silverdollar22 Posted September 29, 2014 Share Posted September 29, 2014 Congratulations on your victory. One more positive outcome is always great news for the rest of us. It gives the ray of hope that we need!!1 Thanks, Eric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Posted September 29, 2014 Share Posted September 29, 2014 Congrats............. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rootbeer22 Posted September 29, 2014 Share Posted September 29, 2014 NavyWife:Great news...how many conternions did the VA review for your husband....I'm at 4 months with my FDC and it;s still in the "review" process?Again congrats and I'm so glad that it turned out in your family's favor...there are a lot of claims going to appeal now...I think that's part of the pressure being exerted on raters now... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlie Posted September 29, 2014 Share Posted September 29, 2014 In my opinion, this success was brought about by Navywife taking charge for the outcome of the claim issues - learning all she could and applying it in a correct manner. jmho Carlie passed away in November 2015 she is missed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NavyWife Posted September 29, 2014 Author Share Posted September 29, 2014 NavyWife: Great news...how many conternions did the VA review for your husband....I'm at 4 months with my FDC and it;s still in the "review" process? Again congrats and I'm so glad that it turned out in your family's favor...there are a lot of claims going to appeal now...I think that's part of the pressure being exerted on raters now... There were only 2 contentions, so one would think it would go quickly, but one of the contentions is TBI, so that goes into the "Special Operations" processing lane. That means a rater with more experience has to work on it. Also, my VARO is one of the slowest, so that's why it took so long (I'm guessing). This link explains the segmented lanes process. Also, claims with 8 or more contentions go in the Special Operations lane. http://www.blogs.va.gov/VAntage/7555/segmented-lanes/ Things seem to be changing at VA as far as how they are processing claims, so I don't know if this segmented lanes process will continue to be used in the future or not. Back in July, they have started the Centralized Mail Processing, where they want all veterans and VSOs to submit claims and supporting evidence to the 2 processing centers--where all mail is scanned and associated with the veterans file. It doesn't make sense that a person that lives in Kansas can get their claim done in 2 months, but a person that lives in California, Washington or Florida has to wait 12 to 16 months. So maybe, just maybe they will start sending claims to be processed at whatever VARO has the lowest number of claims pending. I haven't read anything official about this yet, but I hope they do it. My claim timeline: 9-2013 Claim Received 2-2014 Under Review completed ----5 months in this stage 5-2014 C&Ps scheduled and completed. Both were notified by phone only- no letter-- 3 days in advance of appointment. I was able to see on Ebenefits under VA Appointments that the VARO requested the C&Ps a few weeks prior to the phone call, so we were expecting the call. 9-2014 Gathering Evidence completed----7 months in this stage. During the last month they sent a letter requesting more evidence. Evidence that was already in the Service Treatment Records. 3 days to go through the rest of the stages to Complete. Once claim showed Complete was able to use Ebenefits to view AB8 letter showing percentage total. Also able to use Ebenefits and start a new application to view the correct effective date as well as the percentage for each individual contention. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NavyWife Posted September 29, 2014 Author Share Posted September 29, 2014 In my opinion, this success was brought about by Navywife taking charge for the outcome of the claim issues - learning all she could and applying it in a correct manner. jmho Thanks very much carlie! If I could advise anyone, I would say the 2 most important things I did was read and analyze each sentence, down to each word, each comma, each semicolon, in the rating schedule for the contention, seen here. http://www.benefits.va.gov/warms/bookc.asp Some contentions are very straightforward and based on a specific number, but many others are very convoluted and unclear and open to misinterpretation, by the veteran as well as by the rater. Also, in that same section, read any supplemental instructions for rating that issue or body system. The second most important thing I did was read and completely understand the DBQ for the contention, seen here. http://www.benefits.va.gov/compensation/dbq_disabilityexams.asp Of course, I wouldn't have known about any of those things without reading hadit everyday!!! georgiapapa 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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