Razorback Greg

Willie, I went through the pre-va discharge claim process about two years ago. The best advice I could give you is that you need to take all of you military medical records and claim every item in your record that you have been seen for. You only list each item the first time you was seen for it, the VA will follow-up on every other time you was seen for that issue as long it is in your medical records. Some items I thought I would receive a rating for I did'nt and some that I did not expect a rating for I did. Eitherway, I think it's best to claim everything you can and at least get them to take a look at it. And yes now is the time to make sure anything that has not already been documented in your records to make sure that it gets in there BEFORE you are discharged. Hope this Helps! Greg

AGR, I'm not totally sure about the medical retirement part, but I had an AGR employee that got medically discharged with around 16yrs of active duty and she got a pretty large severence pay check (for her past active) duty but I think that was because the AF rated her under 30% disabled and they did not medical retire her.. Anyway you really need to be talking to the AF Personnel folks cause there is a medicial discharge AFI that covers all of the details about this subject and it can get complicated. Most average ANG personnelist probably don't know the answer off the top of their head but don't take "I don't know for an answer", make them do the research and show you in writing what you stand to get if anything. Call ARPC or AFPC if you have to yourself in order to find out the correct answers. Now don't get any of this process confused with your VA disability. After the AF is done with you then you can file a seperate VA Disablility claim and their rating systems has nothing to do with the AF rating system. The part you stated about not documenting your back problems in your medical records will not be a problem with your VA claim because it is documented now and your still on active duty. As long as it was not pre-existing prior to you going on active duty then it will defintely be considered service connected, plus you can claim any other conditions you may have been treated for while on active / AGR duty. Hope this help you some... Greg

Thanks guys/gals for all your replys. I "think" I undersand it now and I really appreciate your help! Go Hogs - Beat Bama! ;)

I've got a simular situation and your response has greatly helped me understand the process. However I have another question along these lines... I just retired on 1 May 07. My VA disability was approved at 70% in July with an effective date of 1 May 07 (my actual date of retirement). MyPay showed in July my VA waiver of $494.00 and CRDP amount of $737.07. On 1 Sep I received my 1st VA disability monthly amount of 1232.00 and on 4 Sep received my military retirement check minus the va waiver just as you refered to in your answer. My question is what about the amounts for May, Jun & July 07? Will I recieve anything for these months as back pay or do I just lose VA disability & CRDP for those months? I asked this quesiton on the VA web site and they refered my question to the Little Rock regional office and LR seems to be clueless on how this whole process works?