To "RAMP" or not to "RAMP"

[broncovet]

As many may know, Congress has passed new legislation which essentially requires VA to cut down on appeal backlog.  This plan is known as "RAMP".  

Currently, only Veterans who ARE INVITED by VA can elect to go with RAMP.  Im not sure it will do much good to write to VA and tell them you want RAMP, tho its POSSIBLE that VA may grant this request.  

A well known law firm has published some credible, and valuable information on RAMP.  If offered a chance to "RAMP" through a VA letter, its probably a good idea to:

1.  Just do it and go for RAMP.

2.  At least read the following before declining ramp, and discuss this with your representative.  

https://cck-law.com/news/news-cck-live-revisiting-ramp/

MY summary:

    UNLESS you have a compelling reason, opt "in" for RAMP.  

    CCK says you should not do RAMP if any of these would harm your claim:

However, veterans should fully consider that participating in RAMP means:

• not being able to appeal to the Board until at least February 2019.
• not being able to take their claim directly to the Board of Veterans Appeals.
• never going back to the legacy appeals process.

 

 

[HorizontalMike]

On 8/12/2018 at 3:31 PM, broncovet said:

Mike,

    I have no idea if your attorneys ignored this, or maybe they just did not tell you, and DID have your back.  You should find out in a few months or so.  

    This attorney no longer represents me, as I "won" a remand at cavc, got most of my attorney fees paid by EAJA.  Then, the remand decision happened and I "won" but was not satisfied with the effective date of that board decision.  Julie Glover elected not to repesent me (again), so I hired Chris Attig, instead, since I was again, at the cavc level.  

      I have now been represented by 3 attorneys, tho not by choice.  One, the NVLSP, 2 Julie Glover, and 3, Chris ATTIG.  

      My experience has been that attorneys do very little or no "hand holding".  They are not our counselors, they dont write us long emails detailing a rebuttal to our newest entitlement theory we sent them.  While we may not think so, they dont make all that much money.  

       I think Julie billed EAJA for about 30 hours of attorney time.  That was not near enough.  My cfile was at least 1500 pages long.  JUst to read that, if you can read a page in 2 minutes, is 50 hours. (Its a very fast reader to read a page in 2 minutes)    This is not to prepare a brief, not to do anything..just read my file.  So, she had to have done a lot of work and not get paid for it.  Lots of it.  

      I dont know about you, but I dont like working and not getting paid...for all my hours.  (Whatever the hourly rate is)  You probably also wanted to get paid for all your hours worked when you worked by the hour.  

      So, I did/do not get a lot of handholding and they dont send me a letter then discuss ramp on the phone for an hour.  No.  They simply just do what they think is best.  I dont blame them.  I dont call every Veteran and explain every thing to them either.  I tell them to go to hadit, read all they can, if their question is not answered I will try to get to their question, but others might instead.  Im glad others answer questions.  

     VA law is not all that lucrative.  At least one attorney I met "no longer does Vets benefits".  Why?  Well would you like to work for a man and then "maybe" get paid 5 years later?  Its no wonder so few want to do Vets law.  

      Anyway, Chris Attig is also extremely busy and does not return every call and answer every time I ask him if he thinks this or that will fly.  I read his brief he filed for me, and it was very very good, and he described my claim way better than I could.  So did Julie.  

      I suggest you "hang in there"..with RAMP, you will likely know something maybe by the end of this year.  I am glad at least one attorney recommends RAMP, as most dont like it.  You will like it also, if you get some retro, even if you still have to appeal effective dates or whatever.  Anything is better than waiting 5 more years on an appeal in my opinion.  

Broncovet,

Yeah, understand the above.  Sometimes it just takes me longer (TBI) than others.  Though, I have not talked with Adam Luck on the phone for about 2years, and it had been since last December for getting any email contact.  And that email was only to communicate the docket number(s) that I had requested.  Trying real hard to sit on my hands and not react(overreact), but my MDD is very real and often gets in the way.

That said, I just discovered the "new" ebenefits page via IDME.ME and did not realize that this existed/exists.  How long have I missed noticing this one?  Will have to play around with this link and see what it offers... Any quick tips?

[HorizontalMike]

Well Broncovet,  I guess I am about to find out if my RAMP claim gets decided before my Legacy claims do.  According to the VA "customer service" page, my MAY 2016 legacy claims are NOW being distributed to the BVA Judges.  That just showed up on their webpage.  How long it will take now, who knows.  Please note that my attorney has not informed me what level my RAMP claim is submitted for.

QUESTION: Can one's lawyer just go ahead and get IMOs from doctors without you, the patient/vet, actually visiting said doctor(s)?  In other words, without me even knowing about it?

[broncovet]

Yes, its possible you dont know about an IMO.  An IME (Independent medical exam), however, requires your presence, while a IMO (Doctors opinion) does not require your presence, only your medical records.  

[HorizontalMike]

9 hours ago, broncovet said:

Yes, its possible you dont know about an IMO.  An IME (Independent medical exam), however, requires your presence, while a IMO (Doctors opinion) does not require your presence, only your medical records.  

Wow... Isn't THAT interesting...    Well, I can only hope that my attorney is actually doing that.  The lack of his notification(s) just wears me out, trying to understand.  Four years ago, while he and Julie were just starting up their practice together (and I finally hired them after +2yr without an attorney), they both were much more communicative and responsive to my queries.  I guess that means that their case load(s) have gone way up, and hopefully their experience with it...  We'll see...

This anal retentive vet has a hard time with "...I've gotta secret..."  Knowing my past +40yr, and how I don't deal with this kind of crap, I'm sure my TBI is contributing to my frustration... 

"...Just keep quiet Mike and sit on your hands Mike, sit on your hands Mike,... sit on..." 

 

[broncovet]

Mike, I have had 3 attorneys and each was the same way:

Quote

They dont want to be my counselor.  They want me to go to the VA doc and get one there.  They dont get paid to instruct or counsel us, or to teach us about VA law.  They dont get paid to "hold our hand" and answer every question we have.  

I did the math and understand why.  My cfile is at least 1500 pages long.  If he could read one page in just 2 minutes, that means it takes him 3000 minutes (50 hours), just to read my file and make some sense of it.  I happen to know that they billed EAJA for about 30 attorney hours for winning my case, and, of course, there are regulations on how many (attorney) hours the EAJA will pay for this or that. (Such as filing a brief).  

So, my attorney was ALREADY donating about 30 hours of her time to me, that she would never get paid for.  

Of course, we Vets dont see it that way.  We want to know why the attorney did not respond to our email about our new 38 CFR that we found online that we just knew applied to us and how our attorney should win our benefits with that one.    And, why the attorney did not argue that 38 cfr at our brief.  

We all have made choices in life, some were good, some not so good.  You, too,  could have studied hard and been a doctor or lawyer, but chose another path.  

Once, there was a lawyer who called a plumber to fix his sink.  The plumber fixed it, and handed the bill to the lawyer for $400.  The lawyer goes, "Gee, you were here 20 minutes, that is 1200 per hour, and Im a well known attorney and I dont make 1200 per hour.!!!"

The plumber responds, "You are right.  When I was an attorney, I didnt make that 1200 per hour either."  

Edited August 21, 2018 by broncovet

[HorizontalMike]

1 hour ago, broncovet said:

Mike, I have had 3 attorneys and each was the same way:

"...We all have made choices in life, some were good, some not so good.  You, too,  could have studied hard and been a doctor or lawyer, but chose another path..." 

 

Once, there was a lawyer who called a plumber to fix his sink.  The plumber fixed it, and handed the bill to the lawyer for $400.  The lawyer goes, "Gee, you were here 20 minutes, that is 1200 per hour, and Im a well known attorney and I dont make 1200 per hour.!!!"

The plumber responds, "You are right.  When I was an attorney, I didnt make that 1200 per hour either."  

You got it Broncovet. 

My Doctorate in Educational Administration is in neither Medicine, nor Jurisprudence.  My Doctorate was in another area, and I am sure there lies much of my problem in trying to be patient now.  I gained an equivalent level of education and thinking skills and just hate not being kept informed.  Geez, I have/had the qualifications to run the institutions that those types attended as students!!...

FWIW, after my TBI (unknown to me for decades) I over-compensated by pursuing more and more education.  Problem was/is that my TBI did not allow me to get along with others and ended up alienating me at work and home, regardless of a bigger Desk/Position/Professional License/Doctorate.  I just kept getting pushed elsewhere every ~2yr.  I hate having such an invisible disability

Edited August 21, 2018 by HorizontalMike