No Retro!

[COOL BREEZE]

I just received an IRIS letter stating this-

Dear Mr. Cool Breeze-

Thank you for your inquiry of December 08, 2011.

A review of your records shows that you received a Notification Letter on November 28, 2011. A retroactive payment on December 1, 2011 for $528.00 and a regular payment of $941.00 was received on the same day. The two payments received on December 1, 2011 totaled $1,469.00 and your payment on December 30, 2011 was for $1,479.00. No other retro payments are to be received.

If you have further questions, you may call our toll free number of 800-827-1000 and speak to one of our representatives. You may also write to the Phoenix VA Regional Office, 3333 North Central Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85012, or send us an electronic inquiry through the Internet at https://iris.va.gov.

What the heck? I thought I was waiting for the military retirement to finish there audit, so the VA can pay me 2 years of retro. This is definitely going to my Congressman's office that they are cheating me-this is a Cue claim. How do I go about suing the VA for emotional distress. I am having severe chest pains from this-I'll see what Peggy has to say-someone owes me big time!!

I am not putting up with this *****.

[Donna Kelley]

My glimmer of hope is starting to fade just a bit. If I am under CDRP already, and if there is an increase will have to go through all these hoops or should I say ping-pongs between the VA and DFAS? I had one more "emergency" than I can handle lately, and I sure could use any extra pay, retro, increase is does not matter, Donna

[COOL BREEZE]

Unfortuantely it will. The Va changed there policy last year where they used to just kicked out the retro and worry about the over payments later. Now this is just like a regular claim. Month after month it is still the same excuses. Do to the back log, in order of claim received ect. Lie after lie after lie.

My CRDP was sent back to the VA on the 19 of January with the amount from DPAS of how much the VA needs to back pay me.

Until now, now no one has answer wjhen that will be.

3 IRIS, 2 messages from the VA, no one knows if it will be 6 months, one year, or even 3 years. I have surgury in a few weeks where I will be out of work for a claim that is on appeal. So yes it would be nice.

There is no time frame for this. They can take as long as it took for my claim to get decided.

I will post when I get mine -if I am still alive by then!!

[Steve G.]

Just a quick update for all -

Today I received my retro CRDP from DFAS. Not as good as the disability retro I'm expecting, but not bad. It will help carry me over while I'm waiting.

1 Feb, 2012 - first increased disability payment amount (on Sep 2010 claim)

5 Mar, 2012 - DFAS payed CRDP retro

VA retro - ???

Still no word from the VA, but I hold out hope! I also still don't understand what the VA needs from DFAS, disability payments don't have anything to do with what I receive from DFAS. If anything, I thought it worked the other way. It seemed to for ratings under 50% where DFAS offsets retirement pay by the amount of the disability payment. See my earlier email re: repayement to the VA of an overpayment by the VA.

Luck and good fortune to all -

Steve G.

[COOL BREEZE]

I was just informed that my claim for retro is now in development. The expected time is 280 days before claim status. What the hell-this is not a claim. They are treating my retro as a claim and after 45 days it is now in development. This was from an agent from the Phoenix office.

I would expect this if I had put in another claim. On second thought, I am going to file a few more claims now. I was planning on waiting till this was done.

Its bad enough I have prostate surgery next week being done from my military insurance Tri-care as all the VA could give me was a handful of pills, and a book to read to self diagnosis myself.

Okay-I think I am done vetting for the day. However those unfortuante folks waiting for there retro as they are retired military are now being , kicked to the side and treated like they just put in a new claim.

Its bad enough you have to wait several years to get a claim decided, appealed, ect, now they put you to the back of the line as if you are filing a claim for the first time-

Edited March 8, 2012 by COOL BREEZE

[Grey_Mike]

I thought I would chime in on this. Since it is useful for everyone to see how these things track.

I filed my original claim on retirement Jan 2008. I ended up with 40%, I think, which seemed cool at the time, although I thought my PTSD met the criteria for at least 50% and maybe more. When I saw that they gave me 30% for PTSD and the reasons they denied a higher rating were actually diagnosed (verbatim) in the paragraph above by the C&P examiner, I appealed the decision. I also had a number of weird problems that seemed to be related to hypothyroidism, or Gulf War Syndrome, if you can't have hypothyroidism, so I appealed the 10% rating. The PTSD came back fairly quickly at 50% since, although I'm crazy and angry, it wasn't affecting my mental processing. I guess my memory problems and sluggish thought processes and fatigue were due to hypothyroidism. Well, finally, four years later (leaving out the ugly details) the VA has decided I'm really 100% disabled, effective 1 Feb 2008. Payments to be increased on 1 March 2012.

So I received my unofficial notice from the DVA on Feb 3, 2012. On the 17th of Feb, I received my white envelope with the details. On the 18th of Feb I noticed that $2800.00 was deposited to my account from VA Benefits. That amount equates to no figure that I can reasonably determine. I went through the retro process before when they upgraded my PTSD and put me at 60%. That was when DFAS was trying to rectify all the retro payments and were literally years behind. VA cut me a check almost immediately.

ON 1 March, nothing had changed, except the mysterious one time mid month 2800 payment. My regular payment (still 60%) had increased to the Dec 2011 COLA increase amount. Then I received a new RAS from DFAS which changed my offset to $0 and changed to CRDP amount to the full retirement amount (effective 30 March). So far, so good.

Then I called VA to ask them what the 2800 was for. I got a helper who was slightly less familiar with the process than I was. He told me that the 2800 was my retro pay. I said, well, it IS retro pay, but I think the total for 4 years might be a bit more. In the end, he couldn't tell me the accounting behind the amount, so I let it go. Understand that all of us probably got retro payments in March to bring the COLA up to date.

So here we are, I thought I would post this and track it so people could see how it goes.

-Mike

[COOL BREEZE]

Well, they are telling me my retro is in development now after having received it 45 days ago back from dfas. They said the national average to receive my retro is about 280 days. And after the finance dept approves it, I should be getting it within 45 days

A rep said its not fair I should go to the head of the line,I will wait like like everyone else. This is a retro claim with an amount calcuated from DFAS on what they need to pay me, not a new claim.

I am beyond frustrated. For you new folks in my shoes, it will be double the amount of time as getting a claim decided. Once your claim is approved, it will go to DFAS for a few months, back to the VA for another 6-12 months before they decide to deposit the amount.