haims HAIMS request and status question Oct 2018

[GeekySquid]

So here is yet another question about Ebenefits statuses and trying to figure out what is actually happening.

Ebenefits now has this status

• Requested Documents are Past Due (this appeared the 22nd/23rd of October 2018)
• Attention: Development Letter Sent Development Letter Sent (this has been there since it was opened in Aug 2018)

The Dev Letter has been there since the start of the claim.

In the documents required section it says a document requested is no longer needed and has been that way since they consolidated the claims. The documents were requested from Sigonella Sicily. I have not been there since 1984 and the base had no hospital then, only a small med clinic.

The VA at this moment has not been told by me that there are hearing test results missing from my C-File. They would have no other way to know that there are tests not in the file. Those missing tests are from multiple bases, including Sigonella so why they would be requesting files only from Sig is beyond me.

I contacted IRIS two weeks before the Past Due Notice showed up and they responded the claim was waiting on a HAIMS request for military STR's from Sig

So does anyone have any idea what that Past Due Notice actually means? What actions the VA will take? am I just stuck in limbo or is there some action I can take to at least get them to issue a partial decision on the "easy" portions of the claims like the ED?

The estimated completion date is in Jan 2019. We know that is a joke.

Trapped in this mess are my SMC-K claim, which  I am fairly sure will be approved, as well reopening the Bilateral Hearing loss Claim, which the tests in the C-File definitively show the Hearing Loss was documented in-service. The other claim is for TD/IU but since my PTSD Review C&P bumped me to 100% P&T that should be moot.

thanks for any input
 

Update 10/26/2018 11 A.M PST

Being incapable and unwilling to be patient (character flaw, I know),  I have been checking Ebenefits daily (1 morning, 1 night) to see if any changes occurred. Excessive maybe but it works for me.

Today at 6 a.m. PST I looked at the claim and it had moved to Preparation for decision from the Requested Docs Past Due status. Makes me wonder if that status does not trigger a rater to actually look at the claim again?

at 11 A.M. I decided to see if Vets.gov had the same status. I believe someone told me that they were supposed to be in sync. They aren't. Vets says they are gathering evidence still.

The new Ebenefits Estimated Completion date is 12 Dec 2018, a whole month earlier than before. woohoo I might get a nice holiday gift from the VA. lol NOT!

Update 10/27/2018 5:45 PM PST

So as usual I checked this morning at approximately 8 AM CST, figuring since the claim is at site 320 and that is either Ky or TN, that is a good time to see if anyone was around or had been overnight. No joy. No change.

Now at 5:45 PM PST (my local) which should be like 7:45 CST, the status has updated again. It now says

• Pending decision approval

Which is very interesting and if it does not start bouncing back and forth between statuses, I might actually see it change to finalized in a week or two.

Right now, despite my impatience, this claim has moved fairly fast for the VA and other horror stories I have heard. This was opened Aug 20, 2018 it is now Oct 27, 2018, so if it keeps on track and closes by Nov 20, 2018 that is only 90 days. That is much faster than the 125 day average the VA says it takes for initial claims, and this one is kind of complicated to wade through. '

We will see. I will keep updating here just so there is a record of the time line and maybe help create some data points for other vets to gauge things by,

special note. I have no idea how that screen cap of this screen got attached and it wont let me delete it. sorry.

 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2018 by GeekySquid
update with new info

[GeekySquid]

15 hours ago, GeekySquid said:

Today as of 5:02 PM PST the status changed back to

• Review of Evidence

with an estimated date range of 11/23/2018 - 12/20/2018

so much for my hoped for early holiday present.

I suspect this bouncing may go on for a while.  wah wah wah wah wah....

So today, being the obsessive that I am, i tried to log into E benefits at 5 AM PST and got a big red error saying they couldn't log me in, might be a problem with my DEERS info. Call xxxx to fix problem. XXX recording says DS LOGON is having problems.

Okay  so no Ebennies until it is fixed.

At 8 a.m. PST I decided to call Peggy, not expecting much since I can never get through to her...surprise today I did and on the first try.

She told me that a partial decision has been made on my request to reopen bilateral hearing loss claim, my SMC claim for ED and the TDIU request I put in before my Review ptsd c&p bumped me to 100%

According to peggy the only outstanding part of the issue is on my claim involving dizziness. Said the letter was prepared and ready to mail today and should be here in 10 days or so.

So now I get to try and be patient, something I am not good at.