Does The Age Of A Claim Have Any Impact On Its Approval/disapproval?

[Papa]

I was wondering if the age of a claim may have anything to do whether or not a claim will be approved or disapproved? I would think not. My claim is 26 months old, and was in "Gathering Evidence" for 24 months. They must have done a lot of gathering . Does the VA do this to hurt the Veteran with more stress, depression, etc. I mean, I do not think it took the Warren Commission that long to gather evidence. Am I being punished? It sure seem like it.

Papa

[john999]

No, the VA just does not give a damn. They are not alone since most large governmental and business institutions in our nation don't give a damn either.

[Papa]

Thanks John, I thought it was just me.

Papa

[georgiapapa]

Papa,

This may seem like a crazy question in response to your question but what about the age of evidence you submitted in your claim? e.g.- Independent Medical Opinion Letters from your private doctor. The VA may say the letter your doctor submitted is over a year old so they are going to disregard it and render a decision based on the opinion of the VA doctor who performed your C&P exam because the VA doctor's opinion is a timely opinion. Another possibility, the VA may require you to go back to your private doctor and request another more recent IMO to be submitted to the VA to replace the original IMO. This could become expensive.

Does evidence submitted (such as IMO letters, diagnostic test reports, etc.) ever lose their validity or credibility because the evidence has become outdated due to the VA taking forever to process your claim?

I haven't experienced any of the above problems but other hadit members may have experienced some of these problems with their claims. I previously posted a topic concerning the issue of whether or not an IMO ever becomes outdated but I received limited responses to my question. Hopefully some hadit members can shed a little more light on both of our concerns.

Georgiapapa

[halos2]

Age of a claim has nothing to do with when the VARO finally gets around to reviewing it. I waited almost 5 years first time, another vet I worked with waited almost 5 years, another 3 years, etc. As long as the IMO/IME is done by a certified physician and the diagnosis is what pertains to the claim I have not yet seen an expiration date on the exam, however I would think if it is over 5-6 years it might be questionable, but if your claim was about the same age, then it would balance out.

The objective is to get the rater to READ the IMO/IME ! It flaws me how a non medical person can deny valid physician statements concerning a vets condition...what the heck!! The only thing is that when you finally are awarded on your claim, the retro dates reverts back to when you put the claim in originally.

[Teac]

The age of a claim has no impact on rating decisions. The age of the evidence has no impact on rating decisions. Think about it....... Some claims take years to decide, and they are finally decided based on all of teh available cumulative evidence. I don't know of any case where the va orderd a C/P because they thought a medical opinion was too old. They do however order c/p exams when they feel the medical opinion of record is vague, or incomplete.... and they have every right to do so.....

[SP4RVN1971]

Papa,

I think it does have to do with age! In case of one of my claims, they new that in time the claim for depression, bowel dysfunction would get better with drugs and time.

That i would give up or the drugs would solve the problems with age or time!

Nope, it still there.

They even said in their letter, that condition's that are changing or improving, that they would Not consider.

After all these year's that we suffer, because of the thing that they did to us, and they pull this *&^^!

You hang in there, Never Give UP!!!!