Regional Offices are scrabbling to find claims to make a decision on and meet monthly quotas. The bad news is that you are just stuck waiting because it is unknown how long that will exactly take. It may take less than 5 days or it may take more than 30. E-benefits will not provide you with this information because the system doesn't know. It can give you a national average waiting time, but that may not be the average for your particular state's Regional Office. My advice to you would be that if it takes over 30 days and your claim hasn't moved to the next phase of "Pending Decision Approval", try and contact your Power of Attorney (POA) to find out why your state's Regional Office has not made a decision yet, and if that doesn't work, use an IRIS inquiry at www.iris.va.gov and click on the link "Ask a Question" and submit you question concerning your claim status there. You are supposed to receive an answer from the VA within 5 business days of submitting an IRIS request and best of all, it's in writing. It may even help to move your case into a rater's hands the day VA receives your inquiry. When your claim moves to the "Preparation for Notification" phase, that will even better news to you because the VA has made a decision on your claim and is getting ready to mail it to you. It should only take 3.5 days to get the decision from a rater to a VSR to type of the notification letter and mail the decision to you because if it takes longer, then the station can be written up for holding on to your decision to long. Hope this helps... WorkAHolic

Sorry for the late reply, but I just recently celebrated a birthday and as the nickname says, I am a "workaholic." Sleep apnea is a horse of another color. I can tell you what I've seen at my regional office relating to the subject, but the majority of the time, you are going to need a medical opinion to link it to your military service (if there is no record of sleep problems or a diagnosis in service). You can try and link it secondary to taking medicine prescribed for a service connected condition (for example, I have seen tinnitus secondary service connected for hydrocodone usage for a service connected back condition. There have been studies that link hydrocodone(due to side affects) and tinnitus); however, even with all this being true, it ultimately comes down to the VA examiner you have and if in his/her opinion that condition is caused by medicine usage for a service connected condition. And, of course, it all depends on the luck of the draw with who you get as your VA Examiner, as you may already know. With that being said, let me check with a friend of mine at the VA Regional Office near me and I will get back with you. I will tell you that VA has proposed (but not fully implemented) where you will be able to go to your private doctor with a VA Exam worksheet and have him/her give you the medical opinion. Although this seems like a good idea, unfortunately, if you live in my state, you have to "doctor hop" to find a doctor who would even perform the exam because most doctors here wouldn't want to get involved because of possible legal issues. Let's not even mention the medical insurance part of it. Check back with me soon.

What probably happened when you sent in your new claim for compensation, somewhere in your statement you either said something about presently not working (or not being able to work) or VA read your statement and inferred from your hardship that you were not working and "inferred" a claim for IU. As a former VSR, I was told to look for this because I would have an error called on me if it slipped by. A majority of the time, veterans are not really claiming "IU" per say; however, VA does this to catch the small percentage of veterans that do not know about this benefit. As far as IU goes, all you really have to do is call the 1-800 number, or use IRIS at iris.va.gov (and click on ask a question), or even your POA (however, I believe the first two options are a little quicker in my opinion), and state that you are not filing a claim for Individual Unplayability, if that is what you choose to do. Please keep in mind that I don't know your specific situation, so I do not know if you would qualify for IU, but every time a claim for VA benefits is received after a claim is initially filed, that just pushes you back that much further because the VCAA time requirements start over for that specific claim. Additioanlly, you can waive your 30 day VCAA requirement (through the three options mentioned earlier) to help speed up the time it takes to make a decision on your claim, but make dang sure that you have turned in all evidence (via certified mail in this case) in support of your claim, and please ask your VSO if there is anything in your VCAA letter that you don't understand before you do this. Hope this helps. Good luck with your claim!