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JIM STRICKLAND'S MAIL BAG: VOLUME #16 FOR 2008 --

Veterans' Advocate Jim Strickland answers

questions from VA Watchdog readers.

Veterans' Advocate Jim Strickland provides regular columns for VA Watchdog dot Org.

If you would like to contact Jim about his columns, you can email him here...

The archive of Jim's articles is here...

To find an answer to a specific VA benefits question, use the VA Watchdog search engine... click here...

-------------------------

by Jim Strickland

NOTE:  Letters in my mailbag are reprinted just as they come to me. Spelling and grammar are left as is and only small corrections are made to improve readability, ensure anonymity or delete expletives that may offend some readers. This is not legal advice. You should always seek the advice of an attorney who is qualified in Veterans' law before you make any decisions about your own benefits.

Jim;

Thank you for the column on how to apply for VA benefits. It's well written, timely and full of good advice. As a retired federal paper shuffler - Customs, not the VA - allow me to suggest one additional thing. In any multi-page submission please number the pages. It's easy to lose unnumbered page three of an unnumbered five page document and not know it, especially on a desk crammed with papers. The error is not usually noticed until well after the damage is done.

Reply;

That's excellent advice. In fact, that fits right in with my thinking that anything we do to make our submission of evidence easier to read will work in our favor. Thanks for taking the time to share that with us.

Jim;

I'm a relatively new CVSO and was just told by a Navy Vet today about VAWatchDog.org. When I checked it out I found your article on filing claims with the VA. I have to say it was a good one! Actually, I was double-checking what I've learned (on my own, pretty much, thank you!) against your advice. Thankfully everything you said is what I convey to the Vets who come to me as their advocate in filing and pursuing claims, and on to appeals. There are days, like today, when I wonder if I can maintain the pace of fighting-the-good-fight on behalf of our Vets, when the system seems so stacked against us. Most of the time I come home exhausted from the demands of just trying to figure out and navigate the blasted system. And, as a County employee, whose salary actually comes through our State Department of VA, the politics and multiple expectations add a whole new layer of frustrating distraction. I've yet to have any formal instruction on the processes of filing claims. But somehow I've achieved a pretty good street cred with the local Veterans community, for which I'm grateful and quite honored. In fact, I consider serving Veterans as their CVSO to be a sincere and meaningful honor. My Dad and my Mom's brother were both World War II Marines. My uncle served at Iwo Jima. Both of them died last year, and as much as anything I dedicate my service to them. Thanks again for a well written article on VA claims.
 

Reply;

Thanks for your kind words.

You and I have an interesting connection. My dad is a retired master gunnery sergeant, E-9 Marine. He was on Iwo Jima with the 4th Marine Division. He earned a Purple Heart there.

I'm happy to welcome you on board and I thank you for your commitment to our veterans. As you've learned, VBA is adversarial from start to finish. Many veterans simply aren't equipped to deal with that and they turn their backs on it. Although I recommend that most veterans can use the DIY method, more help from a guy like you is a welcome addition.

I'm blessed with contacts within the VBA as well as some really fine fellows who practice as CVSOs across the country. I hope that you won't hesitate to write with any questions that may come up as you serve veterans in your area. If I don't have an answer, I can usually find it.

If you didn't notice, there is an archive of my previous stuff on VAWatchdog. Some of that is me opining on politics but much of it is practical hands-on stuff about filing claims. You may pick up a trick or two reading through that. I do my best to present facts. Larry and I are very cautious to vett everything and we are committed to being fair and even handed. I'll praise the VA often but I won't hesitate to point out the pitfalls. I'll hope it's all of some help to you as you go forward.

Jim;

Thank you for all the helpful information that you have provided me and countless others in the VA claims process. I just found out and thought that you would be the best place to get the information out that all returning veterans are not only entitled to five years of health services as just passed last month, but there is no co pay. This information comes from Dr Cross Under Secretary for Health VHA during his cross examination in San Francisco. (Cross admitted that veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were not only entitled to free health care, "there is no co-pay," he said.) I hope that this information we be of assistance to those who have been paying co-pays to the VA or have been placed under collection.

Also, if the VA can not find a person's medical records, as appears to be the case for some returning from the middle east. they might want to check the AHTLA for the records since the military has been moving to electronic medical records and most medical units have been using the electronic medical record system since 2004. If they were treated in a TMC or Hospital in Iraq that is probably were the record is stored and just never got included in a paper record.
 

Reply;

Thanks for pointing out this valuable information to us. Even in the era of computerized medical records, if you were treated for an injury that occurred in battle or at a field type hospital, records are still being lost. Every young veteran should begin gathering and storing their own military records for future use. It may be years before you need them but eventually, they'll come in handy.

Although the offer of longer term care is the right thing to do for our newest wartime veterans, I'm already receiving reports that it's business as usual with the fair adjudication of deserved benefits. OIF vets are seeing errors, flawed C & P examinations and the usual stubborn and unfriendly VBA system that is almost impossible to understand.

We've said it before on VAWatchdog, all the window dressing and eloquent speeches about treating new veterans fast and fair doesn't mean a thing until Congress takes on the task of real reform of the VBA. Until then, it's still like applying lipstick on a pig. http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfDEC07/nf120707-1.htm

Jim,

If a Veteran has had a claim in for maybe two years (in my case lets use ptsd) and has been being treated for this condition, and documented for this condition by VA doctors, Psychologist, and Psychiatrist, why should the wait for a compensation answer take so long? Both the Psychologist and the Psychiatrist routenly perform C&P exams. This should be a slam dunk yet you wait for months or years to get an answer. You should not even need a exam which will be performed in a lot of cases by a out sourced civilian doctor. Does the VA not even trust its own doctors? This is the kind of many examples that makes the system take so long and makes the system more costly to the government. Are These kind of things being brought up to the heads of the VA and to congress?
 

Reply;

The only answer is the one that nobody can quite believe...the system is just that backed up.

During the very prosperous Clinton years, our military and the VA were downsized. (No, I'm not a Clinton-basher, just a realist.) It was assumed that we could get by with a much smaller military, WWII vets were dying at 1500 per day and many RVN vets hadn't entered the system. A lot of military and even VA took forced early retirement.

Then all hell broke loose. Vietnam veterans got older and sicker and the diabetes effects of Agent Orange kicked in. Many vets saw the twin towers fall and a war begin and thoughts that had been repressed for 25 years came forward and PTSD raised its head. Soon after that the flood of veterans of Desert Storm and all the rest came home severely injured.

The VA was already behind. Computers that should have been given to a museum years ago were still in place. No new employees had been hired to replace the old guys forced into retirement. Wave after wave of claims were flooding in and Congress sat blithely by, ignoring the issue.

Today the estimates vary but I'm guessing you have 400,000 claims ahead of yours. In an interesting twist, VBA has decided that the newest claims from OIF get priority! They jump ahead of older claims. There are 57 VA Regional Offices, each with a handful of raters who are capable of making an adjudication. Each rater is now given a quota reported to be about 5 decisions per day...up from 2 or 3 decisions per day.

The VBA is hiring at breakneck speed. I'm told it takes 2 to 3 years before a VA employee is able to independently rate a claim.

When you submit a claim, it must go through some 100 or more steps prior to adjudication. As it comes in the door, it is put in line with the others. The line usually begins in a storage area stacked floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes crammed full of files.

To make matters worse, in my estimation the great majority of claims that are adjudicated are flawed. Veterans have learned to expect that appealing the errant decision is just another step in the process. An appeal is rework. Rework of a claim, like rework in any industry, is more expensive and time consuming than getting it done right the first time. Even after appeal, many of the appealed claims must be appealed again...more rework. A significant number of these appealed appeals are remanded to the VARO from BVA to be adjudicated properly. Rework of rework of rework.

I'm currently advising most veterans that from the moment they apply for a benefit, it will not be unusual for 2 years to pass before a first decision. Then, another 2 years to (hopefully) get it right on
appeal.

I'll interrupt myself to advise you that this is not because the employees of VBA are lazy or that they don't care. They are directed by a strict set of laws that were implemented by your Congress. Many of these laws and rules haven't changed since 1945. The funding given DVA by Congress is not fixed each year and gives way to pork barrel projects. The working conditions of the VBA employee aren't enviable.

In your case, it's probable that the law says you must have a C & P even in spite of the obvious. Woe be it to the Veterans Service Representative who tries to slide your file through without scheduling that.

You're in line. You can do the math yourself. If there are 400,000 claims at 57 VAROs and each VARO has (x) number of people who can process at 5 each per working day and hundreds of priority claims are crashing in ahead of yours, how long until your file is even looked at?

If you'd like Congress to know that this doesn't please you, you owe your Congressional representatives a letter. Nothing changes until Congress wills it so.

-------------------------

posted by Larry Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org

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