VetsLady

Wonderful! Thank you for your service and for sharing your story of success.

If you paid any out of pocket medical expenses/doctor/pharmacy (not including dental) for the children or your wife, minus insurance premiums, you can submit those bills for reimbursement. Call the ChampVA folks, they have always been friendly and helpful, at least that is my experience. Effectively, your benefits for ChampVA began the date of your 100% service connection. It can be worth the extra effort; I was able to recapture five years worth of out of pocket dollars. The opportunity to return to school is exhilarating! I'm just about done with my AA and moving on to my Bachelor's program in a few months. Not only will your family benefit from the tuition waiver, the VA will also pay a stipend to your wife each month and when the children are old enough, they too will receive the benefit. We are very happy for you! Congratulations and welcome to the new normal.

Consider sending any medical bills you paid for out of pocket retroactively back to the effective date of your P&T status to ChampVA, this includes pharmacy. You will need the actual billing forms the docs sent in along with any Explanation of Benefits if you had insurance. If not, ask the doctor(s) to print you a claim form; the ChampVA folks are very friendly, at least that has been my experience. Pharmacy billings are easier to get - just go to the pharmacy or, many have online access now, and request an itemized billing of all expenditures. You have one year from the date of your P&T if I remember correctly. It can be worth the extra effort... Congratulations and thank you for your service.

Oh what a relief it is...congratulations!

Congrats to you WaStvet! That is lightning speed for Seattle RO and we are happy your claim was handled expeditiously.

Congratulations to you Dart...

Good grief, this is an atrocity....horrible disservice to anyone, especially a veteran! You are inspiring Ellen, the tenacity in which you forged forward (the drive to your local VARO) --- that is the tenacity that VA employees should handle all claims, however, they dropped the ball on your claim. I am sorry this happened to you, we've been there ourselves and it is not a great feeling. Good for you for walking it through to finance. And, Happy Belated Birthday to you !

Watched and recorded this segment. Amazing story, good information, and inspiring that one woman, through love and doing what she felt was the right thing could begin a campaign to bring burn pits the front page. Horrible atrocities are still going on in foreign wars, just as AO smothered my husband and so many others. Bravo Mrs. Torres.

Congratulations to you for sticking it out....it's tough to wait and wait and wait....however, these success postings always offer encouragement to those who are still waiting. Good news!

Congrats on your award !

"Oh what a relief it is...! " Sing and dance all day, all month and hopefully for a very long time - Congratulations !!!!

If she is 100% then she is entitled to dental care at the VA medical center or, perhaps (and don't quote me on this) an outside dentist IF in emergency. Others with more knowledge will chime in soon. Private dentist will probably need fee basis approval before seeing her but at the onset of a long weekend (Monday is a holiday), it might be tough to find a dentist open or a VAMC either. She could always go the route of an emergency room visit if her pain level is that intense. Dental pain is horrible, I hope she finds some relief. good luck.

Hi John and all, Thanks for the responses. He is already 100%+ and P&T...

Awarded my husband 30% for IHD and increased DM2 from 20 to 40% - would rather not have a reason for this to be a success but still, a win is a win. Stay with it Veterans, be proactive as possible. May all your claims be adjudicated swiftly and correctly.

What a great feeling for you, congratulations!

Congratulations to you "Lady" ~ sounds like your rep really kept you informed. It can be a harrowing experience, the wait and anticipation, I understand this all too well as many do here. Good for you for sticking it out....

Wow, that was a quick decision. Congratulations.....and, thank you for your service.

Have a nice dinner or lunch, set the rest aside for a few days and then be sure to have a plan. Congratulations, may those who are still in line take another step forward towards a positive adjudication. Way to tough it out Raidertone!

I don't know the answer to your question but hopefully someone will. There must be a way, especially in light of his financial situation.

Way to stick it out, congratulations on your win.

You box had no message in it, has the SSOC arrived?

You should be receiving it any day and due to the law of probability, it may come today since you asked ! Good Luck,

From what I understand there are several steps within each of the updates we see on eBenefits so it's hard to tell exactly where a claim is at based on info from eBenefits. The status changes are updated manually so it just depends on where the claim is at as to how current the information is. As an example, a claim in the gathering evidence stage isn't updated as often as one that is pending decision approval. It is hard to wait it out, we are doing the same thing...many told us a few years ago (while we were waiting for a BVA decision) to stay busy, clean our closets, etc. Now as we await this decision, I have buried myself in year end book work, which is not fun to say the least but I'm determined to get our taxes done as early as possible this year. Keep the faith and hang in there. By the way, they missed an entire claim decision on my husbands, closed it instead of deciding anything --- waiting to get this one done before we request his entire claim file which should be a very interesting read, especially since they closed a claim without doing anything at all on it.

Flashback of Anxiety driven fear is setting in again...sometimes old stuff keeps crawling back up to the surface years later...(and I am the spouse of a Veteran, but I am the one who deals with the VA on his behalf!) Here's the skinny story, I know, I know...but I just had to. I broke down and called the 1-800 and two different "counselors" told me the deferred claim from 2 years ago and the new one for IHD have been decided and are currently in the pending authorization phase awaiting the final signature of the "big dog" to complete the claim ---- yep, that was how she put it, "the big dog" ---- to which I responded, "Oh, you mean the station manager?" She did explain a little further, "claims often need more than 1 rater to review for accuracy, this claim is at the final signature phase." The deferred issues were requests for increase on already sc conditions that have worsened, so they could have been denied or, not. We shall wait. The IHD claim is pretty well rock solid but I have learned nothing is rock solid until it's on paper. And we wait...."tick-tock, tick-tock..."

Long story short version: Claim went through hoops and loops, exams, etc. to pending decision approval, back to preparation for decision and is now at pending decision approval. At least it's moving again, just hoping in the right direction.