Response from VSO of BVA Grant

[Kelly Severance]

Hello Hadit friends.   It has been almost 11 months since our BVA grant on March 7, 2018.  We have filed numerous inquiries and a couple of WH hotline calls. We also reach out to our VSO occassionally (about every 3 months).  She always makes us feel like we are bothering her......Anyway........  Our last inquiry was in November.  Below is her response.....

Your current appeals status is listed as “Rating Decision Complete,” pending authorization.  On March 30, 2018, the VA implemented the Board’s grant decision. Once the VA has authorized your claim, you will be notified by the VA by mail. It is a process. One that I cannot supersede.

So, the judge granted the increase of migraines to 50% on March 7.  Apparently it went immediately to the VARO and they wrote a rating decision by March 30, which is super quick........so WHY do we still not have the correct disability rating or retroactive pay?  Any thoughts?  Also still not movement on the remand portion of this appeal . (TDIU)

[broncovet]

Did you receive a VARO decision implementing the Board decision?  It sounds like you did not, your VSO is relying upon VBMS/ebenefits/Vets/gov.  

This is VA's newest favorite delay method:  Taking their sweet time to implement a board decision.  It seems they tried every other way to delay or deny, so they came up with a new one.  

In their defense, the Board "ramped up" their decisions, while RO's diverted some of their people to RAMP decisions, thus something else had to give somewhere, and it is the implementing of Board decisions.  

It might be time to contact your congressman..what did the white house hotline say???  That's much more important than your VSO's response.  Most of them dont even return phone calls to Vets, once they have your POA "in hand".  

Depend on your VSO's advice at your own peril.  When I get my 2 current appeals completed, Im gonna calculate "how much it cost me" to take my VSO's advice.  It will be in the thousands of dollars.  My VSO advised "not" appealing a zero percent rating.  I can not even think of more costly advice.  That is worse than your mechanic advising you replace engine and tranny, when the only thing wrong is a plugged  $20 fuel filter.  If VSO's were car dealers, , many would be tarred and feathered and ran out of town and prosecuted.  Its amazing how many VSO's get away with so much, and so many lies.  

[Kelly Severance]

Thank you Broncovet for responding.  We have NOT received anything since March 7 and that was the BVA decision packet.  Back in October 2018, we made a WH inquiry, the man on the phone spent a good deal of time reviewing the decision packet on the phone with us.  He said that he was opening a ticket and was going to "escalate" the inquiry to his supervisors and that we should hear back within a week.  We waited a month and then called back and they had no record of our previous inquiry and basically said the exact same thing that our IRIS responses have said.  "Your grant is being reviewed at your regional office and there is no time frame that they can give us".

This is our second BVA grant.  The first time was for SC on  migraines and PTSD.  From BVA grant to Retro and implementation, it was 14 months........so I don't know why I expected this to be any different EXCEPT in the current grant, It was for increase on migraines to the maximum percentage (50) throughout the appeal period (back to 2005) so the rating was set by the judge, so I thought it might be quicker the second time around.........  That's what I get for thinking!