Opinions Please

[jlshand]

On Oct 13 of this year I received an email response to my request on the the status of my I.U claim. The response from the VARO was " A decision has been made on your claim you should get a letter within two weeks." When I didnt hear from them thru last saturday I queried via email aagain. Just now i received the response that ("the claim has been rated and sent to the rating team, apparently a mistake was found because it was re-rated on 11 November. I'm sorry I told you two weeks , it was just an estimate.}

Can anyone read into this ,particularly the part mentioning the re-rating on 11 November, whether this is a good or bad sign. Chewing on fingernails here.

Edited November 29, 2006 by jlshand

[JR Reihs]

At this point I think you are in a crapshoot, your VSO should be able to tell you what is going on.

This is where the VA induced PTSD come's in play, its not right but it is what it is. Hopefully the rating will be in your favor. One good sign would be claim sent to Authorization, that is a pretty good signal of a good back pay award.

[carlie]

VA claims sure as hell give me anxiety, depression, panic attacks etc... but the claims process does not rise to the level of inducing PTSD in my opinion.

carlie

[Tower_Rat]

Because of the anxiety involved and the stress that the VA causes with all this stuff. Last week I just got over an outbreak of shingles which the doctor did say was related to the stress I was undergoing about my claim. So I guess these things do effect people on a physical level as well as mental. They also said my hypertension even though I was on meds for was way up. After the Initial C&P's I got sick in a trash can outside near the vending machines. Than had a panic attack on the way home thinking about all the things that I shouldve said or couldve said or didnt say to the psyche. Good thing someone else was driving.

I think the VA should be responsible for all the veterans that undergo problems while waiting for their claim when its due to physical, stress and anxiety. Maybe if they were penalized or made to pay while the veteran waited or some kind of interest that they had to pay in a lump if the veteran won his or her claim. I think they would rate them a little quicker im sure.

I think that things will change if were able to get lawyers. When that happens no longer will the VA be able to build its cases using its lawyer teams while the veteran huddles in the dark behind barriers of denial, stalling tactics, and just plain meandering on the VA's part. I mean I had to wait 19 months for a C&P. Come one that is way to long in my opinion. They told me they needed more evidence to authorize it even though I had the diagnosis and nexus and had Social Security for the same thing and was granted it using just my VAMC records. That sounds like someone hitting the brakes on purpose.

Im done venting LOL

I hope your claim is in your favor, and they owe ya lots of back pay.

[jlshand]

jlshand,

Thanks Rick,

By the way I have been following your dialogue with the "Guys" on that other Veterans forum. They, specifically one of the then moderators "Dave" booted me off the forum some months ago. Seems they really didnt want to hear my totally documented complaints about the VARO's administration of claims. It was as if they were shilling for the VA and I was hitting too close to where it hurt. Got into a big brawl with this Dave guy who was making arbitrary decisions on what to publish and what not to. As I say , all of mystuff was backed up with sources such as the knight ridder newspaper reports and the findings of various independent groups. ...but...... they <Dave' , just wouldt hear of it.

Kind of surprising now that one of them would take someone to task for essentially quoting the potential good outcome of the regs as you did without talking up the the "bad" as they insisted had to be done.. I for one did not really understand what their beef was since all you did was quote the regulation verbatim. Since a frequent position of nearly everyone on these sites is " you wont know if it will fly if you don't apply" I could not follow the consistency of their argument.

their site as does this one supplies good info but it seemed to me there was some kind of line we were not to cross over.

My advice it to try to be a little more paitent. I have found that you can call the va three different times ask the same question and get three different answers. I find this also happends with the email inquiries. Heck I have even called to present a question, and find out that I am not talking to someone in my own state, who doesn't have access to my paper records, but just the computer file which seems never to be updated.

take a deep breath...sit back and relax, good thinks come to those that wait....

best of luck

[Pete53]

I can't really comment about the other Board but Hadit usually tries to support Veterans with their claims. Not all the time is there good news to deliver as many here have had to wait months and years for the VA to do thir job.

As far as how long the VA will take to do something that should have at least reached the place where everything is pretty much done there is really no definite answer in my opinion. I have decided that there are many forces that moves behind our view and understanding and the biggest problem is money. An award is money that the government becomes obligated to for a long time in many cases.

It took me over 5 years to win my claim of 100%. I have seen claims that took longer and some much shorter. Hadit helps Veterans have shorter waits and more efficent claims in my opinion.

For me getting straight answers after dealing with VA was the most important thing. I also believe that you can encourage people without lying to them also.

Good Luck on your claim.