(gentle music)
- Hello and welcome to another Hill and Ponton
VA video blog, I'm Matthew Hill here with...
- Carol Ponton.
- And we are doing
a series on what we see
the biggest mistakes that veterans make
when prosecuting their VA claim.
We've talked about three already.
The first one was not filing a claim because someone else
tells you not to; second one was
not filing all the claims that encompass
what's going on with you.
Again, so if you have a back disability,
not filing
the legs that have numbness or rediculopathy second to that.
The last one we talked about
was why not to file reconsideration
and instead file an NOD, and today,
we're talking about the appeal process more
in continuing the appeal.
Let's say you file that NOD, and you're denied,
then the regional office issues what's called
a statement of the case, and Carol,
what are you thoughts from there?
- The statement of the case, or we call it an SOC,
says that if you disagree, then you can file a VA-9
and go to the Board of Veterans Appeals in Washington.
I would say 75% of our clients don't do that.
- Right. - They're afraid of that.
They think they have to go to Washington.
God, the Board of Appeals sounds scary to them,
and they drop their claim.
That is a big mistake.
First of all,
the rules that are applied at the regional office
are not necessarily the rules that we think
are the law.
The Board of Veterans Appeals is a whole different area.
They try to follow the court
and the law that the court puts down.
- That's the first time you actually have a lawyer
or an actual judge who is bound by the regulations
of the VA and bound by the Congress' statutes
and the court cases to actually apply those to your law.
The regional office, they don't--
They look at their manual that tells them how to do things,
but that's not necessarily the same sophistication
as you'd find with the law.
- And I would say that we get wonderful decisions
many times from the Board of Veterans Appeals.
They will give veterans benefits much farther back.
They'll give them much more benefits.
It's a wonderful place to be.
The problem is
a VA-9 is just a form; you just have to file it.
And you only have 60 days; that's another problem.
It's not the year that you think that you're entitled
to, because the NODs give you a year.
- Right.
- So you need to make sure you get it filed in time,
and you need to make sure you know where to send it.
That's another problem we have with our veterans.
And on the form that you get, you'll get a Statement
of the Case, and they will actually send you, usually,
the form with it... - Right
- ... to file and tell you exactly where to send it.
Okay?
That shouldn't scare you.
You don't have to go to Washington.
You can say that you want
a hearing in a local VA office.
They can do that.
You want a hearing, say, at the regional office,
or you don't want a hearing at all.
- Right. - You just want
the court to look at your case.
- The board. - The board.
- And something Carol and I have spoken about before
is that it's important to file that, and you know,
if you don't want a hearing,
frankly, that'll be a faster avenue,
but you need to think about why your case was denied.
And if you think it was denied, it's because the decision
maker wasn't paying attention, that's one thing,
but if they're telling you there's missing piece
of evidence, meaning... - Right.
- ...you know, you had the back injury in service,
you got a back diagnosis now, but there's no
connection, there's no nexus, where a doctor said,
"What you have now is related to then,"
you're not gonna win.
So you need to think about what evidence
you're gonna put in the file
to help win. - Right.
- But what I'd say is that the farther
your case goes up the appeal chain,
the more sophisticated of an adjudicator,
of a decision maker, you are going to encounter.
So, you know, we always file for the DRO process
in the regional office,
and we've-- - So when you're
denied initially, you have a choice of the traditional
or the Decision Review Officer...
- At the regional office.
- And you want to take the Decision Review Officer.
- And then, if you're denied, as we're talking about
here by that person, or someone else in the RO,
going to the VBA
entitles you
a review by a judge.
And that's the first review by a judge
you're going to get.
As we were saying, they know the law, they know the case
law, the regulations, and they're going to follow it,
but you still have to give them the evidence they need.
- Right, you have to figure out, "Why are they denying me?
"Are they denying me because there's
"no problem with my back?
"Or are they denying me because they say
"what's wrong with my back is not related
"to the service?"
Then you need to go get that evidence.
- Right.
Well, that was
our big mistake number four, which is not appealing
to the BVA.
Please stay tuned to this channel
for the other
mistakes and all our other video blogs.
Thanks so much.
(piano music)