Rating Board

[mssoup1]

I'm sure this has been asked and answered many times before, but here goes again.

We called the VARO several weeks ago and was told that my husbands claims were with the raters. They said it went to them either the 3rd or 4th of this month. We called again this morning. Well, now we get the answer that it was with the raters, but this time they said it went there on the 27th of this month, which was just Friday. We asked why the date difference. He couldn't/wouldn't tell us anything, except to say that we would not hear anything for the next 60 to 90 days. Very abrupt with us.

We have several claims in. Some are remands back from the BVA since January of last year. The rest are new claims based on the BVA hearing that we had. My husband has had C & P exams for all of these claims. In fact, they were all completed several months ago. Two of the C & P exam results were so inadequate that I immediately rebutted line for line the contents of these reports and personally hand carried them to the VARO.

Why would his claims go the raters on one date, then all of a sudden the date changes to another date. Would it have been pulled back from the raters for some reason which may have caused the date difference? Maybe due to relooking at the inadequate C & P exams caused it to be pulled back for further development, then it went back to the raters again. If so, he has not been afforded another C & P exam to clear up the inadequate one.

I am trying to be very patient, but some of these claims are over 6 years old and have been on remand from the BVA since January of last year. All but these two C & P exams were positive and in my husbands favor. If they would just tell you the correct status of your claim when you call, there would be less room for all this frustration.

Thanks for any insight you msay have on this.

mssoup

[vaf]

Others here will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe elsewhere on this board, a discussion took place about how long was too long to wait for a decision on remanded items, and a legal precedent had been set at 18 months.

Can a veteran who's been waiting excessively long for the RO to make a decision on a claim that the Board has remanded ask for the claim to be sent to the Appeals Management Center, instead? In my husband's case, two issues that the Board remanded to the RO twice before (as early as March 2001), were instead sent to the AMC when the Board reviewed the claims again in October 2005. We didn't request that this be done, it was automatic (although the Board's decision referenced the RO, not the AMC).

Can this person request a Writ of Mandamus or for the VA Secretary to perform an Administrative Review?

[Guest Berta]

I feel- when a claim goes on too long- that if you send the VARO a Service complaint throught the VA inquery system- you might have a better idea of what they are actually doing with it.The email goes to the VARO via the VBA.

You will also get the direct email addy for the VARO in most replies.

https://iris.va.gov/scripts/iris.cfg/php.ex...nduser/home.php

click on the Ask a Question part and the query form will come up.

[Guest Jim S.]

mssoup1: Not that it make much of a difference, and depending whether or not you want to make another trip to the VARO, nest time you call or visit, ask to speek with a supperviser or claims manager and ask him for clarification on the statis of you claim. Ask for his reply to be followed with a written Note/Memo as to what you discussed.

This discussion could intail as to what your remedies are if you feel your claim is taking to long, getting both a phone number and/or address, so that you may send them notice that if you have not heard from them concerning your claim as dictated by set standards, that you will request a writ of mandamus from the court. Should the Veterans health be an issue, that he may die, if you were made to wait another estended period of time for his claim to be adjudicated on. If health is not an issue, certainly six years is enough time for said claims to be finalized.

I would also write to ower do nothing, give nothing Secretary of Veteran Affairs, as well as to your Senater.

Attaching with it your intent to seek a writ of mandamus should you not get any possitive results in your due request.

My understanding of Remands, from the Court or BVA, That due diligence is supposed to be used to expidite the issues in remand and certaily three to six years in my books certainly does not meet that requirement.

I think it is time you stepped up your retoric and start pushing buttoms at a higher level than what the Phone clerk at your local VARO and I would certainly write a letter as to how curt you were treated to the Area VARO manager.

Jim S. B)

[vaf]

VA's supposed policy and procedure for handling BVA-remanded claims:

http://www.warms.vba.va.gov/admin21/m21_1/...1/ch05_secg.doc

However you decide to handle this, you can compare and describe your experience to the correct procedures contained in this link.

[mssoup1]

Thanks to all who replied to my posting. Vicki, thanks for the link.

I am in a situation where I think the VARO can essentially take as long as they like. The rules state that a decision must be made 30 days from receiving the last of the evidence needed to make a decision on the claim. Well, with the two inadequate C & P exams hanging in limbo, where does that leave us. We have yet to hear anything from the VARO as to what action will be taken on these. As soon as I was able to get a copy of all of the C & P exams that my husband was sent for, I read over each and every one. When I got the results of these two particular exam reports, I flipped out. I immediately sit down and wrote a letter to the VARO and went line for line rebutting everything that was written. I took my letter along with the C & P exam reports directly to the VARO and asked to speak to a Senior Rep. Well, I'm not sure who we ended up with, but their first question was "How did you get a copy of the C & P exam results so quick?" I told them I simply went to the VAMC Release of Information Office and requested it. They kind of indicated that I should not have been given a copy of these until the claim was decided. So, I was getting a jump on the claim before they had a chance to deny the claim based on the inadequate C & P exams, which is exactly what would have happened. I don't think they liked this.

I am afraid that what they have in store is to e-mail the C & P examiner for verification of the C & P exam reports. They would then expect him to e-mail them back with what his original intent was. Therefore, no new C & P exam will be done, the examiner will work from memory to come up with something to send back (since he will not have his c-file). This has happened before with another veteran.