Rating The Ro

[Guest jstacy]

I have seen rate the service officer. Now I want to see if it would be feasible to compile a list of RO's and rate them accordingly.

The Information could be kept on a data base and Vets can add their opinions. This would be a tool for Vets to see what they are up against. It would be a good thing if it is legal.

Any opinions from Hadit Vets.

We could do something like this as this is an example only and only contains my opinion in case The VA is looking in.

louisville Ky: manager (name of SCM)

1: This RO adjudicated my claim and made a favorable decision and it took 16 months from start to finish.

2: This RO denied my claim and I appealed which the BVA reversed. It took 30 months fdrom start to finish.

Jjust an Idea

Edited October 22, 2006 by jstacy

[Vike17]

I have delt with numerous Regional Offices and here are a few things I have noticed with them;

St. Paul:

pretty efficient, claims took about 7-8 months from filing to rating. One claim I did had over ten issues to decide and was completed in abot 9 months. DRO reviews took about 6 months and were all favorable. DRO's seemed to be pretty liberal.

Portland;

Quick responses from filing informal claims and VCAA notices. Claims took about 8-10 months. Had one claim farmed out to the Phoenix Regional office, which was returned to Portland with a favorable decision.

Phoenix;

relatively quick ratings, They do tend to miss Informal claim effective dates though.

Washington, D.C.;

All claims take well over a year, right around 16-20 months, very slow. VCAA notices were received within 4 weeks of submitting the claims. Ratings seemed to be okay; however, they seemed to overlook quite a bit of paperwork when actually rating claims. They seemed to loose quite a bit of mail!

Pittsburgh;

Pretty efficient, claims do take about a year though. VCAA notices are received about 4-6 weeks after claim submissions. Raters seem to be real thorough! They read SMR's and private treatment records with good detail. Only had one claim that got totally screwed up. DRO reviews take right around a year for the most part. DRO's seem by the book, but when the documentation is there in the C-file, they tend to be pretty liberal. The only real draw back is this RO tends to miss Informal claims and their effective dates.

Buffalo;

Have only done a couple of chapter 30 claims with this RO, They seemed to be ok, but kind of slow. I haven't encountered any screw ups.

St.Louis;

Have done a few chapter 30 claims and they all got messed up! This was by far the worst RO have have delt with. They don't seem to read alot of the documents sent to them!

Baltimore;

Had one claim farmed out to this RO and was decided rather quickly with a real favorable decision. From the time it was farmed out, I think from Washington, D.C., it only took about 4 weeks for the decision.

Vike 17

[Guest jstacy]

Great Job Vike, That is exactly what I was looking for.

[Berta]

The Buffalo VARO is not sending out VCAA letters to all claimants.

They are sending the form letter-Important Reply Requested -without the election form and without a statement specific to the claim.And denying the claim prior to a proper notice-an illegal tactic.

If you reply -you dont know what you are replying to as the letters are the form ones and do not contain any specific idea as to what the claimants should send them.

In one BVA remand for a widow who was remanded due to this VCAA violation-the BVA said the RO should have told her to get an independent medical opinion on her spouse's death.

I did that and got two and yet- without the proper VCAA notice, my IMos and all of my evidence was still ignored.

This is probably why I got a fast remand as my claim was denied without proper VCAA letter.And my medical evidence was never read.

I had to explain to the main office of my POA what the VCAA Notice really is.They didnt know.

I didnt know until Jangrin posted one here at hadit.I have not received any in 3 1/2 years.

My POA in NY had numerous claims at the BVA -I only checked 2006 so far- that have been remanded because Buffalo is doing this and vet reps are not questioning it.

One only has to look at BVA remands to see how many claims are denied at the VARO without this proper notification only to be sent back to the VARO again.

I griped to the Senate Committee on Veteras Affairs about this and my VARO said they started working on Saturdays to get these VCAA letters out.

I have 2 letters from their VSM promising me VCAA letters that have never come, in over 2 years.

I believe based on the research I did at the VA web site, that the Election notice-when the vet checks it off and returns it, somehow triggers them to look at their initial VCAA notice statement and then be able to decide the claim.

I switched vet reps and found that my new POA vet rep fully understands what the VCAA letter should be.

The guy I had previously didnt have a clue and neither did his bosses seem to know.

Buffalo- as a claimant there for many years past and present- I found you have to get tough with them sometimes.

My remand went into active status and they have been working on my claims since the remand.

A letter I got on my CUE was all messed up but it did appear that someone was actually trying to resolve that issue.

I told them like they were 12 years old why and how that claim should be awarded with VA case law and regs.I even told them how much the retro should be.

I told the IG last year this place definitely needs some oversight-

They know they cannot deny a valid claim without proper VCAA notice but they do it to many claimants-as the BVA site reveals.

This is funny.

My letter to the Senator wwas very strong and I enclosed a copy of a letter I had sent to the VARO Director.

I quoted an IG report from 2005 that stated that 65 % of all raters and RO employees had the time to make proper decisions.

This IG report is on line.

“Sixty-five percent of VA raters

and Decision Review Officers (DRO) surveyed by the IG, in conjunction with its May 2005

report, admitted that they did not have enough time to provide timely and quality decisions. In

fact, 57 percent indicated that they had difficulty meeting production standards if they took time

to adequately develop claims and thoroughly review the evidence before making a decision”

Inspector General 2005

I told them I wanted someone at the VARO in the 39 to 43 % who COULD make proper decisions based on all the evidence to handle my claim-after 3 1/2 years of having none of my evidence even read at all.

Five days after getting this letter , the Senator contacted the Buffalo RO and they were supposed to respond as it went to their Congressional liason.

BUT they had transferred me to the BVA already a week before that-

Then they sent this letter from Senator Craig to the BVA-the BVA confirmed that they had sent it there thinking it would sit around for 2 more years there -to put off an answer I guess-but

my claim was remanded 51 days later and now they were stuck with this letter again- with no response yet to the Senator- so maybe-

they actually have given my claims to someone in the 39-43 % who will actually take the time to read the evidence.

I think it is preposterous that the IG survey revealed so much inadequaccies of the claims system.

Not only do BVA VCAA violation remands show this but certainly many of their remands on other reasons could have been resolved at the RO level-

by someone in the 39-43 % that takes the time to actually read the evidence.

Edited October 22, 2006 by Berta

[calnight]

My inital claim was with oakland ro it took about 8 months to get a rating 50% for ptsd. now i am at reno ro. my case is on appeal and its been 6 months. i just recieved a c&p last week for my appeal i asked for a dro review on my appeal so its wait and see.

[Pete53]

Waco VARO is slow and can be very hard to deal with. For the most part they are at least honest and you can trust them with mailing. Once you win things are a lot better. It took me over 5 years to get 100%

[john999]

St. Petersburg VARO:

1. Disorganized

2. Bizarre and irrational ratings. Once they dig their heels in forget about it.

3. All mail will be lost at least once.

4. Grossly overburdened and understaffed.

5. Essential to do everything in person and face to face because of

fog of thousands of backlogged claims. You have to put a face on your claim.

6. Ratings will be low balled.