Filed for disability July 2021

[VeteranNadine]

I filed for disability in July 2021. My case has been stuck in pending decision since December 2021. I received one letter apologizing for the delay in Jan 2022. I filed for 10 conditions some for secondary and some for increase  and submitted a lot of evidence.  I figured the delay was because of that. 

Now I'm in a panic state that something is wrong with my claim since I've not heard anything since January.  Is it possible the delay is just due to the amount of stuff I have filed for and amount of evidence I submitted? I'm concerned I did something wrong.  My anxiety is really high about this.  

Is there anything I can do just to find out what's going on? Thanks.  

[Steve C]

On 6/10/2022 at 3:25 PM, VeteranNadine said:

I filed for disability in July 2021. My case has been stuck in pending decision since December 2021. I received one letter apologizing for the delay in Jan 2022. I filed for 10 conditions some for secondary and some for increase  and submitted a lot of evidence.  I figured the delay was because of that. 

Now I'm in a panic state that something is wrong with my claim since I've not heard anything since January.  Is it possible the delay is just due to the amount of stuff I have filed for and amount of evidence I submitted? I'm concerned I did something wrong.  My anxiety is really high about this.  

Is there anything I can do just to find out what's going on? Thanks.  

I too filed in July 2021. I finally had a C&P exam on 1 June 2022 but now a 2nd C&P (records only review) is supposed to be done soon. One of the main holdups that I experienced was my military medical records being retrieved from NPRC by the VA. The VA did finally get my records about a month ago but I have to receive the copies that I requested through eBenefits records request portal. I know how you feel. I had not seen any movement on mine until after I had my C&P. I had even called NPRC as well as VBA to find out my progress just before the C&P. My personal recommendation is to contact your VSO that submitted your claim. They can see a lot of things that we cannot and may give you some insight as to where your case is at present. Just recently, the VA had teleconference calls from your state VSO to us to give us an idea what is happening with the claims. I had one on 9 June. That helped ease my mind some. Best of wishes to you.

[Whodat]

Do you think that most of the attention is on legacy appeals that were supposed to be finished by the end of 2022? Maybe the legacy appeals have priority for c&p exams. Who knows. 

[David Brown Jr]

I got my best result for answers for the status of my claim thru my congressman office they stayed with my claim from start to finish and kept me informed all the way thru the process 

Edited June 16, 2022 by David Brown Jr
No reason

[GBArmy]

VeteranNadine As Steve C suggests, contact your VSO to see what's happening. If you didn't use one, you can find one that has VBMS., but I assume if you submitted without one, you may not want to now either.Don't want to do that, or, get a lawyer who has it, you can contact your Congressman and see if they can get a status for you. But most are not likely to be of much help if you need further action. You can also use the Whitehouse Hotline at 855-948-2311, which is what I would do. 10 conditions on one submittal is a lot, and there can be a lot of interactions between them, but they got to move on it. If they say it is held up on 1 or 2 things, you can ask if you could get some of those that are basically clean  to be dispositioned. They usually don't do that often either, but if you ask the Whitehouse, it might happen.

[brokensoldier244th]

7 hours ago, David Brown Jr said:

I got my best result for answers for the status of my claim thru my congressman office they stayed with my claim from start to finish and kept me informed all the way thru the process 

Just like exposure claims, or Camp Lejeune, there are a few RO's that are tasked specifically with legacy appeals or Nehmer or MST. Their VSRs are divided up into groups within  each, so each smaller group is working specific claims. The bulk of ROs are still working general claims. The 'specialty' sites also work regular claims it's just a smaller group of the VSRs within that RO, the rest are dedicated specifically to whatever claim/claims special team they are on. For example, my RO works Nehmer claims that are part of being re-examined due to the the new presumptives for AO that were added last year, and MST (what I do). So, collectively, all MST and AO claims in the country are routed to those specific RO's. All ROs still have groups working regular claims, also. All claims are routed to whatever RO has the least workload that day, through the national work queue. 

One thing that changed is that during the last two years with the NPRC basically being closed or on a skeleton crew, and examiner sites- both vendor and VAMC-also having their own staffing issues, the ROs never went to a reduced posture. We just took our computers home, set up a secure subnetwork, and continued working. The difference was that with those other sites on a reduced posture exams and records requests were backed up in the hundreds of thousands (NPRC), plus the number of claims filed went UP over what an average for the same timeframe would be. So, reduced workload on two prongs of the three that work with claims, an increase in the number of claims filed.  We had the total number of legacy appeals almost completed a year or more ago but then the addition of the three presumptives meant going back through many of them again for the three new conditions. Plus, MST claims, both new, and re-examined claims (due to an OIG study a year and a half ago), have been going up instead of down no matter how many of them we work through and complete. That is due in part to an increased focus on awareness of those types of claims and an increase in the number of veterans feeling comfortable about filing them due to specific outreach to those populations. 

[Dustoff1970]

Very very often the VARO and BVA are slow as molasses in delivering their decisions and sometimes deliberately slow IMHO.   Of the many successful claims and appeals I have submitted over 35 years some have been very slow (many months or even years) and a few have been very fast such as 1985 and 1998 PTSD and TDIU claims and most recently 20 day approval claims for GERD and TINNITUS.  

Presently the VARO has taken many months to render a decision on a BVA remand of my appeal that is supposed to receive expedited decision on BVA remands and they have not yet done so.   VARO raters do not like for BVA to find something wrong with their decisions.  Typical bureaucratic BS.  Nothing has changed in 35 years. Hang in there with the rest of us.

Edited June 17, 2022 by Dustoff 11