Schmitt & Coletta, P.C.
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VA Lost Docs
| Posted on May 5, 2016 at 3:20 PM |
comments (64)
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VA has
mailed a development letter to claimants and private representatives
(where there is one) affected by an "application defect" that occurred
when uploading documents on both the VA's eBenefits and Stakeholder
Enterprise Portal (SEP) sites. The defect resulted in users being
incorrectly informed that documents were successfully uploaded, when in
fact the documents may have been rejected. These errors occurred from
August 1, 2015 through December 21, 2015. |
Mandatory New VA Forms Effective March24, 2015
| Posted on March 22, 2015 at 2:56 PM |
comments (2891)
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The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is working to make filing
claims and appeals as fast and easy as possible. Beginning Tuesday, March 24,
2015, claims and appeals must be filed using the appropriate form. Standardizing
forms will ease frustration among claimants, make claims processing more
efficient and help VA reach more accurate decisions. There are three major actions that will require a specific form or
standardized process: Intent to File, claims applications, and Notice of
Disagreement. When filing a formal claim, the following forms should be completed and
submitted to VA either electronically via eBenefits
(ebenefits.va.gov) or the Stakeholder
Enterprise Portal (sep.va.gov), or by mailing the completed
paper form to VA:
Applicants who are not ready to file a claim for disability, but wish
to preserve a date of claim while gathering evidence and completing the
necessary application form should use one of the following three methods to
communicate an intent to file a claim to VA:
Finally, Veterans filing a Notice of Disagreement with a compensation
decision should use VA
Form 21-0958, Notice of
Disagreement. Veterans and their representatives currently
use the form on an optional basis. However, beginning March 24, 2015, Veterans
must use this form when VA provides the form with a decision notice letter.
Veterans and survivors will not be required to use a standardized notice of
disagreement form for other types of claims (i.e., pension or survivors
benefits) at this time. If you are unable to download these forms from va.gov/vaforms/,
call 800-827-1000 to have the correct form sent to your home. Requiring standard forms will help VA more quickly identify what the
applicant is claiming and gather the evidence required to process the claim or
appeal. Standardized forms are a key component of VA’s transformation, which
will help achieve the Department’s goal to eliminate the backlog in
2015. |
Win Your Case With Affidavits
| Posted on April 27, 2014 at 5:59 PM |
comments (30)
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Many veterans claims are lost due to a lack of sufficient evidence to prove the effects their individual service connected disabilities impact their ability to perform work that produces wages above poverty wages. Use affidavits from relatives and friends describing in detail the difficulty you have performing ANY activity. This puts the onus on the VA to show why these difficulties do not prevent substantial gainful employment. The submission of such lay evidence of the combined effects of multiple service connected disabilities provokes the VA to produce contrary evidence and without such evidence the Board of Veteran Appeals is unable to arbitrarily reject your lay evidence. To do so, is error by the Board. Of course it is more persuasive to have a doctor review the affidavits and opine that you are unable to perform substantial gainful employment resulting in the earning of income in excess of poverty wages. It is best to have an experienced Veteran Disability Lawyer help you to provide and argue this evidence. |
Paperless VA
| Posted on November 5, 2012 at 8:17 PM |
comments (31)
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 I recently attended the National Association of Veteran Advocates (NOVA) 2012 Fall Conference in Philadelphia. We had a representative from the explain how they are going paperless and therefore make it easier to obtain claim files. All new claims are paperless. If an old claim is reopened the file is sent off to scanning and it shall be paperless. The daunting task is to scan all the old files. I imagine this will take years |