broncovet

This happened to me. It is one of the VA's dirty tricks, and is illegal. The Regulations state that a Veteran is entitled to a decision. This is a signal that the VA is declaring "war" on the Veteran....and they are showing their cards that the intend to stop at nothing to deny/delay you even violate the regulations hoping you wont notice. Ask them for a copy of the decision, explaining you did not get any decision. You have got to nail them. Document that they have 'dropped' your claim without a decision. It will come back to haunt them later. Do NOT show YOUR cards! And definately do not show your knowledge of the regulations. Send em 3 methods to document that your claim has been dropped. One, call the toll free number and write down time, date, what was said, who said it. Two, Send an Iris Email asking as to the status of your claim (the one that was dropped..remember, dont tell them too much). Keep that IRIS response. Keep an "ace in the hole"...shredded documents, especially if you have documention that you filed the claim. (It must have been lost, because you submitted a claim, and it is not pending, right?) Consider an attorny, or at least post details without your name. You may need to file a writ of mandamus, eventually.

Larry.. Yes, you do have way too much time on your hands. Lol. Our laws will only recognize ONE spouse per person at any given time. Period. You are either married to one person or you are not, and you cant be married to multiple people at one time and that is polygamy whether you are a mormon, a sun-worshiper, or Elvis Presley. Only one person can be your spouse at any given time, and if you say that you have multiple wives or husbands, you could be tried for polygamy. I think you can count on the VA only recognizing ONE spouse, and I dont even recommend you tell the VA about the other 3 spouses, if you have them. There is a legal principal that says that any contract has to have a "lawful purpose" or it cant be enforced. In other words if you agreed to sell someone 5 grams of cocaine each month at $100 per gram, the law would never enforce such a contract as it does not have a legal purpose. In the same way, the VA would not pay for 3 different spouses at the same time, and I dont think you could claim all 3 on your taxes either.

I agree with Larry..file a claim for each. Months ago I read about a case where the court basically scolded the VARO explaining that when a Veteran files a claim, he is seeking the maximum benefit allowed by law. The RO tries to slice it and dice it up into pieces: a hearing loss claim and a depression claim and an AO claim, etc. etc, but the court suggests simply that the Veteran is seeking benefits, and the RO has a "duty to assist" the Veteran and award him the maximum benefit allowed by law..if that is hearing loss, depression, and NSC pension, then that is what the Veteran is seeking. The VA is supposed to give a liberal interpretation to all the Veteran's filings, including informal claims, and to consider ALL the evidence, awarding the Veteran the maximum benefit allowable by law. The Va isnt doing that. Not at all.

I guess that means we would have to check every day because we never know when they may have scheduled an exam. I am not sure "how" we can check on it, tho. According to Jim Strickland, we should not call the toll free number or use the IRIS systems, as they are both unreliable. (I agree that both calling the 800 number or IRIS emails are not very accurate). Jim says we need to send a 21-4138 to the VARO. Has anyone EVER had the RO respond to a written question, much less respond before a scheduled C and P exam? I have not..they dont answer questions by mail, as far as I know, ever. I guess we can "hope" the VA mails our C and P notice to the right Veteran, hope that we get it on time, and hope the mailman gives it to us. I guess I am just not very happy that the VA is allowed to say they sent us notice of an exam, then if we dont get it, we are assumed to be a liar. However, if a Vetran says he mailed something to the RO, a Va employee can shred it, and they say they never got it. In either instance, the Veteran comes out on the short end of the stick. Its a double standard.

Recently, 18,000 pay statements were sent to the wrong address. Story here: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/01/mili...errors_011410w/ Also recently there has been a case where the court said that it was a "presumption of regularity" that once the VA claims they mailed the notice of the Veterans C and P exam, the Veteran was assumed to have received it, and the claim will be automatically denied because the Veteran failed to attend the C and P exam...no second chances, and no excuses that he didnt receive the notice. This case is here: http://www.vawatchdog.org/10/nf10/nfjan10/nf011610-1.htm I wonder if it was possible that the Veteran never received the notice. Worse, why is it that the VA's word is always taken over the Veteran, considering how many lies the VA has already been caught in?

Berta..I love it! This Veteran waited 64 years for the VA to 'process' his valid claim. This is the longest claim I have heard of..has anyone else known the VA to take longer? I can see it now. Well, Mr. Veteran sir, yes we are working on your claim and expect to have an answer within the next 50 years or so. Please be patient, or hurry up and die, so we dont have to pay this much retro.

Berta brings up a good point. The VA says "your records were lost in (the 1973 fire)"...isnt it amazing that a 1973 fire can burn up records which did not even exist in 1973? And the VA wonders why Veterans do not trust the VA? I dont know about you guys, but I grew up on a ranch. It was a small community, and your word meant something..at least until/unless you destroyed your reputation by being dishonest. If you were caught in a lie, everyone knew it, and you were blacklisted..people did not want to do business with you if you could not be trusted. Farmers/ranchers did not allow their daughters to date men/boys with poor reputations. So, my question is, of course, why does the VA repeatedly get away with lies? This employee should be disciplined..if he is not sure of his 'facts' he should not be reporting them to the Veteran as facts. Am I the only one who has noticed this? These employees...the ones that shredded our evidence in 41 seperate regional offices...isn't it amazing that not one manager knew about this widespread shredding? Where WERE those managers when this went on..in the Grand Caymen Islands sipping margarittas while they were being paid as 'working' at the VA? Did they never go to the mailroom or where documents were shredded to check on employees? If not, why not? Is the shredder bin 'off limits' to Va management personnel? Why is it that random conversations with VA employees are not recorded, for quality control, and to check honesty? Is the Va management so busy putting out fires that they dont have time to check on their employees they are supposed to be supervising to see if maybe they are "properly trained" to do things like being honest with Veterans? Does this take a rocket scientist to do unannounced spot checks on employee honesty or items in shredder bins? Or, does that employee 'have something on' Va management, so managers 'look the other way' when this stuff happens?

Probably the reason you cant find anything on "Ch. 35 Overpayments" is because they likely treat a "Ch. 35" overpayment the same as they do any other VA overpayment. I think if you got, say, that $3000 emergency payment while you were only owed, say$1000, then you would likely not get any money for the next two months if you were getting $1000 per month. That is, they 'reconcile' it. If you have gotten a letter that says you owe the VA money, and if you have a good reason, you can ask for a 'waiver' of repayment. I did this, and was granted the waiver..that means I did not have to pay the money back. Example: Veteran is on NSC pension, then gets married. Spouse has significant income making Veteran no longer eligible for NSC pension. Vet reports marriage and mentions spouse has significant income. It takes the VA two years to make these changes, and pays the Vet the NSC pension. Finally it gets changed, and the VA says the VEteran owes an overpayment. This overpayment was the result of the VA's slowness, and not any thing the Veteran did wrong. Also, the Veteran has applied for an increase, but has not gotten an answer for 4 years. The Vets waiver could be approved, but I still think even this overpayment would be deducted from a large retro.

For the Best information on Hep B and C claims, I recommend "Ask Nod"...he is an expert on winning Hep C claims at the VA. http://hcvets.com/AskNOD/index.html

Hoppy pointed out that the outcome of Workman's comp. claims is often determined by which doctor the claimant goes to. It is "hit or miss"...doctors aren't categorized in the phone book as claimant friendly. So, lawyers often do just that. If you hire a lawyer to seek workmans compensation, the lawyer often suggests you see Doctor .................. because he has had experience with that doc and knows that doc will be "claimant friendly". In a similar way, we need a "Veteran friendly" doctor list for Veterans, because, as Carlie, Berta, and others have pointed out, "Evidence wins claims". Knowing which doctor to see could easily be the difference between being awarded benefits, and homelessness. IMHO being awarded benefits can often mean the difference between homelessness or not. Maybe WE can actually help prevent Veteran homelessness by posting 2 lists of doctors: 1)Veteran Friendlies and 2) Homeless creating Docs. Further, I would like to see Veterans "switch" away from those Veteran unfriendly docs enough to either force that doc to become Veteran friendly, or to loose his job because no Veterans want to see him. What do you guys think?

Can you provide a link to this doctor, including his phone number and email address? It would seem like this would help Veterans who needed an IMO/IME. Gee, maybe we even need a "directory" of Veteran friendly docs where Veterans could choose which Veteran friendly doc they wanted based on location, docs specialty, cost, etc. Maybe also WE should have our blacklists...docs who showed Veterans they were "Veteran UNfriendly". If the VA has theirs blacklists, then we need ours, too. We all know just how important it is what the doctor (C and P) writes in his report as to whether or not the Veteran gets his benefits. We also know that some docs tend to write "Veteran Friendly" things in these reports, while other docs tend to write "Veteran UNfriendly" things in the report.

Wow, Berta I am not doubting you, but I really did think somewhere it says that a Veterans claim dies when he does. Is this just the VA wanting us to believe that so we dont "substitute"?

Pete Berta is right. You havent said anything offensive or in anger that I know of. You really don't need to do that because I usually do enough of that for both of us.

Carlie Try this link: http://veteranclaimresearch.blogspot.com/2...hinseki-no.html This would appear to me to be very good news for Veterans. IMHO, this case would appear to overturn this "deemed denial" business where the VA is allowed to simply "blow off" one or more of the Veterans issue and it is counted as denied without a decision. This previously "deemed denied" term, which I call "secretly denied" is no longer allowed, IMHO. The court says it this way: RO must notify the claimant in writing of decisions affecting the payment of benefits or granting relief. 38 C.F.R. § 3.103(f). Among other things, this notice must provide the reason for the decision, summarize the evidence considered, and inform the claimant of the right to appeal. Id. ======================================== We conclude that the Veterans Court misinterpreted 38 C.F.R. § 3.158 when it determined that Mr. Charles’ 1980 claim was finally denied. Abandonment of a non-final and non-appealable later claim cannot render final an unadjudicated earlier claim in which the agency failed to act.3 Neither 38 U.S.C. § 5108 nor 38 C.F.R. § 3.158 can be interpreted as requiring a veteran to submit new and material evidence in order to reopen a pending, unadjudicated claim.

I agree with Poolguy. I am all for "pushing the envelope" to maximize your benefits, but collecting an "annual salary" from one person while telling someone else you are totally disabled and can't work comes very close to fraud even tho I know many of us have "good days" and "bad days". An "annual salary" certainly implies that you are working full time for a year. IMHO there is a difference between accepting pay for helping your neighbor fixing his car or cutting his grass, but if you are going to work 5 days a week for 3 months or more while drawing IU, then you are "pushing an envelope" that will "push back". I like to do things that enable me to sleep well at night. And collecting an annual salary while collecting IU would definately be a source of worry, and I wouldnt do it. I think you could do yard sales during the summer, or even plow snow during the winter, but I would not touch a Full time job while getting IU with a ten foot pole regardless of the "annual salary" JMHO.

Congratulations!

Interesting James, and thank you. So, when we call the 800 number, does the customer representative have access to this "corporate" data base to answer our claims questions? Also, James, can you answer the question mentioned in an earlier post about archived (paper) files. That is, is the Veterans claim file kept together, or is the "old stuff" archived and stored in a seperate location? I got a copy of my C file, and it is missing about 1000 pages and I am trying to determine if maybe the other 1000 pages or so is "old stuff" that has been archived and was stored in another location.

We dont call it a "salary" but it depends on how many dependents you have. It starts at $2673 per month and the charts are here: http://www.vba.va.gov/bln/21/Rates/comp01.htm

Of course, VMO is right, and that is precisely why many Veterans are so upset. WE have a million Veterans backlog on claims, with zero backlog of VA executive bonus backlog. If I had my way, VA executives would wait ten years on their bonus check, while Veterans would get theirs is 2 weeks, instead of the other way around like it is now.

Hedgey... Yes, that is right. The VA has a "triple standard". 1. If you are a QTC "doc" that does C and P exams, the Veteran can be denied benefits with a PA or Nurse Practioner's exam. 2. However, if you are applying for benefits, its almost impossible to be approved based on a NP or PA..it has to be a MD. 3 Of course, if the VA cant afford docs, then PA's or NP's can treat Veterans. The VA always asks, "Whats in it for me? (The VA executive bonus system) " when setting their policies, never considering the needs of the Veteran.

Hedgey Dont overlook the VA. Beleive it or not there are docs at the VA who are "Veteran Friendly" that you dont have to pay for. There are two methods of finding one: 1. Talk to other Veterans at your VA and ask them if their doc is Veteran friendly and who he or she is. 2. Fill out a form to "change" your doctor, since it sounds like the one you had was not "Veteran friendly". If so, get rid of him/her. Docs dont like to be "changed" especially if you have a good reason. I filled out a form to change my prime care doc. (Other Vets who were familiar with this doc agreed with me) This doc called me and asked me why I wanted to change. I told her exactly how it is and why I was changing. She pretty much begged me to keep her, promising she would do better. I said ok, what do I have to do to keep you, now that I have applied for a change. She said all I have to do is to call and make another appointment. I did. Now, this formely Veteran unfriendly doc is now Veteran friendly, at least to me.

Once again Veterans documents were in the shredder bin at Roanoke. This is AFTER fast letter 08-41 expired so that Veteran victims have no recourse against the VA. No "special handling" will be allowed as this Veteran's documents were shredded outside of the Apr 07-Oct 08 limiting dates the fast letter specifies. The VAOIG did not even put this incident in the highlights of the report, but rather buried it in the body where it would not be noticed except by those who read the whole report. Obviously, whether or not Veterans claims are shredded is not important enough to include it in the highlights of the inspection, and the VAOIG made no references that anything was to be done about it, except to blame a "careless employee". (Gee, I wonder who hired 'careless employees'?) I thought the VA had "put controls into place" to prevent future shredding incidents. These were either not in place in Roanoke, or they were ineffective at preventing shredding from continuing. You have to read the VAOIG's report, Larry Scott, also, did not even mention the shredding. http://www.vawatchdog.org/10/nf10/nfjan10/nf011510-4.htm The VA website lists what the VA is doing to prevent shredding...it did not work. http://www.vba.va.gov/vba/specialprocedures_qa.asp

Basser is right. Vets are already often paranoid about the VA by the time they finally get their benefits. Chances are the VA has lost several parts of their file, at a minimum, delayed the claim for years, and, generally put the Vet through the ringer. I have even heard some Vets say they just aren't going to apply for an increase or EED just because it is not worth the hassel, and it is a BIG BIG hassel to get any type of VA benefits, as a Veteran must jump through all the VA hoops, and avoid the VA landmines before they get any benefits. So the VA makes us paranoid..its all part of the plan. They want us to say, "Gee, I deserve more than 30%, but I could loose my 30% and then what would I do? So I will just skip the appeal." In this case, the VA counts the claim "correct" because it was not appealed. "If in doubt, appeal"

Ok. Here is why I said this. Vets apply for benefits...wait for years, and then, sometimes get awarded the benefit they are seeking. They often constantly worry about a "reduction" in rating, and, someone pointed out then when ever raters eyes "look" at your C file, they also consider the possibility of a rating reduction. That is, kind of like the "dog in the bone" that sees the reflection of another bone in the water, and chases after it, loosing the bone he already has. I am not willing to completely say there is NO POSSIBILITY that, if you apply for an EED, you COULD wind up with less benefits. That is, instead of getting more money for an EED, it is POSSIBLE that the VA looks at your file and says, "Gee, we rated this guy too high. Let's lower this rating right away, before it gets to a year and becomes final." Altho I have never seen that happen, just because I havent seen it, does not mean it does not/ could not happen. I mean, I havent seen a murder either, but that does not mean they dont happen. And, for many Veterans preserving the benefits they have is a higher priority than trying to get still more benefits. That being said, I still think if the Veteran feels entitled to an EED he should file a NOD and try to get the EED BECAUSE, imho, applying for an EED will not Increase your chances of getting a rating reduction, but I think the VA wants us to beleive that it will, so we dont appeal. I hope I made it clearer this time.

Delta.... I seem to recall reading what you are referring to, but I cant remember when/where. Altho I think Carlie is right, they are 'supposed' to keep the file together, I also know that no 2 RO's do everything the same...everything is 'willynilly'. People are always saying 'the VA does this' or 'the VA does that, instead', but the statistics reveal that there is a wide variety of differences between Regional Offices, including, but not limited to the average compensation paid per Veteran. That means to me that the RO managers can pretty much do whatever they want to do, and we Veterans have no choice but to abide by whatever they say, whether it is fair or not. Sure, we can appeal, but that takes 4 years according to Veterans for Common Sense. I am convinced, however, that the BVA/CAVC/Federal Courts are much more consistent about applying the applicable regulations and, frankly, Veterans get a fairer shake by appealing than the do at their RO.