My current VA journey, looking for advice

[John Hardin]

Hi everyone,

                         I have been fighting with the VA for over 15 years, and a couple of years ago decided to go the lawyer route after having zero luck on my own.  My situation right now is I filed a claim in September 2016 for PTSD which was denied (they said they could not find a record of the "incident"). AT this point I hired a lawyer who sent me to their own doctor, and put a packet together for me for an appeal.  I opted for a DRO appeal, which they received Jan 6, 2017.   Since that time I came in contact with a guy who was in my platoon overseas, and witnessed the incident the VA says they have no record of.  He wrote me a buddy letter which I have sent to the VA (and the attorney) and verified they have received it.  Recently, the attorney has contacted me and thinks it would be a good idea for me to go the RAMP route.  This person at the attorney's office indicated when the VA receives new evidence for an appeal, they put you back at the bottom of the stack. I have not made my decision on doing RAMP yet for a couple of reasons, and that is why I am here hoping for some advice. 

1) I am over a year and a half in on this appeal.  The wait time for an appeal in FL was 277 days when I started the appeal, it is now at 366 days.  I have passed both of those thresholds, so I am hoping this will be done soon.  Is this an uninformed opinion????

2) The person who told me when the VA receives new evidence for an appeal, they put you back at the bottom of the stack did not sound certain of that.  It kinda sounded like rumor mill stuff, and no one could give me a straight answer on it.  Anyone have any experience with this??

3) IF (big IF) I am close to the end of this appeal, why go the RAMP route?   

Any and all advice and input is appreciated.  My level of frustration is high, and I'm not sure what to do here.

[vetquest]

I am of the feeling that difficult cases get filed in the dead pool.  I have seen my case wait a year for a C&P.  Once they get a hold of it they deny the case with some really bogus opinions.  I was denied TDIU because my 20 year old PTSD benefit needed reduced and my 10 service connection for headaches needed to be severed.  I could not believe the rater wrote that with a straight face.  

Is your case in the BVA appeals?  If it was at the BVA I would keep it where it is at if it was me.  Otherwise I might consider RAMP.  Your lawyer advises this so it should be a good bet since lawyers, even the best, just want you to win so they can get paid.

Welcome to Hadit.  There are some good people on here that will be only too glad to help you.

 

Edited August 22, 2018 by vetquest

[broncovet]

You posted:

Quote

 I am over a year and a half in on this appeal.  The wait time for an appeal in FL was 277 days when I started the appeal, it is now at 366 days.  I have passed both of those thresholds, so I am hoping this will be done soon.  Is this an uninformed opinion????

Well, yes.  According to the BVA chairmans report, your wait will be closer to 5 plus years for a BVA appeal.  Dont count on the DRO,  Ramp is your only real shot at getting something done in 125 days.  DRO reviews pretty much "rubber stamp" the VARO decision, about 80 percent of the time, especially without new evidence, in part, because of res judicata.    And, a RAMP is pretty similar to the DRO, but you have the option of submitting new evidence in the Supplemental claim lane.  

I personally opted into ramp about 2 weeks ago, because I had a 2015 appeal, that was 3 years into it, and I found out there are still over 140,000 Vets ahead of me..after 3 years.  I estimate it will take 4-5 or more years to complete my old legacy appeal.  That wasnt acceptable, thus, I opted into RAMP

[broncovet]

All information available to me on RAMP is that BOTH of these "lanes" are to be processed in 125 days, even tho that does not make a lot of sense:

1.  Supplemental Claim lane.  Recommended, UNLESS you are certain you have "0" new evidence.  How can you be certain you have no new evidence to submit?  Only if you have a "fresh" cfile, and you have reviewed it and its complete.  A "fresh" cfile would mean your cfile that you have gotten in the past year.  

2.  Higher level review.  CAUTION on electing this one.  This "assumes" you have no new evidence.  Do you know, for certain, that one or more of your "key evidence" documents is in your file?  Probably not, again, unless you have a fresh cfile.  VA has a magic wand that makes your key evidence disappear or appear in another Veterans file.  That magic wand is somewhat broken with the new scanning in of evidence when you send it in to Janesville, but it worked every day for VA before that happened.  When you send evidence to Janesville, its often scanned in by a third party who does not have a dog in the fight to make sure your evidence gets lost, like VA does.  

     The reason that the same time period does not make sense to me is because lsupplemental lane has new evidence, and higher level review does not.  Higher level review assumes:  "Yep all the evidence is there, now render a decision."  Supplemental claim lane assumes, "Wait for all the new evidence to come in before rendering a decision." 

     Given that supplemental claim lane obviously has to wait for all the new evidence, this could take longer.  However, I suggest YOU be proactive and send in your "new evidence".   I sent them my new evidence along with the RAMP election form.   Send them the document that seals the deal:  such as your nexus documentation, so you know they have it.  

       To send VA only the evidence that seals the deal, you need to be sure you understand the Caluza elements, because those should seal the deal.  Current diagnosis, in service event or aggravation, and nexus.  

        If you are applying for an increase, look up your medical records and see where the doc said you were worse.  

Edited August 23, 2018 by broncovet

[John Hardin]

9 minutes ago, vetquest said:

I am of the feeling that difficult cases get filed in the dead pool.  I have seen my case wait a year for a C&P.  Once they get a hold of it they deny the case with some really bogus opinions.  I was denied TDIU because my 20 year old PTSD benefit needed reduced and my 10 service connection for headaches needed to be severed.  I could not believe the rater wrote that with a straight face.  

Is your case in the BVA appeals?  If it was at the BVA I would keep it where it is at if it was me.  Otherwise I might consider RAMP.  Your lawyer advises this so it should be a good bet since lawyers, even the best, just want you to win so they can get paid.

Welcome to Hadit.  There are some good people on here that will be only too glad to help you.

Thanks for the reply!  My case is not in the BVA appeals, I opted to have a decision review officer decide the case, which is supposed to be a faster process than a traditional BVA appeal.  It seems there is nothing quick with the VA, which is why I am hesitant to go with the RAMP option.  

9 minutes ago, vetquest said:

 

 

[John Hardin]

51 minutes ago, broncovet said:

You posted:

Well, yes.  According to the BVA chairmans report, your wait will be closer to 5 plus years for a BVA appeal.  Dont count on the DRO,  Ramp is your only real shot at getting something done in 125 days.  DRO reviews pretty much "rubber stamp" the VARO decision, about 80 percent of the time, especially without new evidence, in part, because of res judicata.    And, a RAMP is pretty similar to the DRO, but you have the option of submitting new evidence in the Supplemental claim lane.  

I personally opted into ramp about 2 weeks ago, because I had a 2015 appeal, that was 3 years into it, and I found out there are still over 140,000 Vets ahead of me..after 3 years.  I estimate it will take 4-5 or more years to complete my old legacy appeal.  That wasnt acceptable, thus, I opted into RAMP

Thanks for the response. That is what I was looking for.  I think I will do RAMP, but do you have any info about my second question?  Does your appeal go to the bottom of the stack when you submit new evidence, Or do you know? That is the only part of this that has really bugged me. Why, if I submit evidence for my claim, would I be punished (for lack of a better term) by the VA?  This whole process ahas been stressful, especially asking for a buddy letter from a guy in my platoon from Somalia. Not sure if that resonates with anyone, but it was not easy to do. I'm just ready for an end to all this...

Thanks for your input, it is appreciated. 

[bpweryz]

John, 

 not sure if you are “punished” and moved to the bottom of the pile when you submit new evidence. I will say that I joined RAMP on May 16th and have been in pending decision approval since 08/01 with an estimated complaetion date of 08/25 — 09/16. I did submit additional evidence including DBQs. Not sure if it bounced me around but I should know in the next few weeks.