Service Officer Mandatory? Harleyguy This Could Be An Easy Answer

[Hoppy]

I do recall there was a time when the VA automatically assigned a service organization when a claim was filed directly to the RO. Is this still happening? If not when did this stop?

Found this statement below on a website.

Once a veteran understands benefits available to him and he expresses an interest in filing an application for benefits, federal law requires that an va certified agent or va certified attorney or va certified service officer must help him with the process.

Edited August 31, 2013 by Hoppy

[Hoppy]

Carlie,

I almost took the time to say pretty much what you wrote. I just kept it short by saying it was poorly written.

[carlie]

Carlie,

I almost took the time to say pretty much what you wrote. I just kept it short by saying it was poorly written.

Roger that Hoppy.

[Hoppy]

This could be my final perspective. This post got way more interest than I expected. I tend to go with harleyguys explanation. There was a note on the evidence list on this veteran’s denial that someone from the VA had contacted the veteran by phone and discussed the witness statement. The veteran has no recollection of the phone call. The veteran could have forgot. This was a 2004 denial. My first claim was in 1970 and my last was settled in 2004. I had service officers for all claims. Nobody from the VA ever called me to discuss evidence. . In between 1970 and 2004 I had 4 or 5 denials

[broncovet]

Well, Hoppy we always appreciate your perspective. Your posts are some of the best of the best. Your answers are researched and well thought out.

Thanks

[infantry10]

VA choose mine for me too. It says American Legion on ebenefits but its the WV State Veterans Affairs office that is handling everything for me so I'm kinda confused right now myself. I guess I should figure this out...

[Chuck75]

We all pretty much know the VA has "2 sets of books"..and 2 sets of rules. After all, if there were only one set of books, I can just see the budget asking for another billion dollars because they squandered the last billion on low quality but well connected contractors who were unable to covert the VA to electronic processing, for example. The VA has to "cover up" their mistakes when it does the budget to congress. And there are plenty of mistakes to hide.

I don't know if the contractors or the VA and DOD are more at fault.

Problem #1

The VA AND DOD have not (to the best of my knowledge) even agreed on what data is to be shared.

Next once that's done, a common format and data order, data type, and so forth must be the same for both.

Finally, from the software side, anything that is done must be expandable, and supportable.

The hardware side is another issue. Development contracts usually, at some point must use government furnished systems.

The development cycle has taken so long that any original hardware is obsolete, and any developed software must be "modernized"

to be compatible with the new hardware, and developed in such a way as to allow transition to ever newer hardware.

Finally, I doubt (based upon past DOD related experience,) that the development projects have enough fully qualified government engineers and programmers

assigned to "ride heard" on the effort.

A decade or so ago, I got into a big fight over a software development project. The government had contracted for a fairly extensive special purpose software package that included

unique applications software and a special operating system configuration. The Verification/Validation proved the software worked, but left out a very important area.

The government did not insist upon a full "build" of the software on the delivered systems from the supplied source.

The end result was that when it came time to modify older application software, or develop new versions, a major effort was involved, and cost a lot of unnecessary time and money.

Why was it not done? The government did not want to spend the money.

I might go on and on, but I don't see any point.