Supplemental Claim

[deedub75]

I am at a complete loss here.  I submitted a supplemental claim in 2/3/2020 for where I claimed my back and both knees secondary to bilateral pes planus and right ankle injury.  The claim moved quickly and I had C&P exams on 3/13/2020.  I checked on eBenefits today and saw that they granted back and both knees and even added 4 more contentions that I had not claimed.  However, they made 2/3/2020 the effective date for all contentions which completely defeats the purpose of getting earlier effective dates for all my percentages.  I called DAV and they told me that they indeed finalized the claimed with 2/3/2020 as the effective date.  

These claims go back as far as around 2011 or 2012 and it ended up in appeal on 2013.  I had a DRO review it and it was denied again in 2014 so I sent it to BVA where it sat there until they were remanded in 2017.  I asked for a HLR in RAMP because I didn't want to wait for legacy BVA.  It was denied again in July 2019 and so I got a nexus letter from my personal ortho doctor and send it in as a supplemental claim in Feb 2020.  So I've basically kept these claims open since at least 2012.  I have no idea why in the world they would put my effective date as 2/3/2020 on the date they received my supplemental claim.  DAV says I should just send it directly to BVA and and ask for earlier effective date and they will sort it out.  They said if I send it for a HLR they will just regurgitate the same info and leave the date the same.

What say you?

[deedub75]

10 hours ago, bellrungboxer said:

You got your supplemental completed in record time and it wouldn't be a surprise that they did not do any research on it. If you have the evidence to show the effective date you have and they are moving at record pace on supplementals, what is the cost of going that route first? 

I will admit though, I'm a novice at this and have only done supplementals because I have wanted to add to my claims to weigh in my favor prior to going the other routes.

That's what I was thinking.  What do I have to lose if I do another supplemental or even a HLR?  It may take them a couple of months to fix it but I don't know how long appeals at the BVA are taking now.

[bellrungboxer]

My past few supplemental claims have had the following:

October 2019 to Jan 2020

December 2019 to March 2020

Jan 2020 to possibly the end of this month, it appears that there is movement via vets.gov

With the Coronavirus stuff, I don't think it would affect Supplementals or HLRs, but I could see it clogging up BVA for a bit.

I will say that my recent supplemental had a similar issue as yours...it went SO quick that some of my evidence from the end of February wasn't included in my rating. Because this is crucial evidence (DBQ and "more than likely"), it's time for Supplemental #2.