VA Appeals Process Timeline.
If you have a claim for disability benefits through the VA, you're probably wondering
what that timeline is going to look like.
Hi, I'm Lori Underwood.
I'm a Veterans disability attorney with Woods & Woods.
There are two different paths your claim can take at the VA.
There is the Legacy Program and there's a RAMP Program, the Rapid Appeals Modernization
Program, which recently went into effect, I believe earlier this year.
I'm not gonna talk about the RAMP Program today.
So the process and the timeline I'm going to give you is the Legacy Process timeline
only.
The first thing you're going to do if you want to file for a benefits claim is file
a claim, number one.
You're going to need to submit that to the VA on a formal application.
You can file an informal claim, but you must follow that informal claim up within one year,
with a formal claim.
In doing so, in filing your claim, you preserve what is it called the effective date.
So the date that you file that claim or your informal claim, if you followed it up within
one year, becomes the date of the effective date of your disability benefit.
So you file a claim.
It gets shipped off to your regional office for review, and then you're going to expect
something called a rating decision.
That's going to come from the regional office who reviewed your claim for benefits.
In every single one of these stages I'm going to discuss with you, I can't really give you
a good timeline on how long does it take before I get my rating decision.
How long does it take before I get my statement of claim?
There's not a real answer to that, unfortunately.
I've seen anywhere from a few months to unfortunately a few years.
So what's going to be in that first rating decision that you get from your regional office?
It's going to do one of two things probably.
It's going to grant the claim, the benefit that you filed that claim for, in which case
congratulations.
Or it's going to deny that benefit.
Let's talk about grants first.
So let's say you filed a claim for PTSD, and you got a rating decision and it granted your
claim.
Two things you need to check for in that grant.
Did they assign the right effective date, and did they give you the right rating?
You could disagree with either the effective day or the rating on that grant, in which
case, if you have a disagreement, you need to file a notice of disagreement in response
to your rating decision.
Now, what if they denied your claim?
Then obviously you're going to need to file a notice of disagreement to that rating decision
for service connection.
Very, very, very important.
You get a rating decision and from the date of that rating decision, you have one year
to file your notice of disagreement.
You have to get that notice of disagreement in within one year of the date of that rating
decision, or your original claim is dead, and you're going to have to start over.
So get that appeal in to preserve your effective date.
So you submit your notice of disagreement, and that'll get sent to the regional office,
and they will start to look at your case and process what is called a statement of the
claim.
It goes to a higher level review, to a DRO at this point in time, and the DRO will look
at the evidence in your file to determine if what you filed a claim for is warranted,
and then issue the statement of claim.
The statement of claim will either reflect a grant of the condition that you filed a
claim for or affect reflected denial.
Let's talk about denial first.
If they reflect a denial, then obviously you want to appeal this decision as well, and
keep this claim moving through the appeals process.
Very important to note, when it comes to statement of the claim, you have only 60 days to file
that appeal, which is called a Form Nine, So don't delay.
If you get your statement of a claim, and you have anything that you disagree with in
that statement of the claim, you must get your Form Nine appeal in within 60 days.
If you miss your deadline, the claim is dead.
You have to start over, so don't hesitate to get that appeal in.
Now let's assume that your statement of the claim reflected that they granted some of
the things that you filed a claim for.
Or maybe they granted part, and maybe they deny in part.
You want to file an appeal to that statement of the claim.
If there's anything about that document that you disagree with.
So get your Form Nine in.
If it reflects a grant, you can also expect a rating decision to follow up with that statement
of claim for whatever they granted.