Duty To Assist Development

[BMCS00]

I was reading over my rating decision letter, which is dated April 17, 2001. Several of the items I put in claims for service connection were deferred.

Under the 'analysis' heading for each deferred item, it says The issue of compensation for left foot pain is deferred for the following information: duty to assist development."

What does that mean, 'duty to assist development'. The claim is clearly beyond a year old. Does this leave the door open for me to submit new information and, if rated, be backdated to the date of my initial claim? I'm really not clear on what they mean by duty to assist development. I do know some new regs came into effect back then concerning duty to assist, but it was all new to me. Was the onus on me to be in touch with the VA about the deferred items, or should I have heard from the VA? I goofed and did not use a service organization for my initial claim ... but did on my 2nd go-'round last year.

I've had ongoing care in many of the deferred items, so I certainly do have 'new information' to submit. If anyone can shed some light or offer an opinion, I'm all ears.

Thanks,

--Jim

Life is good!

[BMCS00]

Bump - Question about a deferred rating because of "duty to assist development".

--Jim

[Guest jangrin]

BMSC00,

Deferred claims that have duty to assit mean... The VA has deferred making a decision until they have provided you with the "proper" VCAA letter that details what it is that you need to provide VA to support those items in your claim. It would have been sent back to the pre-team for further development. Once they had done the proper notification and recieved the signed VCAA letter from you it would once again go back to the rating board to rate or deny the deferred items.

It sounds to me like they dropped the ball here. You could asked what the status is through IRIS or you could write a letter. Better yet, I would ask your VSO to go get your file from the file room and take it to the RVSR who did the initial rating and find out from the rater what's up with your claim and the deferred items. That will or should get the claim moving again. Be prepared to provide medical records or name and addresses of all the providers that you have seen so they can send the VA current records.

Good Luck on this.

[BMCS00]

BMSC00,

Deferred claims that have duty to assit mean... The VA has deferred making a decision until they have provided you with the "proper" VCAA letter that details what it is that you need to provide VA to support those items in your claim. It would have been sent back to the pre-team for further development. Once they had done the proper notification and recieved the signed VCAA letter from you it would once again go back to the rating board to rate or deny the deferred items.

It sounds to me like they dropped the ball here. You could asked what the status is through IRIS or you could write a letter. Better yet, I would ask your VSO to go get your file from the file room and take it to the RVSR who did the initial rating and find out from the rater what's up with your claim and the deferred items. That will or should get the claim moving again. Be prepared to provide medical records or name and addresses of all the providers that you have seen so they can send the VA current records.

Good Luck on this. B)

Hi jangrin, thanks for your insite!

I have most of the records handy, I'm just trying to understand and figure out what it means and whether or not I have a legit claim. I think you are right in that the VA dropped the ball. I don't recall any subsequent documentation after that letter. I'll find out when I talk to my DAV rep next week. Do you think it would be retroactive to my original effective date of 01 October 2000? Hmmm ... if successful, that could be quite a chunk of change. B)

Thanks,

--Jim

Life is good!

[Ricky]

Does this leave the door open for me to submit new information and, if rated, be backdated to the date of my initial claim?

As jangrin stated you should be receiving a VCAA soon. To answer your other questions. Yes you can submit new evidence to support your claim. While the claim is at the RO you can submit new evidence at any time. The VA line is that an effective date for a claimed disability is the date of entitlement or the date the claim was submitted, which ever is later. So if the evidence for your claim supports your contention of the date of the onset of your disability, which I assume is the date of your original claim, then yes no matter how long it takes to resovle it the effective date will be the date you submitted the claim.

Since you are already at 80 percent, according to your post, are you drawing SSDI? If so and you made any statement about the SSDI award after you submitted the claim, that might have caused the deferral for duty to assist. Another reason for a deferral due to a duty to assist is to provide you with a C&P exam or another is as jangrin pointed out they never sent you a VCAA for those paticular claimed disabilities. Really, there is no telling with the VA. However, I am proud to see that, although it is now costing you time on your claim, at least someone at the VA has caught a mistake and is attempting to correct it in order to properly adjudicate your claim. Some will say it is just a delay tactic but I would like to think it is some hard working VA guy or gal simply trying to insure the veteran is treated fairly. I could be wrong but hey, I can dream can't I.

Anyway, you have been given good advise in that since you have a service officer, contact him and make him work for you. If you have a good one his or her service can be invaluable asset to you. Good luck

Edited January 5, 2008 by Ricky

[BMCS00]

As jangrin stated you should be receiving a VCAA soon.

What do you guys mean by soon? It has been almost 7 years since I received that rating decision. The effective date is Oct 1, 2000, which was my first day of retirement. At the time I received the letter, I read it but had no idea what it meant. I was about as new as one could be to the VA system. So I filed it and forgot about it.

I submitted a new claim last year for upgrades to 3 items from my original claim. In addition to those 3 items they confirmed 2 of the remaining 5 items. Not sure how they picked the other two, but of the untouched, 2 were 0% - bilat hearing loss and scar, and the third was maxed at 10% for tinnitis. So basically, I put in for 3 upgrades and they did a clean sweep. Interestingly enough, this new claim activity did not trigger a VCAA on the previously deferred items.

Thank-you for clearing up the effective date issue for me. I need to get crackin' and submit my new evidence and see what happens.

I did just apply for SSDI, that is in its early stages, so we'll see where that goes too.

However, I am proud to see that, although it is now costing you time on your claim, at least someone at the VA has caught a mistake and is attempting to correct it in order to properly adjudicate your claim.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Near as I can tell, the VA has not picked up on it just yet. They did a great job back in 2000/2001 on my claim. I know the duty to assist thing came into effect while they were working on my claim, so they didn't have a 'duty to assist' program in place, and I think that is what the subject of this post is about; "Duty to assist development".

My DAV guy in Togus did an excellent job last summer ... he was tough to keep up with. I would have a phone conversation with him one afternoon, and receive something in the mail the very next day from him. I have a lot of respect for him, I'll be paying him a visit next week.

Thanks for all your help and advice.

--Jim

Life is good!

[Guest jangrin]

Jim ... you asked

Do you think it would be retroactive to my original effective date of 01 October 2000? Hmmm ... if successful, that could be quite a chunk of change. [

If in fact the VA deferred the other items on your original claim, and they did not..send you the VCAA letter. Then the deferred items will continue with the date of the original claim. If you are eventually awarded service connection. There is still the possibility that they can deny those deferred conditions. Or award service connected at "0" which would be no monetary gain.

Are you sure you never recieved any follow-up correspondence from the VA? I'm understand there is a reminder system for such things. If you haven't received anything since 2001/02. They really dropped the ball on your claim.

Good Luck I hope you get the retro. B)