Thank You, James Breckenridge!

[Philip Rogers]

I, for one, appreciate your input! It's good to know how the VA thinks. I hope we don't chase you away.

pr

Edited January 1, 2010 by Philip Rogers

[Testvet]

One of the "other boards" has 2 or 3 retired Raters, a DRO Officer, and maybe even a current rater. Altho much of the information there is valuable, I could see a definite attitude difference there. The attitude there was that the VA system is just fine, but Veterans are negligent in sending in their paperwork correctly, government employees are overworked, underpaid, etc.

I would like to ask James what he thinks of the Professor Linda Blimes method. If you dont already know, a college professor wrote a paper and, I think, testified to congress, That the VA should simply Pay Vetrans claims, within about 60 days, then audit some, kind of like how the IRS does tax refunds. With the IRS you pretty much get your money right away, but they check your return over thoroughly mostly in the "offseason" and if they smell anything fishy you will be called for an audit.

Professor Blimes suggest that most VA claims are eventually awarded..those that are denied go through an appeal process until they get approved..sometimes for decades.

I am not sure, but I seem to remember that Social Security gives you an answer on your claim in 60 days..approved or denied. It takes the VA at least 3 times that long, and on some even more time is required. VA management complains about the large number of Veterans, but does Social Security and IRS not have lots of people to deal with too? In fact, these agencies have a smaller budget than the VA, but handle a larger number of claims faster than the VA. 25 million Veterans vs about 275 million civilians.

'Trying to compare a system that can be dealt with by computer programs such as IRS claims can be, as they are only mathmatical equations, and there are no variable human factors as thereare in VA compensation claims is trying to compare apples and oranges, it is desirable to many veterans and their families to see Linda Blimes idea adopted and given that only 1-2% of veterans claims are fraudulent it may be an idea that would work and let VA employees actually do audits of claims that stick out like the IRS currently does but if they did allow Linda Blimes idea to be adopted would then more veterans file claims that would be accepted and largely ignored like tinnitus which is what a 10% rating but if you add a large number of them together they do add up to a large amount of money I dropped my tinnitus claim since I am 100% PTSD and 60% CAD (although I think I should be 100% CAD) but thats another issue because the tinnitus is irrelevant to me it would add nothing to the pay check and will not be the cause of my death but how many clerks and cooks would apply for tinnitus if the automatic claims process was adopted, and be in receipt of the 10% and the VA would not check to see if they werearound enough concussive noises to cause tinnitus a weapons range once a year for 3 or 4 years is not normally considered enough to cause tinnitus but an infantryman or artilleryman would be exposed constantly to large explosions and rifle ranges in just a few short years that would cause tinnitus. I think the Linda Blimes idea has merit but then the VA offices would then turn into more of a "audit function" after the fact rather than audit the claims before the fact. Which it seems they do badly now.

[JamesBreckenridge]

Because we are writing custom decisions that are tailored to each individual veteran, and because evaluating how disabling a condition is and there are hundreds of conditions... it's not as good a target for that kind of business process. One vet's dollars are the same as another vets dollars, and you can just apply an easy tax formula. But when writing a rating decision, each veteran's condition must be considered on an individual basis. Absolutely we could come up with some one-size-fits-all ways of doing things, and pay claims faster, but it wouldn't do justice for the veterans. I mean, if the VA were to just figure out the average combined percentage of all veterans and just assign every vet with a claim THAT percentage, we'd be done with our backlog by this afternoon. But it wouldn't do justice.

I can see why some VA employees might say it's the veterans fault for sending in such messed up, disorganized, unsupported, vague, and otherwise jacked up claims, and that is what is slowing things down. But you can't really blame the vet when he has no real clue how we go about rating claims. With my inside knowledge of how things work, I know just what a claim needs to have in order for it to pretty much sail through the process... but I do this for a living. How is a veteran supposed to know just what we need based solely on our VCAA letters, confusing regulations, and incomprehensible forms? I would rather share my perspective on our process with you in the hopes that it will help streamline your claims or make sense of why we need certain things to grant... it ultimately makes our jobs as raters and DROs easier.

[Testvet]

James, I also wish there was a standard to which "service officers" had to be trained to before they could occupy one of those "chairs" due to bad advice from people who do not even understand the basics of claims telling veterans or their surviving spouses what is a valid claim and what they need they tell them the wrong thing, advise them to do things that just can't be done as it appears the service officer of Keith Roberts did, a SO told him that he could get back pay to when he was discharged in 1971 the SO is now deceased and Keith Roberts is in prison for fraud which is an entirely different matter but if the SO had not told him to file for a EED of 1971 Roberts would not now be in trouble, I have an Edgewood vet that thinks they should pay him back to the 60s and he will not comprehend that his PTSD claim can only be paid back to when he filed it and not to 40 years ago.

In my case I has a SO that told my wife and I that I could only file one claim at a time for one issue which we later learned was bogus and ended up costing us a lot of money and an earlier effective date the people here helped me back in 2003 a lot which is now what my effective date is for my PTSD and my CAD, it wasn't because of any actions of a SO, then there are the ones that tell you to drop all of your claims and start over, Iam not sure which ones are worse the first type I had or this latter group but they all harm veterans, and now veterans group seems to have a lock on ignorant SOs they all seem to have some, there are also some good ones but they seem a lot harder to find....

the entire system is messed up from start to finish and I don't know the answer to fix it one problem or claim at a time does not seem the correct way though

[broncovet]

I wont argue which is more complicated..the tax laws or VA claims because I think you could make a case for either one. However, the VA does not fare well against the social security disability system either, as more SS claims are processed faster than VA.

A better comparison might be unemployment benefits. In at least my state, the state realizes that if you are unemployed, you really need a check fast, and they usually get them out in just 2-4 weeks or so. Later, if they think maybe you werent eligible for unemployement after all (say if you quit), then they can come back on you. Veterans, too, when applying for benefits, need the money in a few weeks, but often that drags on to years..in my case 7 years. If they made unemployed people wait 7 years for their first unemployment check, somebody is going to go down to the unemployment office with a gun. By the way, in my humble opinion it is not a matter of if, but when a Veteran gets mad enough at this tremendously unreasonable waiting period and goes to a VA office with a gun. I think it is just a matter of time. I predict The VA is going to make one too many disturbed PTSD combat trained Veterans just too mad by just making him wait far too long for his benefits, and he is going to "snap" and it wont be pretty. A combat trained PTSD angry Veteran could make the 12 people shooting a couple of months ago seem like a church bazaar yard sale. If I remember right, Timothy McVeigh was a combat trained Vet that blew up the Oklahoma City building. Do we need another "Oklahoma City" type bombing at a Regional Office for the VA to realize there are Vets who wont put up with a 7 year wait on benefits and actually DO SOMETHING about a 7 year wait on benefits?

When I lived in Colorado, I knew of a PTSD Vet who would "go off" and start shooting. He lived in the country, so it didnt matter that much unless you were an animal. I was a friend of this Vets friend. We went to visit him and he was shooting at something..he didnt point the gun at us, but I am just saying that the VA can make the wrong guy just too mad.

My 7 year wait for benefits is not all that unusual or even all that long by VA standards. How many people do you think would still be working if their employer made them wait 7 years to "process" their paycheck?

Yes, I do believe in "justice" but the present system is not justice.

The VA has a "solution" to Veterans who have waited 10 years for their benefits: Make them wait some more, while the VA Central Office "checks" it several more times to ensure we are not overpaying the Veteran. However, the courts have declared that to be illegal, fortunately.

[Pete53]

How do the claims get messed up in the first place?

[carlie]

Pete,

In my opinion the problems begin with the people in the mailroom.

carlie