My Nod For Forum Review.

[SpcDearman]

Here is what I will be sending on Monday. i want to have the entire weekend for you guys to opine.

TO: Department of Veterans Affairs

This is a Notice of Disagreement with your rating decision dated 11-1-12 which denied my claim for bilateral shoulder, bilateral knee, and lung condition . I request my claim be afforded a de Novo review by a Decision Review Officer and a Statement of Case (SOC) be prepared and forwarded to me. I also hereby request all copies of my Service Medical Records to be used for review by my private physician.

Thank you.

Disgruntled Vet. (ok i might put my real name here lol)

[broncovet]

And, if the VA DID deny to reopen based upon "N and M" evidence, The VA would need to issue a denial letter. If no denial letter exists, then the claim remains pending.

A BVA denial does not mean all that much, since, according to Bart Stichman, 76% of BVA denials have errors:

http://veterans.senate.gov/press-releases.cfm?action=release.display&release_id=281d81f6-3e4b-4d53-95c9-c4952e7c390c

[broncovet]

Bart Stichman (in testimony to congress) says it this way:

Contributor #1 to the Hamster Wheel: the High Error Rate at Board of Veterans' Appeals

The most prominent fact in assessing the performance of the Board of Veterans' Appeals is the track record that Board decisions have experienced when an independent authority has examined the soundness of these decisions. Congress created an independent authority that regularly performs this function - the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. Each year, the Court issues a report card on BVA decision-making. This annual report card comes in the form of between 1,000 and 2,800 separate final judgments issued by the Court. Each separate final judgment incorporates an individualized judicial assessment of the quality of a particular one of the 35,000 to 40,000 decisions that the Board issues on an annual basis.
For more than a decade, the Court's annual report card of the BVA's performance has been remarkably consistent. The 14 annual report cards issued over the last 14 years yields the following startling fact: of the 23,173 Board decisions that the Court individually assessed over that period (that is, from FY 1995 to FY 2008), the Court set aside a whopping 76.4% of them (that is, 17,698 individual Board decisions). In each of these 17,698 cases, the Court set aside the Board decision and either remanded the claim to the Board for further proceedings or ordered the Board to award the benefits it had previously denied. In the overwhelming majority of these 17,698 cases, the Court took this action because it concluded that the Board decision contained one or more specific legal errors that prejudiced the rights of the VA claimant to a proper decision.

By any reasonable measure, the Court's annual report card on the Board's performance has consistently been an "F". But an equally startling fact is that despite a consistent grade of "F" for each of the last 14 years, no effective action has ever been taken by the management of the BVA to improve the Board's poor performance. Year after year, the Court's report card on the Board has reflected the same failing grade.

[broncovet]

BVA decisions have a 23% chance of being correct over the past 14 years.

[Philip Rogers]

About 20yrs ago, i read in one of those veteran claims help books something that I believe is still true. At that time, the BVA had about 468 attorneys who's sole purpose is to deny your claim. Think about it!!! They work for the VA, not for the vet. Why do you think they make so many errors??? jmo

pr

[rdawg]

And, if the VA DID deny to reopen based upon "N and M" evidence, The VA would need to issue a denial letter. If no denial letter exists, then the claim remains pending.

only the claim to re-open would be pending. not the original claim that has already been closed.

A BVA denial does not mean all that much, since, according to Bart Stichman, 76% of BVA denials have errors:

http://veterans.senate.gov/press-releases.cfm?action=release.display&release_id=281d81f6-3e4b-4d53-95c9-c4952e7c390c

And people argue that the claimant should get to the BVA as soon as possible. I don't get it.

[rdawg]

Dawg...

The effective date is the later of the "facts found" or the date of claim. The VA can and often does give a later date than the date the Veteran applied whenever the doc's c and P exam suggests the maladay began at a later date.

in SPCDEARMANs case the claim was submitted after the disibilty occurred. His effective date will be the date he submitted.