Decision date keeps bouncing around

[Cobra4v]

I've been in preparation for decision for over a month. My decision date keeps bouncing around. 2 weeks ago my claim was to completed on the 27th of June. Since about last week my claim was scheduled to be completed the 22nd of June (tomorrow). I logged on today to check the status and it still reflects preparation for decision. Their is also an error message that said "dependency claim processing is undergoing maintenance and claim updating may take over a week". 

Contacted ebenefits customer support and they said all claims will be effected. They couldn't advise if this would be through the regional side of things as well. They gave me the regional office number to inquire.

Called them, spoke with a rep and explained my question thoroughly. As a reply I got, " your claim is in the decision making process, if any other information is needed it will go back to the gathering of evidence process. It's estimated your claim will be completed on the 22nd, however, this is just an estimate and depends on the VA's pending work load".

funny how I remembered the response to a T isn't it? I'm sure we're all no stranger to this response when we call up.

Anyway. Has anyone ever been up to the last day of their estimated time of completion, only to get pushed back longer? And has anyone ever made it to the last day of decision making while still in the Preparation for Decision process and needed up being completed as scheduled?

Im really hoping things go smoothly. 

 

[OSC]

Yep…that’s normal eBenefits and the standard response they give the thousands of other Vets when they call requesting information.

We have all been through the same thing as you. So all you can do is relax as NOTHING you do will make it go any faster. All you will do is frustrate yourself even more.

You are lucky…At least you can see that someone is actually DOING something with your claim.

As others have said in the past, get a hobby like knitting or underwater bowling; something that takes your mind off the snail pace movement of your claim; as it will be done when it is done.

Best of luck.

OSC

[smoothc100]

It's normal for the dates to bounce around a lot. What can really be stressful is when the statuses keep changing like from "preparation for decision" back to "review of evidence" or even worse "gathering evidence", which usually means there is a problem with your claim. You just have to ride out the wave and don't think about it. If you have to check, just check the status once a day and move on to something else.

[Cobra4v]

Thanks for the info. As an update, my claim has been flagged because ive gone past the projected completion date. Didn't get a new date, the system just flagged it. 

 

I choose underwater bowling. 

[Carl the Engineer]

They must be using a computer algorithm of sorts.  Not sure how anyone could be picking dates out of the air for these things we call claims.  Mine went from 11/7 to 10/21 the other day for no appearent reason.  As if, someone at the VA said, "hey, lets knock of 10 days on Hamslice's claim" because they got an x-ray report back from the lab.

I think they are just trying to be cute, when all we want is efficiency.

Or, more likely, they throw a date way out in the future and then when they cut 10 days off, they can add that to the reduction of the backlog for their report to Congress.  I bet thats it.

As always,

Hamslice

"flagged" WTF...........

[OSC]

17 hours ago, Hamslice said:

They must be using a computer algorithm of sorts.  Not sure how anyone could be picking dates out of the air for these things we call claims. 

.........

Or, more likely, they throw a date way out in the future and then when they cut 10 days off, they can add that to the reduction of the backlog for their report to Congress.  I bet thats it.

 

It is called a "HAT".

OSC

[Cobra4v]

In that case, I hope they finish by the original date of the 27th. Because as of now I'm still in preparation for decision.