tdiu Quick Status Update

[rentalguy1]

You all know that I won my TDIU P&T claim a few months back. I've been getting the correct amount with absolutely no troubles out of them. The wife and son are set up on ChampVA, which was too easy, and we are having no trouble on that end. We went to the reserve center and got our ID cards today, and had no trouble on that end. I applied for property tax relief with my county, and so far I have had no trouble on that end, except that they have yet to send me a refund of last year's property taxes. The only area I am having grief in is the DRO hearing that I filed for in August of last year. I am still on a waiting list to get a hearing date, but at this point all I am really looking at is a few months of back pay, so I can deal with it.

See boys and girls, the VA can play nice sometimes. Now I need to decide if I want to file a claim for SMC K (foot drop) or wait until my appeal is finalized.

[john999]

If you wait to file for the SMC for foot drop then your effective date will be later. Are you filing your DRO for an EED for something besides the TDIU. What kind of money are we talking about because it is all about money. I don't know if a new claim will slow down your DRO Hearing or not.

[rentalguy1]

The DRO hearing is for my shotgun claim, which was filed before the TDIU claim. I went from 20% to 90%, but they lowballed a few things and denied a few things, all of which would have put me at 100% schedular. I would be looking at the difference between 90% and 100% (with 3 dependants) for about 14 months if I win the appeal. That would be roughly $14K. If I go ahead and file for SMC, it would make the wait time on the appeal stretch out, but would have no impact on the final outcome. If I wait to file for SMC, it would cost me roughly $100 a month until I file and win. I think I will go ahead and file it this week.

[broncovet]

Rentalguy

You have helped others on this board, and I thank you for that. IMHO you should NEVER wait to apply for benefits for the following reasons:

1. Waiting to apply costs you money as it is a later effective date.

2. Waiting to apply only seems to prevent delays, because delays are as inevitable as the sun coming up tommorrow. The VA WILL Delay your claim, no matter what. They have plenty of financial incentives to delay claims. For example:

a) Bonuses are paid when VA employees delay claims (though the Va denies this, the VAOIG says differently)

http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/nf09/nfmay09/nf052209-5.htm

:D The Veteran may die before approval, so the longer the VA delays, the more likely the Veteran is to die before approval, and then VA pays nothing.

c) The Veteran may abandon his claim and the VA wont pay, and Veterans sometimes abandon claims because they forget about them because it takes so long.

d) Even if the claim is approved, with retro, the VA gets an interest free loan from the Veteran because they pay 0% interest to the Veteran on retro payments.

Bottom Line: Waiting to apply costs you money in retro, and does not "hurry up" your claim, the VA simply uses a different excuse to delay you.

[john999]

I think I agree with Broncovet. I never delayed filing claims and I don't believe it made any real difference in my wait time. I asked to see my C-File, and it saved me about 2 years by not going to the BVA. One is a new claim and one is an appeal. Just be sure you get a VCAA letter on the footdrop so it does not get lost. If you don't get a VCAA letter for the footdrop then something is wrong. Unless the VA is going to put off the DRO until they can develope the footdrop and rate it I don't see why this new claim should have any impact on existing appeals. I could be wrong because with these people it is hard to know what their logic is sometimes.