Administrative Review?

[infantry10]

Does anyone know exactly what administrative review means?

[Shyne-I]

From my understanding, once a decision has been made on your claim, a rating supervisor will automatically review your file to make sure that there are no errors in the decision. This happened on my claim, I was denied on 4/10, and on 4/30 it was opened under Administrative Review. My claim is currently "reopened" because I submitted new and material evidence while it was under Administrative Review. I'm sure someone else has more knowledge about it than I do.

Shyne-I

[USCG CWO4]

In my case they did a review on their own and found the error in my payment. It was supposed to start a month earlier then it did, so they corrected that. Funny thing is that I still didn't recieve any retro for it (13 months worth) or the other error that I am supposed to be getting SMC for the last 20 months. So it's some sort of quality check. But it obviously is not a catch all.

Take Care

Bob

[infantry10]

There were errors on mine made by VA which they openly admit to (surprising, I know). I've been in administrative review since Jan 22 but my pay cut started March 1st. It moved to prep for decision on May 18. I hope it doesn't take much longer but its not looking good as I cant even get a response from IRIS after 9 full business days.

[confusion99%]

My contentions after 20 months closed Jul 31, 2013. They SC'd my IHD back to 2002 which was my 3rd

attempt to get re-SC'd after they took that away in 1978. The time frame from 2002 until oct. 2011

which was when I reopened this claim (again) they rated at 0%, then from oct 2011 to present rated at

50%. They opened the administrative review on the 2002-2011 time frame to gather more evidence

from getting my hospital records from that time period from the local military hospitals I use. They said there

was no evidence of disability to rate for those years but are looking through those hospital records to

see if there is any evidence of disability they can rate with some percentage. They did this on their own.

It really won't make much difference since I was medically retired with 13.5 yrs so my CRSC only starts in

2008. I need retro in the 70% range to gain any money out of it prior to 2008 because the offset of my

retirement will wipe it out. AT 70%, or higher, I have a shot at some small amount of difference..

[harleyman]

FYI- for everyone. We (at VA) have had a really difficult time getting older records from the VAMCs and from the military hospitals. In support of your claims I would suggest when possible you the Veteran, request and get any records you can get for yourself. If you can get copies in support of your claim from the military facility I would recommend you get those records make copies and then send in the copies of the records to VA, in support of your claim.

HONESTLY, it takes MONTHS & MONTHS for VA to get a response from the military medical facilities. WE are NOT allowed to move forward on a decision if we have a PENDING unanswered request for records from a Federal entity. VA RO's at the very least are required to receive a NEGATIVE response from the facility. This encludes all requests for records from Military, Social Security, VAMCs etc. These people IGNORE these requests for records EXPECIALLY if the records are older than 5 years, and they have to search their ARCHIVES. I would say this is the major HOLD up on the wait time for rating decisions. THAT and trying to get the NATIOAL GUARD RECORDS. We cannot move a claim forward for a decision unless we get the records, we must (MANDATORY) recieve a negative response that there are no records or the Veteran tells us NOT to go after the record. I know sometimes it is not possible, but when it is possible if you want to speed up your claim time for processing, go after those records yourself, copy and send inthe copies to the VA.

Edited September 7, 2013 by harleyman

[confusion99%]

Hmmmm. I wish I knew what they were looking for in my case. I actually have those records. I got them about

2 months ago. I did pull a few pages and make copies that were from trips to the hospital I made with heart symptoms.

The records are not in any real order, except for the labs and ct/xray reports separated out. The rest, page to page

in the stack can bounce years in one direction or the other. I guess I could copy it all, or at least everything I assume

was after 2002. They are only interested in dates from 2002-2011. The problem is, that is over 3 reams of paper.

You think it would be worth boxing it up, taking it to the VARO in Houston who has my claim and letting them

copy what they want while I wait??? I could also get a copy of my C-file at the same time which I need anyway.

So I could almost justify the trip. Otherwise it would cost a small fortune just to copy everything and then mail it

to them. What do you think??? It is a 200 mile drive to go there.