Intent To File (PART 2)

[Fat]

I need to clarify my question.

Do the Intent to File form applies to supplemental claims (claims closed longer than one year)?

All comments are welcomed.

[brokensoldier244th]

Ill try to shape it up a bit. Im sorry Bronco. 

I apologize, I came across a bit more salty on that than I meant to, after further reflection. I had kinda a tough day yesterday- with claims stuck because of NPRC records, or STRS not being sent after discharge, people held up because they don't have their DD214 on their own, but their service isn't verifiable without it because NPRC is basically closed, etc. I had a lot of work yesterday that made me feel like I was kicking it down the road because there was literally nothing I could do to move it along. Their exams had already been done (we do jumpstart those now pending verification of service, rather than how it was years ago where service was verified first) but with no COD.........*sigh* Im as frustrated as many of you- and my claims were all finished years ago.

But I see the backlog, and right now, at least, the reasons for it are not a matter of lax VA stewardship in many cases. It's the Fed records repositories, and the Exec made it OPMs job to determine opening and operation protocols, and OPM kicked it do the local RO's, or facility/agency management to deal with (sensing a pattern here? ) so, many Fed agencies are all operating on their own separate protocols  for opening, daily operation, and even how Emergency sick leave is handled. It's really frustrating from both ends. At least my RO's Director has her head on straight and updates us every week about what mechanizations are happening in the background. I can't say the same for some of the other RO's or Agencies that I see mentioned on Reddit forums and other places. 

Add that to the pending waiting to find out of my kid has Covid from College and waiting for results, and that im overweight with SA and somewhat immunocompromized but keep getting told by non-mask wearing locals that wander about with impunity that its all in my head, along with my wife who gets yelled at in a PUBLIC LIBRARY (she works there) by people saying the same thing, and, well, cats and rocking chairs. 

 

 

[GBArmy]

Broken Speaking for myself, there is no need to apologize. We all have bad days, maybe more than our share I think. For sure it is great that you work at the VA and are able to give back to veterans that is very uncommon. We, too try to help our brothers and sister veterans in our own way, here and in other ways. But you provide insight and a first hand knowledge that Hadit really needs and is tremendously helpful to countless people. IMHO there isn't anyone using this site that's perfect, and that includes me for sure and probably you as well. Not to worry. Keep on helping out as well as you can, how ever you can. Like I said, no apologies needed brother.

[broncovet]

No, its not his fault, its my fault.  I posted that VA employees "sit" on the claim for 2 months.  More accurately, the claims go into a NWQ (national work que) and wait their turn.  From a Vets standpoint, however, relative to ITF, while that claim is "waiting its turn" in the NWQ, a Veteran can submit new, relative evidence with no penalty.  

If you go to Cracker Barrel, waiting on Breakfast, sometimes there is a long line.  (like the long line at VA, waiting on processing in the NWQ).  

Its not illegal to do "something else" while waiting in that long line.  At Cracker Barrel, you can call nearby resteraunts to see if their wait is shorter, for example, on your cell phone in the car.   You could also make business or personal calls, or even call a hospital you visited years ago, and ask them to mail your records.  

At VA, if you file a claim, while the claim is "waiting its turn" you can be ordering more records, if necessary, or gathering new evidence, while waiting on your turn.  

YOUR place "in line" after you file is held by the date you filed.  So you can order new evidence while waiting in line.  Or, you can file an ITF and suffer through some risks...such as:

1.  VA loses your ITF.  If they do, it wont be the first document of evidence they lost. 

2.  VA "forgets" the ITF and awards benefits at a different date.  You need to appeal or CUE.  

3.  VA "messes up" your ITF..and they have creative ways of messing up stuff.  If stuff was never messed up, we would have no need for BVA or CAVC..it would just be right the first time.  

4.  YOU mess up.  You file an ITF, then fail to file the claim within a year.  

5.  You file an ITF, get sick, or even die, and can not follow up with the required claim.

    In the above 5 senarios, guess who bears the burden here?  The Veteran.  He has to appeal.  In some cases, when the Veteran dies, his family may not be able to file the claim in his behalf, if they even know they must do that.  

[brokensoldier244th]

I took a bit of umbrage at the 'Sit on claim' statement. I started filing claims in 2002- so, at the time, that statement was true. At the time, a VSR would get a claim(s) and work it through completely from beginning to end- literally- until rating. And with having to order NPRC records, or PMRs (21-4141 stuff), or employment statements (21-4192) all that took a long time. Still does, but at least now if one or more of those forms are submitted ANYONE can work the claim out of any of the ROs unless its a special claim like MST or exposure, or AO/Radiation, etc. I've seen the system gradually improve a lot longer from the POV of a veteran than from the POV of someone that works there. I can say, though, that I have at least one meeting a week where someone from National or Regional goes through changes to the NWQ, the M-21, and other policy changes and whats coming down the pipe in an effort to keep all of us (workers) informed about things that affect claims and how to use that information most effectively to move claims along. I have claims reviewed every month at random sample to verify that the things I do to them (or don't do) are correct with current guidance. And, then there is this whole COVID thing which has put an armbar choke on EVERY claim action that requires a record search or private medical record that hasn't already been provided by the veteran. Every part of the chain is either slowed down, backed up, or not currently open for operation- depending on their area where they are located. 

The RO's are all open, however, as far as working claims. We have all been working from home exclusively since about April. Our quotas for claims per day (pretty low if you ask me) have not been reduced, and overall OPM is discovering what I and tens of thousands of others knew in the 90s with IT work- if you free people up from the office bullshit and all the wasted time spent going to, and then dealing with, people IN the office, generally productivity goes UP. Getting OPM to recognize that has been a challenge but they now have several months of consistent statistics to back that up, and hopefully will be relaxing the standards for working from home that restrict both who can do it (have to have been employed at least a year to even qualify) and how often it can be done (currently only authorized a few days a week out of 10 day work period). 

My quality/productivity level baseline to be considered 'effective' as a GS7 is touching 8.X claims a day in some substantial way that moves them forward. Over the last few months as Ive gotten more comfortable with them and the M21 I can usually average about 10-11 per day. Not just clicking on them and opening one, but actually doing something to it, whether that's verifying new documents up loaded,reading and annotating medical records,  sending follow up letters to employers, veterans, or providers, certifying exam results as returned and marking them up so that the relevant info to the claim can be easily located, creating exams for veterans' new claims- stuff like that. And we don't know what action or actions on a claim count for us as a 'transaction' so  we can't game the system by picking one thing on a claim, updating it, and moving it on, rather than doing as much as possible with each claim.

Example- I work a claim, still, as much as I can until I can't do anything anymore, before Ill release it back to the queue. It used to be that you would be stuck with claims piling up behind you because only YOU worked X, Y, Z to literal completion. This is why claims took forever a decade ago- they were literally at someones desk. Then the National work queue started and National Records got most everything scanned in, and they found out quickly that some VSRs would do *1* thing in a claim and kick it back to the queue. Their productivity looks great, but barely anything substantial gets done. That was ended pretty quickly internally and they penalize heavily any VSR that tries to do it, along with us not knowing anymore what counts and doesn't count as a 'work' transaction so its in our best interest to do as much as we can. We do have the fallback of knowing that if we are stuck in the middle of something and our required day ends and we aren't authorized for overtime we can make notes on the claim where we left off, plus there is a background table that is visible to other VSRs to see what's been done and what is being waited on for a claim. That was if it goes back to the queue it can be picked up by most anybody and started from there rather than starting completely over each time because you used to not be able to see what had been done already. 

 

Over all, very long winded story short, they ARE trying to be better. We are trying to be better. In my team of new hires (6 of us) that I started with from our local office we are ALL veterans, ranging in age from mid 30s to 50+, and enlisted to officer. Our overall national training class of about 150 back in April was 90% veterans and the other 10 % was a mix of other VA employees transitioning to claims and a few civilians. 

[GBArmy]

Thanks, Brokensoldier Thank you for sharing what goes on behind the scenes. Very informative.

[deedub75]

@brokensoldier244th Even though I no longer work there, I take offense to statements like “just sitting on my claim” or VA is using “tactics” to deny a claim. There is no “evil empire” looking for any and every reason to deny a claim. Most of the employees at the VA are veterans and I know that at least in my RO, we took pride in every approval. And just like with any other job, some VA employees are better than others. With that being said, I’m sure there are some bad apples working there who deny claims out of spite because they don’t like seeing veterans get all of this tax free money even though it is much deserved. Most of my denials were due to bad C&P exams where examiners just make up stuff so that I would be denied. Having general practice nurse practitioners conduct nearly all exams just to save money isn’t always fair to veterans  

I know when I was there from 2013 to 2015, there was a huge backlog of claims. It was so bad that at one point they stopped all quality reviews so the reviewers could work claims. There’s no telling how many incorrectly processed and rated claims that went out the door. We were also still working with some paper claims and there was no NWQ. It’s a tough job. The rules are constantly changing and even then those rules can be interpreted in different ways depending on who is reading them. If you don’t move claims forward fast enough you get written so we couldn’t spend as much time on each claim as we’d like too.