Cold Hard Facts

[Ricky]

Just sitting around without anything to do so I decided to do a little research. Looking at the Monday Morning Report is what go me started.

The Stats for my VARO are as follows:

Percentage of rated cases sent to appeals: 57% This does not mean that they granted 43% of the cases received. You have to also take into account those that are denied and the vet simply forgets it, those that the VARO award at a lower level in which the SO convinces the vet that they go a good deal and those in which the vet died while claim was pending at the RO level.

Based upon the high percentage of appeals I decided to take a look at the BVA rulings on these cases. Surely there would be some good reading there. To my amazement when I did a search on just recent decisons for my VARO I found that out of 300 cases, 70 percent had been remanded. Some of them were on their second and third go around.

The majority of the cases had been remanded for:

-RO failure to associate listed evidence with the file

-RO failure to comply with previous remands

-RO failure to provide requested and required meetings (DRO meetings and BVA level meetings)

-RO failure to obtain VA medical records even after being informed of their existence by the Vet.

- RO improper development of the claim

Ya know we all make mistakes sometimes. Maybe failing to put a piece of key evidence into the packet before shipping it off to the Board 10, 15 or even 20 times a year one could understand. But hundreds upon hundreds of times a year is nothing short of intentional. The same goes for the other mistakes - continued failure to comply, failure to all due process hearings over and over again is simple criminal acts all the while thumbing your nose at the law.

I thought they were just lazy, but even a lazy person would have better stats than this. This little bit of research opened my eyes and depressed me. How can such criminal acts be tolerated by the government? I am going to send my little research efforts to the newspapers and news stations that provide coverage of the area in which the RO is located. Maybe it will shame them into an attempt to clean up their act. Nah, hell I am just dreaming.

[Guest rickb54]

Ricky,

This is infomative. I would be interested in how many total claims the VA screws up, and what the reasons for the mishandled claims are. All too often someone tells a veteran not to put a claim in, because it might not be valid and will add to the backlog. I submit the VA is the major cause of the backlog, the few unjustified claims do not compare with the incompentance of some of the va raters.

[rdawg]

Ricky,

How did you get the starts from your VARO??

[Berta]

Ricky -the stats from the Inspector General are awful too--

in a 2005 survey the IG found that

“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”

I have a log of my AO claim and in January there was significant movement of it- appeals coach,rater, VSM, DRO, appeals team, three separate authorizations, etc etc-all month long-then nothing seemed to happen until they sent it to the BVA in July.

I got a remand very fast-but still I do not believe a single person who handled the claim in the many movements of it in January even read the appeal and of course by then they had still not addressed any of the evidence. Even my POA statement at the appeal level was a generic statement that also did not reflect any

actual attention to the claim or the appeal or to the 2 IMOs with the appeal.I managed to tell them they ignored my evidence on the first page of the appeal- how could they miss it?

They didnt even read it.

Many remands (my POA has plenty there for this violation) involve that fact that the veteran did not get a proper VCAA Notice.

As I understand it, the POA gets a copy of the VCAA notice-

When they see it is deficient -instead of doing something about it-I think most of these vet reps just let it slide by as this lack of proper VCAA notice will get the claim to the BVA and then tie it up for 2 years-only to be remanded again- while the vet rep can sit back and say Whew-got rid of another one-

I actually had to inform my POA's main office of what a real VCAA Notice was- and show them how mine was deficient.I also sent them (they were ticked at this)a partial list of links to the 40 claims I found so far in 2006 at the BVA that they were POA on that had already been remanded due to the same VCAA violation.There are plenty more.

The fact that vet reps and NSOs are often poorly trained or lack the ability to help a veteran develop a claim at the initial levels or simply just dont care as long as their pay check comes couples with a system that -as the above survey shows- is unable to do proper and consistent claims work-and this all ties 2 hands behind a veteran's back-from the git go-

What seems to surprise me these days more than anything-is when the VA actually makes a good decision based on actually reading the evidence.

They have spent much more time on my claim by NOT reading the evidence than if they had done that in the first place.

Edited November 17, 2006 by Berta

[Pete53]

VARO screwing up is part of the plan to delay payments to Veterans

[olenavygoat]

The only way we'll get any major reaction is for vets across this country to expose every aspect of the system to the media. Another area to be concentrated on is what the VA, Tri-Care or Medicare is getting charged for. Medical supply places at a minimum double teh price on everything they buy. Depending on the item they as much as quadruple it. Recently I re-injured my back and needed a back-brace and cane from service connected injuries. The VA primary care doctor told me I would have to have an appointment with prosthetics. The appointment came in the mail and was for over a month away. So, having Tri-Care I went to see my private doctor for teh scripts via th eVA letter stating I was to report for evaluation for the types I'd need. The back-brace I received from the medical supply place costs them less than $200, I used to buy them when I worked there. They charged Tri-Care over $1000.00, of which they paid $644, the company gracioulsy wrote off $200 and sent me a bill for $160.00!!!!!

If we all worked together to report this greed we could insure our policies not to increase for years.

[Guest rickb54]

A little food for thought.

Here is a good example of what is happining to the claims processing system:

The biggest reasons there is such a large backlog is that too many VA employees fail to do there job correctly the first time around and cause so many appeals that are remaned or reversed on DE Novo, at BVA or by the Court of Veteran Appeal. We always hear VA employees or SO say veterans bog down the system with too many invalid claims. Some people even say this on this board. The VA will not admit they are 95% of the problem. Just look at how many times some of my claims have been handled before they were finally awarded.

In Oct 1988 Asthma claim won on CUE after two previous denials with EED of June 1986.

In Oct 2003 request for increased rating Asthma won on De Novo with EED of Nov 2000.

in Jan 2003, Adapted housing grant awarded on DE Novo with EED of Feb 2001.

In Feb 2005, additional and seperate award for knee injury granted on de novo review, with EED Nov 2000

In Feb 2005, hearing claim, and tinnitis awarded on third claim going back to June 1986.

In Jul 2005, COPD secondary to asthma claim awarded after a 20 years of denials.

IN Mar 2006 auto adapted equipment (air conditioner) awarded by BVA with EED of Feb 2004.

In all the above claims were reviewed 19 times before they were finally awarded. And in some cases they were reviewed by more than one regional office. Just think of all the other claims that could have been processed if the va had handled my claims right the first time, and think of all the money the va would have saved if they had done their job right the first time. Ironically I still have one issue at the Court of Appeals and two issues waiting De Novo appeal.

The next time someone tells you not to submit a claim because it might bog down the system remind them if the VA did their job properly the system would not be back logged.

The VA must be the only employer that rewards people for criminal incompentence.