Sc Dic Won Over A Month Ago....no Notice In The Mail

[Judy]

Unbelievable!

VARO called me April 23rd to say that I won the 18+ year old SC DIC claim.

"The letter will be in the mail to you....fifteen days after the letter is mailed, the check will follow"...

As of today 34 days later, they can't EVEN FIND the file!! I have received nothing in the mail and all my phone calls to the VARO Rep have resulted in "we can't find the file".

I have been told during this month long saga, "file went to raters"; "file went to review"; "file went to post department"; "file is in accounting" and much more. Only I have no letter and they can't even find the file.

I was told today that I can choose to "wait" or I can contact my Senator for help.

Judy

[Wings]

Has anyone suggested that maybe due to the retro-the claim had to be signed off in VACO? I wondered the same thing! ~Wings

[Judy]

Dear friends,

I emailed 9 upper management people at VARO over the weekend including Ursula Henderson and all other names that I had (thank you Berta!)

This morning I received "read" receipts for all those emails and three hours later I got another telephone call from VARO rep telling me that my award letter AND the first check will be in my mailbox within 5 to 10 business days!!

Judy

[Pete53]

Yahoo!!!!

Thank goodness

[Berta]

YIPPEE!!!!!!!!

Judy that is great news- WHEW----

when the award letter comes with the EED for the retro - we will want to see if they paid you the right amount.

My award is still pending -I checked a while ago with VA - so at least they aren't sitting on their thumbs-

well maybe they are-I asked the 800 rep to file another inquery-it pays to keep on them- as Purple said.

Something to keep in mind for any FTCA settlement you might make down the road-

after going round and round with the General Counsel attorney- and we agreed on a figure-he said the check would be in the mail within 3 weeks-

actually they dont send a check- they send these types of settlements electronically to the bank-

well 3 weeks and then 2 months went by and I called him up and said Hey Tim -where is my money?

There had been some sort of screw up and so I said the VA would have to add a thousand a day until I get the cash in the bank-as the settlement I signed was void until the cash came-

in exasperation Tim McKinney (who really was OK to work with but very tough VA lawyer )gave me the federal FTCA tort claim guy who I called directly and within 2 days the cash was in the bank-

Another point- with direct SC death and also any FTCA award-proving VA health care contributed to SC death,the award cannot be offset to any DIC under direct SC death.

I am only case I can give you as example.NVLSP said that I was only case they knew of too.

It is all in M21-1 Paragraph 22.04,Part VI ,Chang 118, Sept 23,2004.

This is one reason my award is taking so long.It was in the BVA remand reminding them of additional ancillary benefits as well as offset refund and when the BVA awarded the claim the VARO conveniently forgot to pay any of it.

Edited June 8, 2009 by Berta

[purple]

I'd be leary of all of these phone calls. Tell them to put that in an e-mail...that you want it in writing!

It's just that the VA can say so much over the phone and then deny it later; as many of us have seen.

I hope they are telling you the truth!!!

[Judy]

Thank you ALL!

I am now in the 5-10 business day holding pattern. I will say that it paid off BIG TIME to email Ursula Henderson and others and I'm sure it didn't hurt that I told them I had contacted my Senator and my Congressan regarding the matter either!

Now that being said, I have a great looking IME from Bash for the FTCA but the lawyer Bash recomended turned me down. This lawyer said even though the reg states "two years from the time the family/claimant became aware of any malpractice" he feels that "2 years from when you knew or SHOULD HAVE KNOWN of the event." is the way VA interprets this AND said that the "evidence used now was also there at that time". He also said that "is usually liberally interpreted in favor of the government. In this matter, it is my view that we would not survive a challenge on that point after all this time. "

He did however say that another attorney might not agree with him and he encouraged me to seek other opinions.

You can bet I will. Also, Dr. Bash disagreed with his opinion saying that it was a good and viable FTCA.

Berta, in the current award (they told me the dollar amount today on the phone) I KNOW they did not include the "add on" for the 8 yrs the spouse was married to the vet during the 100% disabled last 8 years he was alive; do I have to CUE them for that ?? Is it separate than my CUE for the EED back to 1990 when he died? (They are ONLY paying me now back to December 2007--when I RE-opened this claim for SC DIC and NOT including that extra 237.00 per month in this payment either)...what say you?

I'm looking for the names of the two lawyers you previously mentioned Berta... Rob Graham and I cannot remember the other one.

I will contact both of them asap.

Waiting on the award letter in the mail to file the CUE for EED. Bash is working on the IME for this one too.

Judy