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• well boys, do not get upset, i have an appeal that has been back and forth from the Waco Texas VA to the Board Of Veterans Appeals going on nine, yes (9) years and is still at the Appeals Management Center on a claim that was denied in 1993 for no good reason, the evicence WAS in my service medical records. I have reciently been diagnosed with CAD so i am doomed before the appeal is finalized, they most likely love that, soon they will be able to close the file before giving me my disability evaluation, is that not the plan at the VA delay, delay till they die. John MCDormit Posted July 28, 2009 10:10 AM
• The trouble with the adjudication process is the fact theoes ding theadjudication get rewarded for doing quanity of cases not quality of the case they are adjudicating so if they only adjudicate half a case and refer it back to the one who filed the case to begin with they make a backlog and it is shuffled back and forth between the local boards and the Appeals Board in Washington several times taking 6 months or more each time and those doing the adjudicating get a bonus at the end of the year from the Secretary of Veterans Affairs up to and sometimes above $30,000.00 a year. If they did their work correctly the first time we wouldn't have backlog of over 600,000 cases. Veterans don't want a hand out, but when one has been injured or caught a disease from his/her service and cannot perform at their best ability then they should be compensated for that disease or injury they received from their service. Remember this: "NEVER HAVE SO FEW SACRIFICED SO MUCH FOR SO MANY". Craig Close Posted May 11, 2008 12:37 AM
• As a long time VA employee, we suffered the wraths of politics and lack of understanding of the impact of the laws passed by congress. Just to pass a law is the first step. Then comes how to implement that law. No one gives much thought to that at the time of implementation. Rarely is this a simple process. I worked through three changes in the non-service connected pension rules. Each change proported to be an "improvement" but really did not meet that description. The laws on service connection also changed. But those changes did not come with "how-to" instruction manuals whereby it would be simple. Every law came with so many "strings" making it difficult to implement. Or the laws were so vague that multiple interpretation was the norm. Congress believes that throwing money at VA to hire sufficient staff is going to make everything suddenly improve 100%. It takes time to recruit and train. I doubt that anyone wants sloppy processing of their claims. But that is what it sounds like everyone wants. It has been less than a year since Congress finally saw the light and decided to provide proper funding to VA claims processing. After years of cutting VA claim processing staff, it took significant public outcry to get the money to VA to fund adequate staffing. But it is not an overnight solution. It takes time to train employees to process claims accurately. This recent bill is further promoting more fraudulent claims from unqualified applicants. There were enough claims in the system from individuals altering military records or from those paying private doctors for false medical statements in order to receive benefits. Now this bill wants to automatically give everyone something and verify later. It is a little hard recovering money inappropriately paid. As a taxpayer, I do not relish the idea of giving away my tax money without proof of entitlement. Let us get these new hires properly trained so that they can process the claims. As more employees are trained to process the claims, the timeliness of the processing will improve. But this is not something that can be done in short order. You wouldn't want somebody building your home that you expect to live in for quite a while who wasn't adequately trained. This is a similar situation. These are life decisions that VA employees take very serious! with held Posted May 8, 2008 6:56 PM