C & P Exam

[rasceebp]

Hi

I was informed by LHI that I needed an in person C& P.  Then all of a sudden, they said that all exams were canceled by the VA until further notice.  Then a new claim popped up in ebenefits for me stating - Covid EXAm Cancellation review with an expected completion date of December 2021.  Does anyone know what that is or what that means?

[GBArmy]

Raceebp It means that ebenefits is screwed up. You have been a member for 4 months, so I guess this shouldn't be a surprize if you have been reading Hadit. I suppose they are telling you that a) they have cancelled your C&P exam and b) your pre-exam for covid was also cancelled. Expected completion date is now estimated to be December 2021 seems perfectly normal for ebenefits. They hope you go away for 18 months and not bother them. Ok; enough of that sarcasm. The VA is in process of pulling some C&P's back in house and re-shuffling others because they are opening up capacity. It's probably going to take a few weeks for them to reschedule your exam. It is very unlikely you will get any good intel from LHI; they are only looking at the paperwork the VA gave them. If you use a VSO, you could call and see if there is some clue as to what is happening specifically. Possible, but not likely. What I would do is try calling Peggy and hope you can get someone who actually will try to dig for you. Your point is 18 months out doesn't make sense for you or the VA estimated time line of 125 days target. It will get straightened out, the question is when. Oh, don't shoot the messenger at Peggy; I believe the have an unofficial means of taking care of abusive callers. Good luck.

[deedub75]

LHI is apparently having issues right now.  At least in my case they don't have any examiners to conduct the in person exams.  I filed claims in April in which exams were requested but couldn't be done because the VA shut down all in person exams.  My exams could not be conducted via telehealth.  Now that the VA has opened up my area (Indiana) to in person exams, all LHI can tell me is that they are trying to locate someone to conduct the exam.  I call every week and they tell me the same thing.  I call Peggy last week to try to get my exams pulled away from LHI and given back to the VAMC or another contractor.  I guess the contractors have a time frame to get the exams done and I know LHI isn't going to give the exam request back until the very last minute.  One of my former VA coworkers tells me that LHI is a mess.