- Have you been denied a claim for service connection
or have you been granted your claim
but received a lower rating than you think
that you should be entitled to?
Do you need to reopen a claim for which you've been denied
and were not able to appeal?
If you have any questions about these topics,
this segment is on how to reopen a VA disability claim.
My name is Lori Underwood with Woods and Woods
and we're gonna discuss a few of these questions
in this segment.
If you've been denied a claim and the appellate period
is no longer active, so the claim is essentially dead,
then you need to reopen that claim.
In order to reopen any claim that has previously
been denied by the VA,
you're going to need new and material evidence.
And you're gonna need to submit
that new and material evidence
with a new formal claim for that condition.
The claim could be for either service connection
or an increased rating.
The point is, if it's been previously denied,
it does require new and material evidence
to get that claim reopened.
What is new and material evidence?
In order to be material, it must raise
a reasonable possibility of substantiating your claim.
So it has to be evidence that pertains directly
to your claim, that raises a possibility that either
an increased rating or service connection is warranted.
It cannot be redundant of the evidence that was available
at the last time the decision was made on your claim.
So it can't be the same evidence, or redundant,
or similar evidence, but something
that is not previously available for consideration
at the time the last claim was decided.
To be new, it needs to only address one of the reasons
for your prior denial, it does not have to address all
of the reasons for the prior denial, but only one.
It's considered to be a fairly easy standard
to meet new and material evidence.
If you have any questions about what may or may not
be new and material evidence, then you can reach out
to a VA representative or call us at the number below
and we'll be happy to assist you with that.
The date of your new claim, or your reopened claim,
could be what will become your effective date,
and that would also be the day from which any back pay
would be calculated if your condition is granted
from that date.
Generally, the earliest effective date that can be given
for back pay is the date of the claim.
It could be possible to reopen an earlier effective date
from a prior claim, if it can be proven a clear
and unmistakable error was made in that prior denial.
That is a much tougher standard to meet
than new and material evidence.
Or you could also provide service treatment records
or inservice records that were not previously in your file
that go directly to proving that your claim is warranted
for service connection.
In order for that to take effect, the service records
that you provided would have to show that a grant
would have resulted had those records been in your file.
Generally, reopening claims occurs
with new and material evidence.
It's important to remember that any claim,
a reopened claim or an initial claim, must be submitted
on the formal claim form, even if you have communicated
with the VA previously in an informal claim,
you must follow it up with the formal claim form.
If you have any other questions about this process
or any further information,
give us a call at the number below
and we're happy to help you.