Tag Archives: Veterans Administration

It’s here! Orders to Nowhere is now a book!

Posted by Mike Grice on

It’s finally here!  The first edition of Orders to Nowhere is available in print.  It will be six to eight weeks before it shows up in bookstores, and a week or so before it hits Amazon.com.  If you want to avoid the wait, you can order it straight from the printer by clicking the cover:

Orders to Nowhere

Since you are a loyal reader and follower of the blog that got it all started, you can use the discount code ZVGYFQ28 and save 10% off the cover price.

Thank each and every one of you for reading and following my journey through transition!

Orders to Nowhere: The Book!

Posted by Mike Grice on

Coming soon!  The launch date is expected by be no later than November 10th, but hopefully sooner. I’ll post a note as soon as it goes live.

Written over the two years of navigating the often frustrating and always confusing waters of military transition, Orders to Nowhere is finally available in print!

Orders to Nowhere is the essential insider’s guide to military transition.  Demystifying the uncertainty and ambiguity that surrounds getting out of the military, Orders to Nowhere is the comprehensive After Action Report of a career Marine’s transition from the tightly knit military world back to civilianhood.

Tens of thousands of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen transition back into the civilian world each and every year. The change from life in uniform to life beyond the military is a significant emotional event for everyone who experiences it. Hanging up your uniform for the last time isn’t easy, and Orders to Nowhere was written to help explain the overwhelming process and make it easier for military members planning to get out, while they are in the midst of transition, or after they become veterans.

Mike Grice is an award winning writer, retired career Marine, and intrepid explorer of the military transition process.  Orders to Nowhere is the journal of his experiences , but it is also the story of every Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine, and Coast Guardsman who takes off the cloth of the nation and goes back to civilian life.  Written during the author’s adventure through the trials and tribulations of transition, Orders to Nowhere eases the pain by giving an inside look at the widely varied aspects of military to civilian transformation.  Things like:

 -making the decision to hang up the uniform
– telling your boss that you are getting out
– the administration and logistics of moving on
– the emotional roller coaster of transition 
– effects on family
– transition decorum and ceremonies 
– the details of military retirement benefits
– transition assistance classes
– dealing with the Veterans Administration
– VA disability claims
– the Post 9/11 GI Bill
– finding a job
– how to dress like a professional
– writing a resume and cover letter
– networking
– interviewing for a job
– salary and benefits negotiation 
– adjusting to civilian life
– and much, much more

The book contains over 160 lessons learned and recommendations that can help anyone going through the military to civilian transition avoid making costly mistakes.  The path back to “normal” life is anything but normal, and Orders to Nowhere is the traveler’s guide that every member of the military and veteran needs to ease the pain of the journey.

A must for every man and woman in uniform to help make transition as smooth as possible!

So the government “partially” shuts down. What does that mean to veterans and those still in uniform?

Posted by Mike Grice on

Well, it is October 1st and as Halloween decorations are going up the government is shutting down.  Partially, anyhow.  But what does a “partial” government shutdown mean to those steely eyed killers walking on patrol in Afghanistan and the not-so-steely eyed veterans who are now reliant on the VA for healthcare, disability payments, and/or pensions?

Great question!  In an effort to help provide some clarity in the murky waters that surround the shutdown I have done some sleuthing around to find some answers.  So, in no particular order, here are the things that I discovered:

1.  If you are serving in the military, then you have little to fear.  The congress passed a bill, which the president signed, that guaranteed paychecks for active duty and reserve status military personnel (along with some government employees and contractors).  For more information go here.

2.  If you are retired and receiving a military pension, then you can rest easy.  Since pensions are considered an entitlement and are not funded by annual appropriations they are safe from the shutdown.  If, however, the government hits the debt ceiling then they may be affected.  For more information go here.

3.  VA health care, pension, and disability payments.  There is good news and bad news regarding the VA.  The good news is that they are lightly impacted by furloughs and medical services will be unaffected, but the bad news is that they will likely run out of funds to pay all of their pension and disability payments if the shutdown lasts more than a few weeks.  Other programs, such as the GI Bill and others, will also be hit if the shutdown is prolonged.  For information on what is and is not impacted at the VA go here.  For information on the testimony that the VA provided congress about the impact of the shutdown (and how it will affect future payments) go here.

I hope this helps you get the information you need to understand the effect of the shutdown on you and your family.  Let’s just hope that the government of the nation that we swore to support and defend can get its act together and start moving forward again.

A quick way to determine your disability compensation amount

Posted by Mike Grice on

Determining how much your disability compensation amount should be is about as easy to figure out as a differential calculus equation.  After spending a considerable amount of time researching how disability percentages are determined and then what those percentages mean in terms of a disability check I was happy to find a much easier way to figure it out than the old fashioned way of plowing through tables and graphs.

The great guys at the Vietnam Veterans of America’s Arizona State Council have taken out all of the guesswork by creating a fantastic online calculator that will tell you just how much your disability check should be each month. Follow this link to their website — you will be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to use.  The calculator uses your disability rating percentage, marital status, and number of children to ascertain what your monthly compensation amount should be.

In case you have multiple ratings (for example, a 10% rating for tinnitus and a 20% rating for back problems) you can use another nifty calculator to determine what your aggregate rating percentage is.  Follow this link to their website’s multiple rating calculator.

Give them a shot- you will find them to be very easy to use, and it will save you from the consternation that comes from trying to nug it out with a stubby pencil and a calculator…

Finally settling your VA claim, part 2: what it means to your bank account

Posted by Mike Grice on

My VA claim was finally settled a month ago after about two years of waiting.  I know it was settled because the VA sent me a very nice letter saying that it was, and along with my final disability rating came a brief paragraph that indicated that I would be receiving a settlement check from both the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) as well as the VA.  Intriguing, thought I.  What exactly did that mean, and more importantly for my bank account, how much money were we talking about?

The way that the system is supposed to work is that you receive any compensation related to your disability rating beginning the day after you leave the military.  That payment is supposed to come directly from the VA, and DFAS should have nothing to do with it.  Except for a couple of cases…

…like mine.

In my case, I received no VA compensation until my case was partially adjudicated some ten months after the claim was filed.  During that time I was receiving my full military pension.

On the tenth month of the life of my disability claim the VA made a partial determination in my case.  They rated me at a low level for a few conditions, but they needed to conduct more examinations to determine if I was eligible for a higher rating.  The bottom line was that now I was eligible to receive some compensation from the VA.

Great!

The devil is always in the details, however, and instead of receiving a check on top of my pension the military deducted the amount of my VA compensation from my pension.  The VA then did send me a check, but for the same amount that was deducted from my pension.  Pretty much a zero sum game, except that the VA compensation is tax free.  Here is an explanation of how it works from a previous post:

Let’s say that you receive a disability rating that results in a payment from the VA of $100.  That $100 is not added to your check for a total of $1600.  Instead, $100 of the $1500 that was paid by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) is now paid by the VA, so the total pension amount stays the same.  What changes is how the taxes are computed.

Now you have $1400 that is taxable, which results in a slightly lower tax bill.  Here is the math:

$1400 x 20% = $280 in taxes.

$1400 (from DFAS) + $100 (from the VA) = $1500 (which is your pension amount).

$1500 (pension + VA Disability) – $280 (taxes) = $1220.

Sooooo…..as a retiree you get an extra twenty bucks in your monthly check.  If you are not a retiree, however, you get the full $100.

In my case, I received the partial claim amount until my claim was settled a whole year later.  Now I became eligible for not only the full VA compensation amount, but also a check that amounts to all of the compensation that I would have been paid had my claim been settled the day I left active duty.  In other words, the VA would write me a check for the full amount of compensation I was eligible for, minus the money that I had already received.  Here is an example of how that works (following the previous example):

To keep things simple, I will use $100 as the partial claim compensation amount and $200 as the final compensation amount.  My claim took 22 months to complete, with a partial settlement issued at month ten.  The math looks like this:

Total amount of VA compensation that the veteran should receive in this case is computed by multiplying the number of months eligible times the final compensation amount, as follows: $200 x 22 = $4400.

The amount of VA compensation that the veteran has received to this point is computed by subtracting the number of months he or she received compensation from the total months eligible, and then multiplying that number by the partial settlement compensation amount, as follows:  22 – 10 = 12 months: 12 x $100 = $1200.

Now that we know how much the total amount of compensation the veteran is eligible for ($4400) and the amount of compensation that he or she has already received ($1000), we can determine the settlement amount from the VA by subtracting the amount received from the total amount:  $4400 – $1200 = $3200.

So the veteran will receive a tax free check for $3200.  Sweet!

But wait, there’s more…

For those veterans who are retired from the military, they are owed the same back pay as shown above, but in addition DFAS is required to pay back the taxes collected on the back pay.  For every month that you should have received a payment from the VA but didn’t, that amount was taxed.  Since VA compensation is tax free, you are due the taxes that you paid.  It is calculated as follows:

From the problem above, you are about to receive a check for $3200 from the VA.  DFAS has already deducted the taxes for the first $1200, but has not done so for the remaining $3200.  In effect, you have been paid that amount and been taxed on it, so DFAS needs to cut you a check for the taxes (assuming a 20% tax rate as used in the problem above): $3200 x 20% = $640.  Unfortunately, since you are retired and not simply out of the service you don’t get $3200.  You get $640.  Not as sweet, but still a nice chunk of change. 

But wait, there is still more!

In cases where your disability compensation rating is 50% or more, you are eligible for Concurrent Receipt of VA Compensation and Retired Pay through a program known as CRDP (Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay — to learn more about the nuts and bolts of the program follow this link).  Concurrent receipt means that you receive checks from both DFAS and the VA, and that you are entitled to the full amount of eligibility from both.  Now the numbers are quite different when you calculate them using the numbers above:

Since you are eligible to receive both checks, you will receive your full settlement check from the VA as well as back pay for the pension amount that was deducted and replaced by the monthly VA claim amount, less taxes on that amount.  Sounds complicated, but it really isn’t. The math looks like this:  (Full VA settlement amount) $3200 + (Pension amount deducted and replaced by the VA) $1200 – (taxes on the pension amount deducted and replaced by the VA) $640 = $3760.

If your brain hurts, that’s ok.  The bottom line is that the DFAS and the VA are sending you a check that will cover the cost of whole lot of aspirin.

Patience

Posted by Mike Grice on

I just had lunch with a friend and colleague who is currently on terminal leave.  He has climbed out of the cockpit for the last time and now he is knee deep in the job hunt.

We had a great conversation about the highs and lows of transition, and it brought out one aspect of the journey from being a uniformed killer to a suit-wearing civilian: it takes time.  Lots and lots of time.  And, to reach a happy destination at the end of that journey, it requires patience.

Lots and lots of patience.

Patience to work through the Veterans Administration’s bureaucracy for things like the GI Bill, medical examinations, and the excruciatingly long disability claims process.

Patience to find out what you want to do with the rest of your life.  Once you take your uniform cap off for the last time something happens to your brain, and suddenly the things that you thought would be easy (like getting a sweet job, going back to college, moving back home) are dauntingly hard.

So this is a quick post on the importance of patience.  Even though the trials and tribulations of your transition are unique to you, there are tens of thousands of people just like you going through the same thing.  Those who are the most successful are those who are patient.

A smart person once said that with patience comes wisdom, and that person was right.  A certain way to be unhappy is to jump on the first job that comes your way, because it most likely is not what you really want to do.  Following the quick and easy path to a college or school with a dubious reputation will result in your GI Bill benefits being flushed down the proverbial toilet because once they are gone you can never get them back and use them at a more reputable university that takes a little work to get into.

Patience is a virtue, even though it is very painful at times.  So stick it out, hold to your goals and dreams, and keep moving towards them.  Don’t give up and take the easier path — you’ll regret it later.

Trust me.

Another “plan” to reduce retired veteran benefits

Posted by Mike Grice on

I wrote about not long ago about the government’s strong desire to reduce the health insurance benefit for military retirees.  The subject has reared its ugly head again with a renewed attack on retirees who are enrolled in TRICARE, the health care system for military members, their families, and retirees.

As reported in the Marine Corps Times yesterday (you can read the whole article here), Chuck Hagel, the Secretary of Defense, proposed that “working age” retirees should not be able to utilize TRICARE as their primary health care system but instead should be required to use their employer’s plan instead.  TRICARE would only be used as a secondary or backup plan.

Although the proposal is a long way from being written into legislation, it is a strong indicator that veterans are choice targets in the DOD’s battle of the budget.  Should it become law, though, it will be a significant blow to the 1.6 million veteran retirees who are currently enrolled in TRICARE but have not yet reached age 65.

Interestingly, the issue is one that impacts the Department of Defense and not the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is why the SecDef is pushing for the change.  Most benefits for veterans are covered by the VA, but in the case of retirees it is the DOD that pays the bills.  A retiree’s pension comes from the same place that it did when he or she was still in uniform: the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.  TRICARE, the military and retiree health plan, is also covered by the DOD’s budget.

And Chuck Hagel doesn’t like that very much.

The DOD continues to bang the drum of readiness, and as happens at the end of every war the organization focuses inwards to guard as much of the fiscal pie as possible from those who demand that the post-war military machine shrink in response to the wars no longer being fought.

I find that to be as normal as dawn follows darkness, but I also find the scapegoating of retirees to be a bit insulting.  It is OK for the military to squander $34 million on a useless headquarters in Afghanistan that the military commanders on the ground didn’t even want, but it is not OK for the Department of Defense to honor its commitment to those who dedicate decades of their lives to the defense of the nation.  Instead of conducting a thorough and critical review of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent (and often squandered) on defense equipment and service contracts Hagel finds it easier to go after those who actually went into harm’s way than the connected and powerful  who never left the comfort of their own living rooms.

It is an example of the oddly twisted thinking that pervades governmental agencies, and in my opinion it is just as hypocritical as the administration pushing to subsidize healthcare costs for members of congress and their staffs while ignoring small business’s pleas for relief from the costly requirements.

Anyhow, if having my promised access to health care is cut as an expedient to allow the DOD to keep squandering the taxpayer’s dollar, then so be it.

All I ask is for every military recruiter from every branch of service to explain to every prospective recruit and officer candidate that the benefits that they are being promised in exchange for the opportunity to risk their lives are not really promises.

They’re just part of the honorless practice of bait and switch.  I had always thought that we, as a nation, were better than that.

Sadly, I guess not.

So your VA disability claim is settled. Now what?

Posted by Mike Grice on

As I wrote a few weeks ago my VA disability claim was finally settled.  Suddenly, after nearly two years of pushing the rope up the hill, I found myself with one less windmill at which to tilt.

Although I can now put down my lance and put my trusty steed back in the barn, I still find the whole process to be pretty confusing.  In particular, figuring out just what being identified as a disabled veteran means in real terms — meaning just what impact does my rating have on a retiree’s bank account?

It turns out that if you have incurred an injury while serving in uniform, and that injury is determined to be disabling, then you are entitled to compensation from the Veterans Administration.  That compensation is paid directly to the veteran by the VA, which is nice.  It is also tax free, which is nicer.

But, as usual, things are not as simple as they seem.  Particularly for retirees who receive a pension for their 20+ years of service to the nation.  Like me.

In that case, any remuneration that you receive from the VA is offset by an equal deduction from your pension, with the only really difference in your retirement check being the portion from the VA that is tax free.  For example (and this example is in round numbers to keep things easy), if your pension is $1500 per month, you receive a check for $1500 minus any taxes (let’s say 20%, which is $300), or $1200.

Now, let’s say that you receive a disability rating that results in a payment from the VA of $100.  That $100 is not added to your check for a total of $1600.  Instead, $100 of the $1500 that was paid by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) is now paid by the VA, so the total pension amount stays the same.  What changes is how the taxes are computed.

Now you have $1400 that is taxable, which results in a slightly lower tax bill.  Here is the math:

$1400 x 20% = $280 in taxes.

$1400 (from DFAS) + $100 (from the VA) = $1500 (which is your pension amount).

$1500 (pension + VA Disability) – $280 (taxes) = $1220.

Sooooo…..as a retiree you get an extra twenty bucks in your monthly check.  If you are not a retiree, however, you get the full $100.

That seems really odd.  But wait, there’s more!

The reduction of your pension by the disability payment changes at the 50% disability threshold.  If you are rated as having a disability rating of 50% or more, then the bizarre math problem that we just performed goes away.  In that case, you receive your entire pension as well as the complete VA disability amount.

Sounds bizarre, eh?  I’m not making this stuff up!  Really!

It is known as Concurrent Receipt of VA Compensation and Retired Pay.  For a more in depth explanation of the math problems above, you can read all about how it all works by following this link.

For those of you who were wondering how pensions are affected by VA disability benefits, well, now you know.  For those of you to whom this does not apply, thanks for reading anyway!

Retired Veterans as a “Special Interest” group

Posted by Mike Grice on

As a uniform wearing member of the United States Armed Forces I viewed politics and the special interests that shape them as interesting, but largely irrelevant to my chosen profession.  By law and regulation I could not actively participate in politics; I could not wear my uniform to political events (not that I would have), and if I expressed any disdainful remarks about our elected officials I would have certainly followed in the flaming death spiral of General McChrystal after his disparaging remarks about the administration went public in that scion of popular culture: Rolling Stone magazine.

Once I hung my uniform up for the last time, however, those things that I found to be interesting and irrelevant became fascinating and important.  Suddenly, I was a member of a “Special Interest” group.  I became a retired veteran.

Suddenly, instead of taking what came my way with a smile or a shudder (depending on what it was) I could make some decisions and express my opinion about things and issues.  I could write this very blog and be critical of agencies and entities that I believe are not working in the best interest of veterans, and no commanding officer or general could haul me into his office and existentially threaten my career.

I am not a muckraker by nature, but I have no problem occasionally rocking the boat by writing about things and expressing my opinion about them.

That brings me to today’s post.  Earlier this week I received a newsletter that the Marine Corps mails out to all of us retirees. It contains lots of useful information, such as contact information for various offices and a checklist for my wife to follow when I die to make sure that all of the paperwork associated with my demise is properly completed.  It is a very factual and straightforward periodical.

The focus of this particular issue is TRICARE.  TRICARE, for those who are unfamiliar with the term,, is the medical care system for active duty and retired military members and their families.  The long and short of it is that active duty personnel and their families can receive medical care for free, but once you retire you are entitled to continue receiving care but you have to pay for it.

The cost of TRICARE is low in comparison to other plans, to be sure.  It is not a panacea, however.  It is a secondary or backup plan, so if you or your spouse has insurance through your job that plan comes first and TRICARE kicks in after that. You must submit co-pays for office visits and for prescriptions.  You must pick a doctor from an eligible list of providers.  It is a health care plan like most others, really, but not the golden egg as portrayed by the media.

TRICARE is insurance for vets and their families.  The VA provides healthcare for vets based on their service connected conditions, but does not provide services for their families.  So, if a veteran has a spouse and kids he or she needs to enroll in TRICARE to be covered.

In that manner it fit nicely with the Affordable Care Act that was passed in 2010.

In that manner, it was also viewed as a cash cow to subsidize others who did not have health care, with proposed fee hikes of 345% for some TRICARE members.

That, in my humble opinion, is exploiting a population of Americans who served their country, and as a result chose a career that was not as lucrative other pursuits.  A four star general, certainly equivalent to the CEO of a large corporation, makes a little over $200K per year.  How many CEOs of companys that employ thousands and tens of thousands of people make that little?  Scale it down the chain, with most officer making half that much but with the responsibility of leading hundreds and thousands of men and women in combat.  Is a 45 year old Wall Street hedge fund manager going to work for $90K a year and a pension of half that when he retires?  How about $50 or $60 or $70K per year that the majority of military members are making when they retire from service with half of that amount as a pension?

Nope.

Hence the low cost of TRICARE to the veterans and their families.  Military retirees pay an enormous opportunity cost in terms of lifetime earnings and employment possibilities to serve and defend their nation.  TRICARE is part of the remuneration package for those who have dedicated their adult lives to the service of their nation.

That brings me back to the newsletter I received in the mail the other day.  It discusses the proposed hikes in fees that TRICARE will face in the years ahead, and although I won’t personally see a 345% increase in my monthly bill, I will see it more than double.

Nice.  To all of those who complain that I pay to little and that my family and I are somehow getting over on everyone else because we pay low TRICARE premiums, I say that until you pick up a rifle and serve 20+ years in places where people are actively trying to kill you while your family waits at home in fear for your safety your opinion is both meaningless and insulting.  Decades of service in peace in war was the cost of membership in my “Special Interest” group, and if you aren’t a fellow member kindly shut your yap.

Anyhow, that is my opinion.

For what it’s worth.

Crossing the finish line – my VA disability claim is finally complete!

Posted by Mike Grice on

Well, it finally happened.  Nearly two years after beginning my VA disability claim process I learned today that my rating has been assigned and the case is closed.

Whew!

Looking back on the process, it has indeed been a long and occasionally painful ride.  Now that it is done, however, I think that the VA did a fair and objective evaluation of my various service related conditions.  It took much longer than I had expected, but now that it is finished I am pretty happy with the results.

So now what?

Although I am content with the results of my evaluation, I know that many veterans are not.  If my case was not settled to my satisfaction, I would pursue an appeal to have whatever condition that I felt was inadequately reviewed examined again. It is not at all uncommon for veterans to submit an appeal; in fact 60% of claims are “supplemental”, which is how appeals are classified.  Here are some interesting facts from the VA website about supplemental claims:

  • 60% of pending claims are supplemental, 40% are original.
  • 77% of Veterans filing supplemental claims are receiving some level of monetary benefit from VA.
  • 11% of Veterans filing supplemental claims already have a 100% disability rating (receive $2800 or more per month) or qualify for Individual Unemployability (compensated at the 100% disabled rate).
  • 40% of Veterans filing supplemental claims are already rated at 50% disability or higher.
  • 43% of supplemental claims are from Vietnam-era Veterans; 19% are from Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

I am not personally going to appeal my decision, but for those who would like to do so here are a few pointers on how to start the process:

1.  Don’t even think about going it alone.  I have written extensively in earlier posts about the great work that Veteran Service Organizations (VSOs) perform to assist vets as they navigate the VA claims and appeals process.  I personally have consulted with the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), and they have been fantastic (and they don’t charge a dime to help, either!).  There are hundreds of VSOs to choose from, and to help you find one that best suits your needs you can consult the VSO-Directory_2012-2013, which is published by the VA on an annual basis.

2.  Recordkeeping is CRITICAL!  When you begin the appeal process you are in effect going back and starting the process all over again.  You will be filling out forms (with the help of your VSO!) that identify the condition that you are appealing and why, presenting evidence as to why you disagree with the determination (such as documentation that supports an injury, additional medical records from outside the military or VA system, etc.), and scheduling additional evaluation appointments with VA providers.  Just as you did with your original medical record, you will need to provide copies of all documents to the VA, and you are nuts if you don’t keep an organized file of originals for yourself.

3.  Be prepared to be very patient.  Just because your case has already been reviewed and completed by the VA it does not mean that your supplemental claim will move any faster than the original one.  Your appeal will have to go through the same wickets as your original claim did, and it will take just as long.  There is no “special” appeals pipeline.

4.  Do some research in order to fully understand why your ratings were determined in the manner that they were.  The VA does not compensate based on pain or inconvenience, but instead on the factors that contribute to a medically diagnose-able condition.  For example, your knee may hurt like crazy, and you may have injured it while jumping out of airplanes, but if a tangible medical condition (such as torn cartilage or joint damage) can be identified and documented you will be out of luck.  Follow this link to see the the details of how the VA determines how to rate medical conditions: Title 38: Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans’ Relief  PART 4—SCHEDULE FOR RATING DISABILITIES .  It is a very informative and interesting read.

Good luck!