VA Press Release on delayed mail

[Berta]

 VA statement on GPO printing and mailing delay

"WASHINGTON — Due to supply chain and staffing shortages, the vendor contracted by the Government Publishing Office to provide printing services for the Department of Veterans Affairs is experiencing delays in printing and mailing notification letters to Veterans and claimants. The disruption may impact the ability of some claimants to meet required deadlines via written correspondence with VA.

In response to the mailing delays and to protect the best interest of claimants, the Veterans Benefits Administration is extending their response period by 90-calendar days for claimants with letters dated between July 13, 2021 and Dec. 31, 2021.

 

If a claimant does not reply to a time-limited notification, such as, making an election of benefits or services, or reporting for a scheduled compensation and pension examination., VBA will not take adverse action to deny, reduce or terminate benefits and services unless: 1) the claimant is contacted and there is documentation of their right to respond; 2) the requested information has been received; or 3) the response period has lapsed.  

 

VA and GPO are proactively working to quickly address the mailing delays. For questions on this matter, Veterans and claimants can contact VA at 800-827-1000.

 

Veterans who filed an appeal with the Board of Veterans’ Appeals can click here for information specific to Board correspondence, scheduled hearings at the Board and receiving your Board decision."

https://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=5744

[brokensoldier244th]

Yup, I've been in "click 90" in 30 day increments since early Sept when they told us about it. Took them(Gpo) through Aug to realize that things were submitted by us (and others, I assume) and looked sent on our side didn't all send. Some did, some didn't. I don't know all the details but not my monkeys, I don't work in IT anymore. 

[broncovet]

I can see that the above VA statement "wont work" for all Veterans, leaving many to slip through the cracks.  Reasons:

1.  There is no guarantee that the delay is NOT longer than 90 days.  Should the Veteran be denied or reduced because he did not get the letter for say, 91 days??

2.  There is no guarantee that the problem is fixed in the very narrow 6 month time period, above, from July to December 31, 2021.  In fact, I think these restrictions are laffable.  Yea, right, its gonna be "all fixed" by Dec. 31..and you are gonna sell me Ocean Front Property in Kansas.  

      Its clearly a bandaid approach, and the bandaid will "fall off" for many Vets.  

      Why doesnt the VA ask Vets about such things, say on hadit?  They dont even ask their own employees, and the experienced ones probably know it wont work either.   If this "really" works for even 99 percent of the Vets, I will eat crow and post what an idiot I am online here at hadit with an apology to VA.  

     Remember, for it to work, each and every employee will need to know about it and implement "click 90" every time...and they didnt even know about it, for 3 months..as Broken soldier explained they didnt even tell them till September...that they were supposed to do click 90 in July.  

Edited December 1, 2021 by broncovet

[pacmanx1]

This is the second time that the VA/BVA say that they would/will "RECALCULATE TMELINESS" of documents. It went from February 2019 to March 2021 until March 2022 and now they say it all will be corrected by December 2021. Sounds really off to me. 

The Board of Veterans’ Appeals has learned that a limited number of Veterans may have had their Board Appeal forms (VA Form 10182, Decision Review Request: Board Appeal (Notice of Disagreement)) mistakenly rejected for being untimely.  Out of an abundance of caution, the Board is sending out a wide notice to help ensure no other Veterans were impacted by this.  If you filed a VA Form 10182 with the Board between February 19, 2019, and March 23, 2021, and believe it may have been improperly rejected as untimely, please send a letter to the “Clerk of the Board” at P.O. Box 27063, Washington, DC 20038 or via fax to 1-844-678-8979 no later than March 1, 2022.  In your letter, state you are asking the Board to “RECALCULATE TIMELINESS” and be careful to include the Veteran’s full name, claim number or SSN, the date of the rating decision you appealed to the Board, and the date of your original VA Form 10182 appeal form that the Board told you was untimely.

[brokensoldier244th]

32 minutes ago, broncovet said:

I can see that the above VA statement "wont work" for all Veterans, leaving many to slip through the cracks.  Reasons:

1.  There is no guarantee that the delay is NOT longer than 90 days.  Should the Veteran be denied or reduced because he did not get the letter for say, 91 days??

2.  There is no guarantee that the problem is fixed in the very narrow 6 month time period, above, from July to December 31, 2021.  In fact, I think these restrictions are laffable.  Yea, right, its gonna be "all fixed" by Dec. 31..and you are gonna sell me Ocean Front Property in Kansas.  

      Its clearly a bandaid approach, and the bandaid will "fall off" for many Vets.  

      Why doesnt the VA ask Vets about such things, say on hadit?  They dont even ask their own employees, and the experienced ones probably know it wont work either.   If this "really" works for even 99 percent of the Vets, I will eat crow and post what an idiot I am online here at hadit with an apology to VA.  

     Remember, for it to work, each and every employee will need to know about it and implement "click 90" every time...and they didnt even know about it, for 3 months..as Broken soldier explained they didnt even tell them till September...that they were supposed to do click 90 in July.  

We don't just 'click 90'. We can adjust the suspense date (waiting time). The first 30 days of the extension started when we got the email from National and it became effective. As far as whether or not its a band-aid I have no idea, I don't work for the GPO, and since they are the only ones that process mail going out to people from federal agencies VA isn't the only one that will probably have to adjust dates. We have to leave notes on every case we touch or its flagged for review, which in turn counts against the various scoring metrics they use to keep track of what we do individually. No note = instant credit lost on the particular claim. Since we have to meet a certain amount of 'work' each day to be considered effective at our job, along with a separate category of 12 different areas of the claim that we are rated on, the incentive is high to not screw it up. If a note such as "advanced suspense date" is left and it wasn't actually done its very easy to see in the table of various items that a claim is waiting on. 

Maybe its fixed in Dec, maybe its not. It's not a VA problem specifically- the GPO is its own thing entirely, and they print for everyone not just us. The 90 days is not a 'fixed' date in time, either. Again, not sure what you want VA to do- they aren't just going to truck several thousand letters down to the local PO every day, never mind that individual RO's have never had that kind of printing capacity. 

 

Ask what on Hadit? We can't surf the web at work due to security and HIPAA. VA is not going to post stuff in public user forums on the internet. As for not telling us until September, it took us and presumably other agencies the 30 days between July and September to know that it was happening- most VA letters have a 30 day response window, and then some of them have a follow-up, and anything we send goes to both the Veteran and the POA (if they have one). So, if a VSO or veteran gets a letter that says something to the effect of "we are re-requesting" or "still waiting" or some other such it is an indication that they didn't get the first letter. I don't know if that is what alerted GPO to look at the issue, or if they found it on their own.

All I know is that when I get a veteran claim and I look through it, I look at the dates of various events that have or have not been responded to or done. If its a letter to a veteran I look at the date it was created (if it wasn't mine) and calculate based off of that date. Right now if I see a letter dated 31JUL or later, and there has been no response, I advance the suspense date and make a note about what we are waiting for. We'll continue to do that until we hear that it is fixed. There isn't much else we can do. 

Edited December 1, 2021 by brokensoldier244th

[Mr cue]

Ok if veterans were get there decision letter in 7-. 10 much earlier.

And now because of a contract they are now getting them 30 day or longer.

Why does this place have the contract is the ?

It about take money from the va system.

Who own the company qtc Lockheed Martin.

Yes they are  one make decisions in veterans claims. And got a billion to do it.

They are try to get rid of the va system hospital.

And veterans really think all this new stuff will make it better. Yes right.

I put it like this I am fighting for my smc benfits and I will tell u this will be the last time I deal with the va.

They are making it to hard for veterans to get benefits they are owe. 

You can't even talk to the board of veterans appeal no more. Irs

Osbudman was the best you could call and they would fix error or send it to someone who could.

This is my opinion

 

 

[Mr cue]

Last thing I have found it is much easier to get the va to fax over things.

I just got them to fax letters from Nov 22 23 24 29. To me.

If one agent give u a hard time call back later lol