so
hello and welcome to another edition of cck live my name is emma peterson and today i'm
joined by matthew fusco and michelle de torre and we are going to be talking about
six ways to improve your va disability claim or appeal we have a number of posts about this
on our website on our blog so please be sure to check those out if you want
further information or dive into a particular topic we've discussed today as always please
feel free to leave questions for us in the comments we'll do our best to get back to you
and let's just dive in so quick overview of the va claims and appeal process there are several types
of claims disability claims you can file with va prior to filing veterans should consider the type
of claim that they are making and what evidence will best support it so generally you're looking
at a service connection claim where a veteran is applying for a disability compensation and has to
show that they have a current condition that is caused or aggravated by their time and service
sometimes folks are already service connected for something and are seeking increased rating claims
they're high arguing for a higher disability evaluation based on the perceived level of
impairment often times a claim for tdiu or total disability due to individual unemployability can
be considered under that increased rating claim umbrella and then finally we have dependency and
indemnity compensation claims which are monthly benefits awarded to surviving spouses or dependent
children of service members who passed away in action or die from a service-connected condition
so va is going to consider all the relevant evidence in your case based on your claim type
such as medical and service records the results of any cnp examinations compensation and pension
examinations before they issue a decision so matt could you give us a quick overview of the options
that folks out there have for appealing a decision if they don't like the results
sure so under the appeals modernization act or abbreviated as ama veterans have three options
to choose from when appealing an unfavorable decision from va first they can enter into the
higher level review lane they could go into the supplemental plane lane and lastly they could go
into the notice of disagreement lane also referred to as an appeal to the board of veterans appeals
in order to preserve their effective date which is the date from which benefits will become effective
pending a grant from va veterans must file an appeal within one year of receiving their decision
so there are several ways tips and tricks to go about approving your claim or appeal the va claims
and appeals process can be very confusing and complicated and veterans often receive unfavorable
decisions or denials but there are several ways they can strengthen their claim from the outset
so michelle can you walk us through some of those ways sure so a big way would be gathering all
important or crucial evidence to your claim and submitting it alongside your claim or appeal
so in order to process a claim va will go out and file their duty to assist in
some not all of the po lanes but that requires them to go out and request
records request service records so having that information in handy and submitted ahead of time
can help speed up the claims process and appeal process for you as well
so some of the things you might want to be submitting are include your service records so
a dd214 service medical records and service personnel records one thing i will stress is
sometimes the records you have might be different than what va has so if you have something in your
service records that you think is important to your claim i would really recommend submitting
it medical records are very important especially private ones because private ones va will require
a signed release and it could take a little bit longer to get va medical centers they can get
a little bit easier but it is very important in in to submit them ahead of time if you can
employment records can be important um especially if you're going for an unemployability case
um so that they can see information about your employment history you can also submit your social
security earnings statement to show that you know your earnings were maybe below a poverty threshold
or that you weren't working during a certain period of time a big one that we really advocate
for are lay statements uh which are statements from friends family members co-workers because va
often treats them with the same weight as medical evidence so getting people to attest
to the severity of symptoms that symptoms begin in service is very helpful in cooperating your claim
va actually has a form to help with this process now on their website it's va form 21-10210
and it's called lay witness statement but you can also still submit it if it isn't on
the form so keep that in mind as well um one thing that is really important to remember
is uh to avoid submitting evidence that is not relevant you don't want to bury the important
information in evidence that might not be relevant to your claim um because it can make va
have difficulty locating the important stuff so you know make sure you're submitting records that
are relevant to the conditions that you're seeking um and not just you know all of your records um
sometimes that is helpful but not always so just be mindful of what you're submitting
and what people are testing to for statements and employment records um i would just recommend that
they attest to the issues you're seeking great um another way that veterans can go about improving
their chances for their claims or appeals is to get an expert opinion and i don't mean you know
some big fancy expert for you know a big litigation appeal
but just an opinion from either your treating doctor or a private medical doctor
that can opine on the relationship between your current disability and service or the severity of
your disability if you're going for an increased rating claim veterans are entitled and often get
va compensation and pension examinations it can be a mistake to just rely on that examination alone
um you know often times the the form itself for va examiners is constricting it's consists of a lot
of check boxes it might not really give the full picture of what's going on with your particular
claim or appeal um and i would think one of the most common reasons that we see in our practice
for claims being denied or appeals being denied is because of a lack of medical evidence either
supporting a link to service or supporting the particular rating a veteran is seeking so it
makes a really big difference if you're able to obtain a medical opinion from a treating
doctor a private doctor health care provider it can really make the difference in your case
the two items i talked about you know in detail a nexus letter or an increased rating opinion
so nexus letter is a document that we prepared for you by a medical professional that explicitly
connects something that happened to you in service to your current disability
um and uses that magic language it's at least as likely as not related va is going to want
to see that standard you so i'll say it again at least as likely as not related to service
a veteran's physician or medical provider can certainly provide a nexus letter
accredited attorneys representatives might be able to help you find someone to write that letter for
you but again it's going to have to be someone in the medical field that can provide that opinion
for you um the other option for veterans is to have their treating physician fill out a
disability benefit questionnaire or dbq that is va's form and they have public facing versions of
those you're able to get on their website that you can download based on your particular disability
these forms are created for your use in getting an increased rating or service connection
and it allows your health care provider to answer specific questions that va's going to look at
when writing your claim additionally another option is if you're seeking that tdiu benefit
we've discussed you might want to find a vocational expert to provide an opinion on
how your disabilities prevent you from securing and following substantially gainful employment
again va's magic words for seeking tdiu matt what is another way that veterans and their
loved ones can go about you know improving their chances for claims and appeals
sure so one of the tips we would stress is to fill out forms correctly va allows veterans to
file initial claims for disability benefits in a number of ways including some of the following
you can submit initial claims online using va's ebenefits platform you can complete a va form
21-526 ez which is an application for disability compensation and related compensation benefits and
you can mail that form to the evidence intake sender center or send it by fax with the help
of a legal representative you can file an initial claim those legal representatives might include a
veteran service organization or an accredited attorney or agent and veterans can actually
go to the va regional office and file initial claims with the help of a va employee as well
there are also several new forms that va's introduced under the appeals modernization
act including a form 20 20-095 which is the veteran supplemental claim application
a va form 20-096 which is an application for a higher level review and a va form 10182 which is
a notice of disagreement and each of those forms corresponds to a review option or a lane within
the new appeal system that we reviewed at the top of the presentation and regardless of how
veterans choose to file their disability claim or appeal it's important that they do so correctly
if not their claim may be denied or the process could be delayed even further for them
doing so correctly really means using the correct forms filling them out carefully and thoroughly
making sure every you know check box is filled out every question is answered just really kind of
double checking your work when filling out these forms and making sure it's complete and accurate
is going to really help kind of speed the process along for you and making sure that everything goes
smoothly great so we have submitting records getting medical evidence filling out forms
correctly michelle what's the fourth way that folks out there can improve their chances for
claims and appeals so one thing that we've seen that is important to do when you initially file
is to not just file for the claim you're seeking but any conditions that might be secondary to that
main condition so think of diabetes common side effects are peripheral neuropathy retinopathy or
you know you have an orthopedic condition and you have depression secondary this can help for two
reasons one va is supposed to take secondary conditions as within the scope of the appeal
however that's a legal argument that sometimes it's very complex and takes a while for va to
kind of get it right so to help kind of facilitate the process and making it a little faster to get
you know the full benefits you are seeking it just saves some appeals and some time to
list all the conditions that are secondary as well um it also in some cases helps preserve an
older effective date for you um you know rather than having to fight down the road uh you know
make these legal arguments you're serving you're preserving the effective date because you filed
at the same time so it's very important to not only think about this is a claim i'm filing for
but this is also a condition that is a result of this condition i'm seeking service connection for
um and again you know it's just helping to kind of shorten the process instead of you know a lot
of people will hold and say i'm gonna wait until you know i'm service connected for this and then
file for something secondary or they don't think of that um and it's just something that can help
shorten the process for you and you know get you a little bit more money um you know by preserving an
older effective date so that's nothing we also recommend another way um that can improve your
claim and appeal um is to make sure that you're getting the help that you need because this can
be a very complicated process you know matt was talking about the level of detail that you need in
the forums um michelle was talking about evidence gathering you know i explained that you might need
some medical nexus evidence so you might want to consider hiring a qualified representative
the va claims an appeals process is confusing and many veterans find it helpful
to seek assistance from a vso a veterans service organization an accredited agent or an attorney
and those representatives can help you gather evidence to support your case and assure that
your claims and appeals are filed correctly in a timely manner and adhere to all deadlines and and
rules for that va is looking for um but veterans want to be sure that they are hiring an accredited
representative that is someone who is recognized by va as being legally authorized and capable
of assisting veterans and claimants in pursuit of veterans benefits before the department of va
additionally if you're seeking an appeal to the court of appeals for veterans of claims of course
you're going to want to find an individual who is admitted to practice before the cavc
if anyone has any further questions and wants some further reading on this
subject matter we do have a blog post on what is an accredited attorney or representative
on our website so please be sure to check that out all right matt any other
um ideas for folks out there about how they can improve their claims or appeals
sure so one of the last tips we want to
know you know understand understand your options right so when va denies an initial claim
or assigns a low rating veterans often feel that they have nothing left to do however they can and
should appeal these decisions that they may have disagreements with it's important to do so within
one year of receiving the decision from va in order to preserve the effective date and get the
most possible back pay the new appeal system under ama provides veterans with several appeal options
some of which we've discussed throughout this throughout this discussion including appealing
to the board of veterans appeals and if the board upholds va's initial decision or the veteran still
doesn't get their desired outcome they can continue to work up and continue to appeal
they have the ability to appeal to the court of appeals for veterans claims or the cavc and if
they're still life if they are not satisfied with their board decision the cavc retains exclusive
jurisdiction to review all final board decisions and claimants who disagree with a cavc decision
also have options beyond that so they can request what's called a motion for reconsideration
which is asking the judge to reevaluate their decision they can request a panel decision or in
certain circumstances they can request that the whole court come to a decision
which is referred to as on bank which is french for in the bench another option as well is for
appellants to bring their case to the u.s court of appeals for the federal circuit which is the next
level in the federal system so veterans have all of these options you know all the way up to the us
court of appeals for the federal circuit if they have disagreements about what va initially decided
and even the supreme court just this week matt there was an argument before the united states
supreme court about va benefit systems so um there is there are options above and beyond just va
if you happen to disagree with what they're up to um so with that are there any other
ideas or tips and tricks michelle that you think those out there should be looking for
and doing i would say make sure you're thoroughly reading your decisions because in the world of the
appeals modernization act they have a thing called favorable findings which we have some post on and
that you would be able to reference back to but it helps let you know possibly what you're missing
what element for service connection you're missing or what element for the increased rating you're
missing um so that can help you with what you need in your appeal or you know a further claim down
the road um also sometimes there's just hidden gems in there so just make sure that you're really
thoroughly reading through the decision and if again if you're not sure what you're reading it's
it's you know it's very helpful to reach out to a representative to help you matt any final thoughts
um i just you know agree with everything michelle said um you know make sure that that everything
you can you can really kind of come up with in terms of evidence to support your claim
is all going to be beneficial um i really underscore obtaining expert opinions if
you're able to do so from your treatment provider or some other medical professional
because that is really going to go a long way we see a lot of decisions that are really kind
of hinged on the opinion of medical experts in a lot of different cases we think that that's super
important so if that is a possibility for you if that's something your claim is maybe lacking we
would definitely you know highly recommend going out and doing that um because it can really go a
long way in helping come to a favorable decision in your case and as always there's a lot more
information uh found on our blog and in our other videos about the entire claims and appeals process
so with that thank you so much for watching and please be sure to subscribe to our page
once again i'm emma peterson with matthew fusco and michelle detroit and have a good day
you