Retro Pay

[lamontino]

Goodmorning,Evening, or afternoon. I wanting to know if and when I get approved for benefits. WIll i get back pay all the way back from 1986 until 2007? Just seems strange because if that is true. Thats alot of money is that unbelieveable?? Meaning if I figure right, that money over 500,000. I heard of the government paying back money but this seems to be alot of money I just cant believe it.

[Hoppy]

lamontino,

I got 6.5 years of retro. My claim date was 1998 and the award was made in 2005. Although the claim was denied 2 times I appealed in a timely basis and the claim was awarded on appeal and was based on evidence that was available since the time the claim was filed.

If you claim was filed in 86 it is hard for me to imagine that it was not closed at some point in time. Just because you file a claim for a condition and later it is re-opened and awarded for the same condition does not equate to the time the claim was first filed. If the claim had been closed at any time because you did not appeal is reason for the earlier claim date to be lost. There are several ways to get around this. However, it usually requires a CUE (clear and unmistakable error).

If during the claim process you submit new medical evidence this opens the door for the VA to use the date you submitted the new evidence as the effective date of the claim.

The only way they will award the claim to 86 without a CUE is if you appealed on a timely basis and the medical evidence was in the file. Sometimes on appeal a different adjudicator sees the same evidence that was previously denied and the new adjudiaator disagrees with the denial and over rules it with an award. When this happens the award date can go back to the original date that was in effect at the time of the overruled denial.

It good thing to check is to see what the effective date of the claim shows on the VA computer. Ask your SO to get this for you.

Also, it appears that you are talking about 100%. A good question to run by your SO is at what time was the medical evidence supporting the 100% submitted. It sounds to me like you are tacking on the depression as secondary to the back condition from boot camp to get the higher rating. If so they would probably use the date of the psychiatric diagnoses for the higher rate. They do not assume that the depression started at the time you claim it did and award to the date you claim. They usually go by the date of the psychiatric report or when you submitted it. It some case you can get a date that goes back one year from the date of the report. Ask your SO if you had any informal claim dates.