Tag Archives: Retirement

Nearing the end of the VA claims tunnel…

Posted by Mike Grice on

Well, the big day is nearly here.

Which big day, you ask?

Why, the day when my VA Disability claim finally gets decided.  That day!

You see, I have been going back and forth with the VA for over a year and a half now, and after a lot of trials and tribulations it looks like my case file may have reached the last step on the journey to adjudication.  It is now “Ready for Decision”, which means that all of the required examinations have been completed, all of the paperwork filled out, and all of the supporting documentary evidence has been gathered.

As I wrote a few posts ago, I had initiated another inquiry into the status of my claim because it had stalled after my last round of physical exams.  Today I received an email from the VA explaining just what was up with my case just as they promised.  The system works!  I asked for information and they provided it within the timeline that was promised.  Sweet!

From the email:

Your claim has been determined as Ready For Decision, and as such there is no further update pending. You will receive a notification letter and rating decision copy via US Mail once our decision is complete.

You have not received a rating decision because there is a back log of claims in the same status, and your claim is pending a review and determination by your rating specialists case manager.

Barring any determination by the rating specialists responsible for your claim that additional information may be needed, your next update will be your actual notification letter and rating decision. At this time we do not know the time frame for completion until your case manager begins the process of rating your claim; this will be accomplished in an order based on date of receipt, in fairness to all claimants.

• Please be advised that we do not provide estimates for completion, as there are a multitude of factors that impact the speed at which each claim is rated, making it impossible to estimate said date. 

We can appreciate your desire to have your claim rated; please know that we are working to accommodate your desire in conjunction with that of each and every other claimant seeking completion of their claim.

We appreciate your continued patience during the process, and will inform you of our decision as soon as it has been accomplished.

So, in a nutshell, my case is resting on desk of the team which will determine my disability rating.

All I have to do is wait.

I wonder how long this stage will take?

Leadership and Transition

Posted by Mike Grice on

I am in the middle of writing a series of articles and a book about transition, and about a month ago I created a survey about the military transition process to help gather information on the subject (and if you have not taken it, please do!  I can never get enough data points:  Military Transition Survey).  The survey revealed some very interesting data points, and one struck me as being particularly revealing about how those undergoing transition are viewed and treated by their organizations as they leave the service.

The question was: “How involved was your unit and/or unit leadership in your transition process?”

The answers ranged from “Very Low” to “Very High”.  See if you can guess where the bulk of respondents fell on the scale…

Well, a startlingly low percentage felt that their units were involved in their transition.  Only 8% felt that their unit and their leaders were highly or very highly involved.  For an institution that prides itself on being the gold standard of leadership that is a pretty dismal level of effort.

What is shocking is how poor the involvement was.  15% of respondents selected “Neither High nor Low” (which was the middle of the scale), but a whopping 76% stated that the involvement of their units and leadership was “Low” or “Very Low”.  Ouch!

Upon reading the results I had to think back to my personal experience with transition.  As a leader myself, I had always thought that I had taken care of those in my charge, including those who chose to hang up their uniforms.  After reflecting for a bit I realized that although I was very supportive of their efforts I certainly could have done a whole lot more.

I would sit down and talk with every Marine and Sailor who left my command.  The conversation that we would have varied depending on what was next for them as they departed the unit; if they were transferring to another duty station we would talk about what was in store for them and how it could impact their career and family, and if they were getting out we would have a discussion of where their lives were headed.  I would try to guide and mentor them towards pursuing an education by taking advantage of the GI Bill, and in cases where he had no interest in further education I would try to get them to at least formulate a plan for the way ahead.  After we spoke and shook hands we parted ways.

That was all well and good.  But I could, and should, have have been much more engaged.  As I learned during my transition there was a lot to do after I checked out of my unit, and I was pretty much completely on my own to get it done.  As a leader I should have gone the extra mile and actually followed their progress as they navigated the path of transition, but I didn’t.  I should have gone to the transition assistance classes to see what was being taught and how my Marines and Sailors were being treated, but I didn’t.  Shame on me.

As I discovered out during my own outprocessing there are a lot of bumps in the offramp from military service.  As I transitioned I found the process to be both difficult and annoying, and I was a senior officer with nearly three decades of experience.  If it was hard for me, how tough was it for a young man or woman who served only one tour?

The answer to that question is that it was a lot harder for them than it was for me.  Part of the reason that it was harder is because they were just cast upon the waters of transition without the guidance and oversight that they had experienced during their time in the military.

From the day that they met their recruiter to the day that they decided to leave the military each and every servicemember was under the guidance and tutelage of a concerned leader.  Recruiters prepared them for bootcamp, and their drill instructors molded them into Marines (or Sailors, or Soldiers, or Airmen).  They were trained by professional instructors in their military trades, and became valued parts of units and teams in the operating forces.  They became leaders in their own rights as they progressed up the ranks, and they were always under the wing of those who had been around longer than they had.

Unfortunately, when they decided to get out the concerned leadership of their units disappeared.  They (and I) were no longer valued members of the team, but instead guys and gals who were getting out.  To be fair, there certainly is a lot going on in the military these days with things like combat deployments, training exercises, and everything else that is part of the military experience.  That said, as leaders we failed to be there for the final chapter of military service for 76% of those who transitioned out of the military.

That is truly a shame, and something that should be addressed.  In my humble opinion, the most significant portion of the problem is how the TAP/TAMP and transition process is performed.  Those on the way out are centrally trained for transition, and the centralization of training removes the onus of oversight from the units that they came from.  They are out of sight and out of mind, and as such quickly become forgotten in the churn of daily military life.  The close bonds that they formed with their peers, subordinates, and seniors quickly fade during the time when they need them most: the incredibly stressful and uncertain transition from the all encompassing world that they knew to an ambiguous future in a world that they left years before.

Another telling statistic from the survey is how well the respondents felt that their transition process prepared them for re-entry into civilian life.  Sadly, on 12% felt that they were fully prepared for the jump.  That number should be much higher, and perhaps it would be if leaders were more involved in their people who are transitioning.

How many would have felt more prepared if their leaders had stayed as engaged with them during their last days in uniform as they were in the beginning?

Calling the VA. Again.

Posted by Mike Grice on

In theory, I have undergone all of the physical examinations, evaluations, pokings, and proddings that are part and parcel of transitioning from Active Duty to becoming a veteran.  After over a dozen trips to various clinics and hospitals at the end of my time in uniform and during my first year or so of post-military life I have been informed that all of my examinations are complete.  To make sure that they were all indeed finished, I logged into the VA website regularly to see if my status had changed.

To my utter lack of surprise, it didn’t.  Growing tired of logging in and viewing at an unchanging screen on the VA’s eBenefits webpage, I looked forlornly at the telephone on my desk and resigned myself to another early morning attempt to get through to the VA.

So, early the next morning, I grabbed a cup of coffee and staggered into my office.  I punched in the VA’s telephone number, and much to my surprise (not really) found that even though it was a couple of hours before the rooster would crow (on the West coast, at least), all operators were busy.  I was, however, offered the option of having a VA representative call me back the following week at a time that would be convenient for me.

I figured that the following Monday at about 0900 was convenient enough, so I hung up and waited for the weekend to pass.

It did, and sure enough my phone rang at about 0905, with a live human being on the other end!  Very exciting indeed.  After providing my social security number and other identifying information, the nice lady on the other end asked how she could help me.  Although deep down I didn’t think that there was much help to be had, I asked anyway.

“Can you tell me the status of my case?”

After a few moments of furious typing on the other end of the line, my VA friend replied:

“It’s under review.”

Which is exactly where it has been for nearly nine months.

We talked for a few minutes, and then I hung up.  In order to spare you from the rather boring conversation, I’ll just cover what she had to say.

1.  All of my examinations are complete.  That said, if they find something that they need to look into I will again be headed off to the examination clinic.

2.  My results are somewhere between the clinic and my case file.  Even though it has been nearly two months since my last exams, the results have not made it to my case team.  Not surprising, but still disappointing.

3.  Once my team receives my results, they will merge them with my file and put it in the queue.  When my file comes to the top of the pile they will evaluate it and let me know the result.

How long will that take, I asked?

“Nine to twelve months.”

Sigh.  Good thing I’m not in a rush.

What do you miss about being in uniform?

Posted by Mike Grice on

When I hung up my uniform for the last time I realized that a huge and fundamental part of my life had changed.  What I did not appreciate at the time, however, was how much the people that I had served with during my career were in that change.

The military is, in many ways, a closed society.  We go to work on bases that are segregated from the civilian population, and we spend days, weeks, and months on end training and preparing to defend the nation from its enemies.  We deploy away from our homes on ships and airplanes with people just like us in the berthing spaces and seats next to us.  Being in the military is an intense and all encompassing immersive experience.

It begins with the shock of meeting your Drill Instructor or Drill Sergeant or whatever your service calls the steely eyed killer who breaks you of all of your nasty civilian habits and transforms you into a Marine, Sailor, Soldier, or Airman.  It continues as you go through training to learn your military craft, and the bonds between you and your compatriots is cemented when you show up to your first operational unit.

It continues as long as you wear the uniform.  Whether you stay in for three years or thirty, you experience a shift in your soul by wearing the cloth of the nation.  You become a critical part of a team, and live your life with people who would willingly die or kill for you — and you would willingly do the same for them.  It is an incredibly powerful experience that suddenly comes to a shocking end when you get out.

One of the questions that I ask in the military transition survey (if you have not taken it yet, please follow this link and help me gather more data: Military Transition Survey) is what you miss the most about serving in the military.

What do you think the most common answers are?  Cool training?  Seeing new and exciting things?  The pay and benefits?

Nope.

The two most common answers by a wide margin are these:

Feeling of camaraderie with my fellow servicemembers

and

The people you served with

After spending a lot of time personally reflecting about my service, the people that I have met, the places I have gone, and the things that I have done, the thing that I personally miss the most about my time in uniform is the same.  I miss the people that I served with.  All of them.  Even the ones that I didn’t like very much, because at the end of the day they were still on my team and ready to fight by my side.

Relationships are powerful, and they are probably the one thing that you can take with you when you leave the service.  So if you are on the way out, make sure to get some email addresses and phone numbers of those you want to keep in touch with.  Find a veterans organization that you like and spend some time there.  Departing the military will drill a hole into your soul, and it is a hole that only those who have served can really help fill.  So don’t wait until it is too late, and reach out to your friends before it is too late and, like your last day in uniform, they are behind you.

Why are transition assistance programs not as effective as they should be? The answers are out there, but nobody is asking the questions.

Posted by Mike Grice on

When Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines leave the military service they are generally young, fit, and eager to get to work in the civilian world.  Many go to school to obtain an education, but many more jump headlong into the job market.  Unfortunately, they are not as prepared as they could be to compete in the cutthroat employment marketplace.  It is not because the government is not trying to help transitioning military folks learn the skills they need to get a job, because there are a multitude of programs out there to help with transition.  Unfortunately, those programs are not nearly as effective as they could and should be.

The Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, and Department of Labor have spent many millions of dollars (over $50 Million in 2012 alone) on various programs designed to help veterans make the transition from military service to the civilian world.  These agencies are charged with conducting classes, seminars, and counseling that is designed to help those who are hanging up their uniforms with the challenging and often confusing process of becoming a civilian again.

Despite the efforts of these agencies, there is a serious problem with unemployment for recently discharged veterans.  The population of younger veterans who are recently discharged is having the toughest time, with those in the 20 – 24 year old age bracket hitting an unemployment rate of 35% in March of this year according to a Syracuse University study that was released last month (available here: March 2013 Employment Situation of Veterans) .  That stunning number is well over double the rate for the same population of non-veterans.

That means that a lot of our veterans are out of work, and as a result the DOD is paying a lot of money out in the form of unemployment benefits to those who can’t find a job.  It is a shocking amount of money.  I mean really shocking!

How shocking?  Try nearly $1 Billion dollars a year (the actual number was $928 million for 2012 and is on track to increase in 2013).  Almost one billion dollars.  For unemployment benefits.  For veterans who cannot find a job.  And it comes out of the DOD’s annual budget, and every dollar that is spent on unemployment benefits for a veteran is a dollar that is not spent on the people still serving or the equipment that they use to keep our nation safe.

Paying unemployment insurance for separated military personnel is not new for the Department of Defense.  In fact, the DOD has been paying millions of dollars in unemployment benefits for a long time, but the billion dollar pricetag is unprecedented. In 2003, the military paid about $300 million on such benefits, and a decade later that cost has over tripled.

There are a lot of reasons for the increase, with the most obvious being the increase in the number of people leaving the military and having a rough time finding a job in the tough economic conditions that exist today.

That is only part of the story, however.  The Obama administration, to their credit, has increased funding and awareness for the plight of jobless veterans.  Unfortunately, those efforts are not paying the dividends that they should be.  With such a high level of emphasis and funding for transition training and education, you would think that the unemployment rate for veterans would be at or below the non-veteran level.  Unfortunately, it is not.

That is where the data from the Orders to Nowhere Military Transition Survey becomes very interesting.

As I continue to research the subject of military transition, I have been analyzing the data from the survey and a few data points really jump out.  The first data point is how little feedback about the transition process is actually gathered by the organizations that are actually doing the transition training.

Every branch of the military uses After Action Reviews (AARs) to gather feedback from events and learn from the lessons that the AAR provides.  Pilots debrief every mission in order to become better aviators and infantrymen get together and discuss the lessons that they learned from their combat or training engagements.  These debriefs and lessons learned sharing sessions are part of every service and every career field.  Capturing lessons and learning from experience is a crucial part of what makes our military unbeatable.

Unfortunately, the AAR process does not seem to apply to transitioning or recently transitioned veterans.  Despite the culture of learning from experience, the vast pool of potential data sources — recently transitioned veterans — is virtually untapped.

The data shows that, of respondents who left the service between 2003 and 2013, less than one in five had been contacted by the Department of Defense or their branch of service about transition.  Of those one in five who had been contacted, less than half (0r just under 10% of all respondents) were asked to participate in an AAR of the transition process.

In other words, fewer than one in ten recently discharged veterans have been asked to help make the transition process better by providing feedback on their experience.

That, to me, is an incredibly disappointing statistic.  It is not particularly surprising, however.  Nobody officially asked me anything about my transition, and in my many conversations with veterans I have found that nobody asked them either.

Millions and millions of dollars are being spent every year on the military transition process, yet unemployment rates for veterans continues to exceed their civilian counterparts.  Nearly a billion dollars is being spent by the DOD on unemployment benefits for those unemployed veterans.  You would think that somebody would connect the dots between the efficacy of the military transition programs and their effect on the unemployment rate, but sadly the most readily available resource of feedback is largely being ignored.  Nobody is asking the vast majority of people who have gone through those transition programs and entered the civilian workforce about their experiences and how the transition programs could be improved.

The answers are out there.  Too bad nobody is asking the right people the questions.

In yet another shameless plug- I can never get enough data in the Orders to Nowhere Military Transition Survey.  So if you have transitioned from the US military (it doesn’t matter when), please take the survey!  If you have take it, I thank you.  Please ask others to take it too!

Some preliminary results

Posted by Mike Grice on

Thanks to all of you who have read my posts about the transition survey that I using to conduct some research into the military transition process.   A lot of you have helped me out, and I truly appreciate your time in taking the survey and for sharing it with others who can help.

That said, I can never get enough data.  If you are a veteran or a military person going through transition, please take my survey here: Military Transition Survey .  Thanks!

So far the data are showing some interesting trends.  The Marine Corps is the best represented so far, so for those of you in other branches here is your chance to catch up and beat the Marines….

About half of the respondents are combat veterans, and veterans from every conflict since the Korean War have taken the survey.  My first look at the data shows that there are many more programs available today than were out there for earlier generations of veterans, with many of our Vietnam, Korean, and Cold War veterans responding that they had no formal outprocessing resources.

More recent veterans report that there are a lot of different programs currently available, and that they produce a wide disparity in results.  Some are reported to be great, and others are reported to be useless.  I am looking forward to diving more deeply into the data to learn more.

The split between veterans who did and did not serve in active combat is about even, as is the ratio between enlisted and commissioned respondents.  Very few warrant officers have weighed in, though — so if you are a warrant officer, please jump in!

I will start analyzing the information in greater depth next week, and I’ll keep you posted.  Till then, keep sharing the link and get as many of your peers and friends as you can to take the survey.

Thanks!

 

Another plug for help!

Posted by Mike Grice on

Last week I wrote about a survey that I am conducting about the military transition process.  So far the response has been good (thanks to all of you who have already taken it!) but I am only about halfway there.  In order to have an unbiased survey it is important to get as many responses as possible in order to make sure that the sample of those of you who take the survey are representative of the entire population of transitioning or transitioned folks.  At the risk of being redundant, I ask again that if you have gone through or are going through the transition process and have not yet taken my survey, would you please help me out?  Also, please forward it to anyone, from any branch and any time period, who has made the jump?  I promise that this will be my last humble request!

The survey is 29 questions long and takes between 10 and 15 minutes to complete.  Here is the link:

Military Transition Survey

Also, I am very eager to hear from all of the branches of the armed forces.  The Marine response has been great (keep them coming!), and I want to make sure that you know that I would like to hear from any and all who have undergone the transition process.

Thanks!  In my next posts we’ll start looking at some of the emerging and interesting trends that the survey is revealing.

A chance to improve the military to civilian transition process

Posted by Mike Grice on

As those who follow my writings about military transition know, the process is often contrary, capricious, confusing, and supremely frustrating.  I have been writing about my experiences for nearly two years now, and over that time I have been disappointed to see that the process has not really improved.  Transition is still just as consternating as ever, despite millions of dollars spent on the process by both the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration.

I am currently writing a book about my transitional journey, and that is where you come into the picture.  I have created a survey in which I am humbly asking every veteran and every military person who is going through transition or has completed transition to participate.  I have my own observations and opinions, but as author Eric Herzel once said: “One’s opinion should only be as strong as one’s knowledge on the matter.”

Since I am planning to write much more about transition, I really need to incorporate the collective knowledge of as many of you who have experienced transition in order to make my opinions as fact-based as possible.  Will you help?

Without further ado, here is:

Military Transition  Survey

Thank you in advance — and I will be posting the insights and results soon!

Learning a new skill: Salary and benefits negotiation part 2

Posted by Mike Grice on

A couple of posts ago we started talking about the final step in the job search: negotiating your salary and benefits.  The company has already offered you a job, and in that sweet and exciting period of time between receiving the offer and accepting it comes the negotiation to determine your compensation package with the company.

We have already looked at many of the differences between military and civilian employment benefits, so we won’t go too deeply down that rabbit hole other than to point out that many of the benefits on the military side of the fence are not freely offered by civilian companies.  Take, for example, the military subsistence (meal) and housing subsidies.  You get them while in uniform, but they don’t come freely in the corporate sector.  All of those special pays and allowances that fattened up your military paycheck helped mitigate the comparatively low pay that comes with wearing the uniform.  An added benefit is that those pays are tax-free, which in the corporate sector is almost unheard of.

As a military man or woman you are also free to shop in the commissary, gas station, and PX, all of which provide subsidized food and goods that are free of state and local sales taxes.  While retirees can still enjoy shopping on base, for those who do not stay in for 20+ years or move home and have no base nearby it is no longer possible.  The subsidies, coupled with tax free shopping, are not offered by the corporate sector.  Once you get out you get to pay full price for your groceries and consumer goods, and you get to pay sales tax, too.

My point is that many of the monetary and non-monetary benefits that you receive whilst in uniform went a looooong way towards stretching your paycheck.  When you get out all you have to pay your bills, buy food, and fill your tank with gas is the salary that you are paid by your employer.  Since that is how the “real” world works, you need to make sure to get the best benefit package you can from your employer, and to get such a package you need to be able to negotiate.

Negotiation is a skill, just like any other.  You can get better at if you work at it, and the best way to improve is to practice and rehearse, just like you should for a job interview.

Before you start rehearsing, though, you need to do your research (as discussed in the previous post about negotiation) and then you need to craft a plan of action to prepare yourself.  Just like you would do in the military.

Unlike military plans, though, yours does not have to be intricate or complicated.

Your plan should contain those elements of compensation that you feel are important to you.  It should also contain those elements of compensation that are not important to you.

Why should the unimportant bits be included you ask?

Because they are all part of the plan.  The art of negotiation is based on meeting mutual agreement, and getting to a point where both you and the Human Resources manager agree on your pay and benefits is based on the give and take that you both engage in during the negotiation process.  If you only have those things that are important to you on the list then you are at a disadvantage because negotiation invariably requires you to give a little to get a little.  You can give a little by sacrificing those things that are unimportant to you and, in turn, get a little something back that you truly want.

Here is an easy example.

You feel that flexible work hours are very important to you.

You also feel that health insurance is not important to you because you are single and already covered by the VA and TRICARE.

In the world of civilian employment the cost of health insurance is high and by all accounts only going to get higher.  The fact that you are willing to give up employer-provided healthcare is a significant savings to the employer.  Even though you never planned to use the company’s insurance you can “offer” to keep your current insurance plan (and save the company a lot of money) if you can have a flexible work schedule.

If you don’t have a plan to give up those things that you don’t really want or need then you are giving up a significant amount of leverage.  Be smart and plan your negotiation out!

Here are some basic planning considerations that I recommend you think about as you plan for your pay and benefits negotiation:

1.  What do you want from the company?  (Sure, you want a job, but what do you want in return for your time and dedication?)

2.  What does the company want from you? (Sure, they want an employee but generally want to pay as little as possible for one —  you will need to show the company that you are worth whatever you identify in the first question)

3.  What is the absolute minimum that you are willing to accept from the company?  (This is very important.  The Human Resources person has a lot more experience negotiating than you do, and if you are not careful they may well negotiate you out of the things that you think are very important).

4.  What is your alternative?  In official negotiating terms this is known as the “BATNA”, or Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement.  In other words, what are you going to do if the company is unwilling to meet your absolute minimum?  (This is also important because you want to leave the negotiation with a job and not burn any bridges.  The best BATNA is to leave the negotiation on good terms that can be leveraged into another negotiation with the company that is ultimately successful for you both).

After you put together your simple plan you need to do a little rehearsing just like you did for your job interviews.  Find someone to conduct a mock negotiation with, and then listen to their feedback.  It will pay huge dividends.  I guarantee that you will be surprised at just how difficult negotiating can be!  By rehearsing you will learn if you are too brusque or direct or overbearing, all of which are very common traits that come with military service.  You want to be convivial and professional because it is what the company expects, and by rehearsing with another person you can fine tune your style of engagement.

Here are a few things that military people tend to do while they negotiate that end up working against them:

– Being too rigid and organized.  Just because you have a plan doesn’t mean that you need to unyieldingly stick to it.  Do not treat your plan as a checklist and start at the top and work your way to the bottom.  The negotiation is a conversation that will go in many directions before it is completed, and if you are too mechanical and inflexible it will hurt you.

– Being unwilling to engage in a dialog.  Often, military folks are used to just accepting “no” a bit too easily.  Remember, the Human Resources manager wants to hire you as cheaply as possible, and if you just roll over every time he or she says no then you are making his or her job pretty easy.

– Being ignorant of what benefits are available for discussion.  This goes back to the previous post about interview preparation: make sure to do your research!  If you do not ask for something I guarantee you will not get it.  At this stage of the game nobody is looking out for you except you!

– Being ignorant of how much money they really need to make.  A good rule of thumb is that you need to nearly double your base military pay to obtain the same level of compensation in the civilian world.  Taxes go up and tax-free benefits go away.   In the civilian world you get to pay bills that you may not have thought about: for example, if you lived in the barracks or in base housing you did not have to pay for electricity, water, natural gas, or trash removal.  Guess what- in the civilian world you get to pay for all of those things and more!

__________

Lessons Learned:

– Do some research on your own finances and see just how much money that you are going to need in the civilian world.  Remember- taxes take a big bite!  If you were in the civilian world you could count on 30-40% of your BAH and Subsistance Allowance to go to the IRS because it would be counted as income.  Find out how much money you really need.

– List out those benefits that are important to you and also those that are not.  You will use both lists during your negotiation.  Make sure that those benefits you want are offered by the company!

-Rehearse with someone — you need the practice.  Remember, the Human Resources manager does this a lot more than you do.

– Find out what your BATNA is and stick to it- it is OK to walk away from the negotiation if the result would be below your absolute minimum level of acceptability.

The call I was waiting for from the VA. Really!

Posted by Mike Grice on

It finally happened!  The VA called and scheduled my final disability evaluation appointment.  Hooray!

For those who are wondering why this is a big deal, here is a quick backstory.  My veteran’s disability claim has been turgidly moving through the system for nearly a year and a half, and during that time I also entered the VA medical system.  As I learned, the VA has two distinct and different sides when it comes to disability claims and healthcare, and they do not talk.

This became a problem for me because I did not understand that important fact.  My disability claim was partially settled six months ago, and with the notification letter came the promise of a call to finish the process.  Soon after, I was contacted by the VA on numerous occasions to schedule and attend various appointments at the local clinic.  Foolishly, I thought that the clinic and the disability claim evaluation were one and the same.  As I said earlier, they aren’t.

As it happens all of the calls from the VA clinic were for the medical side and were unrelated to the disability claims side, and none of the appointments had anything do to with my claim.  Good news for my medical coverage, but still a lot of frustration on my disability claim.

So, months of frustration, I called the VA.  After a few weeks of phone tag, my case was reviewed and I was again promised that I would be receiving a call to schedule my follow up appointment.  I was not optimistic.

My pessimism was abated when they called.  Actually, they contacted me by mail. I received a letter that explained that I needed to be seen by the VA’s contract provider for a few things that were not completely documented by my initial visit, and with the letter came a questionnaire regarding the issues in question.  I filled out the questionnaire, and within a day or two I received a call from the provider’s office to schedule an appointment.

Yesterday I went to the contract provider that takes care of the claims side of the VA house.  It was the same provider that I had seen a year earlier, and to their credit they were very efficient and polite.  I was in and out of their office in less than 45 minutes, which was a pleasant surprise as I had anticipated spending the afternoon in the waiting room.  With that appointment I had, in theory, finished up my claims process.  I hope it is done.  According to the VA representative that I had spoken with earlier the only items remaining in my case were the evaluation from the contract provider and a few administrative corrections in my file.

The evaluation is done.  Now I just have to wait for the administrators to correct my file and then my disability claim should be completed.

I’ve heard that story before.  We’ll see…and I’ll keep you posted!

__________

Lessons learned:

– The Medical side of the VA is completely separate from the Disability claims side of the VA.  In my case, the clue to the difference was that all of the medical issues were addressed by my local clinic while all of my disability evaluations were performed by a contracted provider.

– Be proactive.  Call the VA and determine your status.  I think it helped, as my case was languishing for months until I made some inquiries.

– As always, be patient!