Rating Phase Question?

[les]

Hi, I filed for 3 claims on may 10 12. I had 3 c&ps on june 4 12. I found out that my claims are at the preparation for decision and it also says my claims are at the rating phase. I am not sure what the rating phase is. The va has a lot of lingo and would like to know. Is rating phase close to a decision? I know that the va can jump us all over the board. Thanks for any info.

[USMC5811]

Until someone with more experience jumps into the thread - I found this on hadit.com that might answer your question - the full thread can be found here

The benefit to your claim status being in the stage of "Preparation for Decision" is that it should be in a Rater's hands relatively soon, as I have heard word that all VA Regional Offices are scrabbling to find claims to make a decision on and meet monthly quotas. The bad news is that you are just stuck waiting because it is unknown how long that will exactly take. It may take less than 5 days or it may take more than 30. E-benefits will not provide you with this information because the system doesn't know. It can give you a national average waiting time, but that may not be the average for your particular state's Regional Office. My advice to you would be that if it takes over 30 days and your claim hasn't moved to the next phase of "Pending Decision Approval", try and contact your Power of Attorney (POA) to find out why your state's Regional Office has not made a decision yet, and if that doesn't work, use an IRIS inquiry at www.iris.va.gov and click on the link "Ask a Question" and submit you question concerning your claim status there. You are supposed to receive an answer from the VA within 5 business days of submitting an IRIS request and best of all, it's in writing. It may even help to move your case into a rater's hands the day VA receives your inquiry. When your claim moves to the "Preparation for Notification" phase, that will even better news to you because the VA has made a decision on your claim and is getting ready to mail it to you. It should only take 3.5 days to get the decision from a rater to a VSR to type of the notification letter and mail the decision to you because if it takes longer, then the station can be written up for holding on to your decision to long. Hope this helps...

As you stated, the "VA can jump us all over the board" - it's true....sometimes you'll move forward in the claim completion process and sometimes you move back and stay there, others times you move back and then move forward at a descent speed:

Edited August 20, 2012 by USMC5811