Is eBenefits supposed to update after HLR?

[ed33]

Hi everyone,

My Higher Level Review was completed last week. When my initial claim was completed ebenefits updated my "disabilities" section long before I got my decision letter. Does anyone know if the same is true for the HLR? Basically if the decision was reversed should it be already showing in eBenefits? Because it doesn't even show anything about my appeal anywhere on ebenefits.

Thanks

Edited August 20, 2019 by ed33

[deedub75]

1 minute ago, GBArmy said:

Deedub I am curious on what happened to you. Did this "informal conference" take place recently, and how did you request it? I didn't think they did informal conferences under the AMA? I had a "VA mad a recent decision ", but I couldn't get a straight answer out of them until I got the decision letter. (They made a mistake and had to further develop my evidence.)

OK, now know what you mean. I usually don't request a an informal hearing. I heard from a couple of VA sources that I trust that it probably isn't worth it for most claims. Since it is a HLR, you can't submit any NEW evidence; all your evidence is already submitted. When you submit a HLR you are asking a "more qualified senior rater" to re-look at the evidence again. So if you had a good case and the evidence was complete, what do you have to gain by telling the new rater what is in the evidence? I was told by one that he has yet to get verbal argument that made a difference in the decision process. Everything is there. But it does delay the process, because they have to schedule a phone call with you so there is some queue time there. This is MHO; it may be important for some to do, but I doubt if I will ever use that option myself.

It never hurts to request the informal conference. There are pages and pages and pages of documents that the DRO has to sift through.  All of the evidence was already there in my file but on my supplemental claim, all of the documents pointing an earlier effective date were missed.  I had all of the evidence in front of me showing that I had continuously pursued these claims since 2010. It would have been easy for me to point the documents and the dates out to the DRO if she had missed them. In my case, she had already reviewed all of the evidence in my file before she called me and agreed with me. I didn't want to take the chance her missing the documents and denying my earlier effective date claim and then having to file yet another claim to fix it. 

[GBArmy]

Understand. In your situation, the problem was that they "missed" documents/evidence in the first place. Like I said, some people need to do it. I can see trying for an EED could be one of those.