How Long Does This Normally Take?

[RUSSDUNCAN6672]

My claim was completed after about 2 years. I was found 100% SC, Permanent on 20 April 2013, effective date 01 August 2011. Since receiving the decision I had to submit another form to the Buffalo VARO electing to receive VA Benefits in Lieu of Retirement so I could fall under concurrent receipt and recieve both disability and retirement. To date I have yet to receive a dime. I understand that retro pay will take some time to compute at DFAS but I would have thought that my monthly entitlement would have started by now. My local congressman has inquired on the hold-up twice but still nothing. The Buffalo VARO opened up a new claim labeled Eligibility Determination. That opened up on 15 May 2013 but it still sits at "Claim Received". Anyone have any experience with this situation? Just kind of wondering if its gonna take another 2 years to get a monthly check....

Russ Duncan

[DeeCee]

You can not receive concurrent receipt unless you retired. How many years were you in and if you did not retire it is a wrap, you get one or the other.

[Berta]

Russ, maybe the Customer Service area here at the DFAS site can help you.

http://www.dfas.mil/retiredmilitary/disability/crdp.html

CRDP used to be a 30 to 60 day situation....things sure have changed.

And the DFAS audit should not hold up your comp check.... unless VA has not followed through yet on their award letter with DFAS.

Nick here at the Veterans Benefit Network just answered a question on CRDP:

http://vets.yuku.com/topic/106116/Tracking-CRDP-Backpay#.Ug4Y2m04ns0

The veteran who asked stated:

“I will call DFAS and see if the audit is started or completed and if that audit was sent to the VBA “

We have other retirees here on either CRDP or CRSC.

Due to the VA backlog, all this stuff seems to be dragging.

Others will chime in here too and we ,as well as VBN, have CRDP posts here such as:

Thank You for your service!!!!

I know we will be getting more and more retiree questions here at hadit and even though I suggested the VBN site, we sure want you to stay here too.

Maybe we need a CRDP CRSC forum here as well because these questions are coming up a lot lately.

Do you have a VSO or vet rep helping you?

“To date I have yet to receive a dime “

That is a disgrace!

I deal with Buffalo too and found over the past 20 plus years (as wife of vet claimant ,then as his widow) that it often took some aggressive steps to get their thumbs removed from their butts.

Have you sent them an IRIS inquiry? Go to www.va.gov and the inquiry form is under the Contact Us thing on the main page.

File it as a complaint....the complaint pop down box will appear.

Buffalo held up my retro for over 7 -8 months on something and after fighting them for every award I ever got, I had to again fight them for my money.

I really cant tell here if this is a Buffalo glitch or a DFAS glitch.....regardless..... this is a disgraceful way of handling the claims issues of retirees.

You might want to see if this would help,by

telling your story here to the Buffalo News:

http://www.buffalonews.com/

Edited August 16, 2013 by Berta

[Rob m]

This may be hard to believe, but it is true. I was in the same situation as you and recieved my letter (80%) July 2011 but did not receive any payment until Feb 2013. Now, I did file another claim after July 2011, but I do not see why that would have held up the payment. Bottom line, you may get paid today, or you may be waiting a year or more.

My suggestion, do not make plans, spend money or allocate any of these forthcoming funds until you have the actual money deposited in your account, again it could take a while.

[harleyman]

It's a DFAS thing. Once a rating decision is completed it's the VSRs job to determine retired pay information. VSRs call or fax DFAS for the Veterans current retirement pay info, they set up the decision letter indicating the withholding up to what we call the "cutoff date". (right now the cut off date is September 1, 2013.) This changes monthly. All claims decided prior or up to this date, VA will process the decision and write the award letter, and inform the Veteran in writing what the adjustment is for any retroactive period and any withholding up to the "cut-off" date. Once the decision and award letter are processed the responsibility falls to DFAS, who are in charge of adjusting your benefit after the "cut-off" date and releaseing the funds.

If you have already recevied a decision letter which shows your award and the withholding amounts through a specific period and it is passed the adjustment date on your award, you need to contact DFAS.

It won't hurt to call VA and raise some heck, but it really is a DFAS thing. If you can get your worries to a Coach or Supervisor at VA they might be able to put some fire under it.

Edited August 16, 2013 by harleyman

[DeeCee]

He spent 5.5 years in the military how can he retire, and get concurrent receipt, there is no way.

[RUSSDUNCAN6672]

Thanks for all the info. I retired after 24 years of service. I received all that breakdown of monthly entitlement from the VA on 20 April 2013. I have contacted DFAS about 5 times since then. I just received an e-mail response from DFAS as of 22 Aug 2013, that DFAS has not received anything from the VA concerning an award of disability compensation. I'm just done with all this worry. At this point I am assuming that I will never see any funds, as I had two heart attacks this month and the old ticker is only working at less that 30 percent now.