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welcome to cck live my name is Nicholas Briggs and in this video we're going to
be discussing three ways that VA can take away or reduce your benefits
so when are VA disability benefits protected before we discuss the ways in which VA can
take away your benefits it's helpful to understand the scenarios under which ba can't take them away
so there are several types of protected ratings first there's the stabilized ratings rule or the
five-year rule if your reading's been in place for five years or more VA has to meet more rigorous
standards in order to reduce your benefits there's also va's 10-year rule which is if a
service connection has been in place for 10 years they can't separate without evidence of fraud
continuous ratings that have been in place for 20 years or more can't be reduced
veterans who are 55 years or older are presumed to be permanent in total and then 100 ratings are
also in entitled to certain special protections so what are three ways that VA can take away your
benefits first and foremost VA can schedule you for re-examination and if that examination shows
Improvement then your benefits might be reduced or taken away entirely so first if VA believes
that a veteran's condition has improved or that it's not permanent to begin with they
typically order a re-examination and then once that examination takes place and the results are
you know sort of compare uh taken together and compared against the veterans currently
assigned Reading VA can determine that the exam re-examination warrants a reduction in the
veterans disability rating which could ultimately decrease the amount of compensation they receive
so whenever VA requires re-evaluation it's because they suspect at the beginning that the veterans
condition might improve over time or if just upon re-examination of a non-static disability they
determine that there's been material Improvement in the condition over time so one example of
this type of change would be if a veteran service connected cancer goes into remission in that case
because the cancer is no longer active they're no longer entitled to that 100 rating so the rating
is just going to go down in that circumstance and VA is going to rate based off of residuals
um notably however veterans always have the right to challenge these unfavorable
re-examination results and any reductions that might take place and they're able to
appeal that or file a supplemental claim in order to try and get those benefits restored
another type of reduction or discontinuance of benefits occurs when a veteran commits fraud
in the initial application or misrepresentation of their claim VA terminates benefits if there's
evidence of fraud that the veteran committed when they go to attain benefits in the first
place evidence of fraud can include submitting false evidence manipulating test results or
providing false statements about the severity of your condition if a veterans found you have
committed fraud and was awarded VA disability benefits on the basis of fraudulent evidence
the veteran could have their benefits terminated altogether and even be fined by the government
and then finally VA can often reduce benefits if they find that a prior decision was based
off of clear and unmistakable error so VA makes it clear and unmistakable error when awarding
veteran disability benefits VA can terminate those benefits but that often doesn't result in any kind
of overpayment it's just they realize that they made a prior mistake and they're going back and
fixing that mistake which will ultimately results in fewer benefits for a better and moving forward
um there are several types of clear and unmistakable errors that could result
in termination but some of those types include granting benefits to a veteran
who has been dishonorably discharged and is ineligible for benefits to begin with
or granting benefits to a veteran who doesn't meet the minimum requirements for service
but there are many other different types of clear errors that might happen including assigning an
effective date that's too early or assigning a reading that's too high and in those situations
a VA can demonstrate that the error occurred veterans benefits might be reduced moving forward
so to learn about rating reductions and protective ratings feel free to check out
some of our other videos where we've explored those topics in more detail and also please be
sure to like this video And subscribe to our channel to stay updated thanks for watching
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