Decision Review Officer or Traditional Appellate Review Process
After getting a VA Ratings Conclusion that y'all would similar to appeal, should you seek review of your denied VA Claim by a DRO?
Bottom Line Upward Front: I cannot think of a scenario where you would not request the DRO Review.
Before I tell you why, let me exercise a quick "primer" on the DRO process.
DRO Review Process.
After the VA Regional Office denies your merits, in whole or in part, you must entreatment the VA Ratings determination if you wish to challenge that issue.
To begin the entreatment process, you file a written notice of disagreement (NOD) with the VA Regional Office (VARO) that issued the disputed decision.
The VA and then sends you an appeal ballot form asking you to choose between a traditional appellate-review or a review by a decision review officer (DRO).
You lot have threescore days to respond to the appeal election course. See 38 C.F.R. § three.2600 (2007).
DROs are authorized to grant contested benefits based on the aforementioned testify utilized past the initial rating board.
DROs review the evidence "de novo" – essentially, with fresh eyes and without deference to the initial Ratings Decision
The DRO is a valuable additional step in the process.
With rare exception (in that location are 1 or 2 DROs that are bad apples) I can't call up of a reason NOT to asking a DRO review of the VARO'due south Initial Rating Determination.
DROs are senior representatives of the VA with considerable experience in handling Veterans' claims.
The DRO will review the case without deference to the VAs initial conclusion.
The DRO process is frequently successful and is mostly much faster than going directly to the BVA. If yous do not receive a better decision from the DRO, you tin can even so entreatment to the BVA.
Case of how a DRO Conference led to a favorable issue.
In a contempo merits we handled for a Vietnam veteran with Post Traumatic Stress (aka, PTSD), the VARO initially denied the Veteran's merits, finding that there was no evidence of a current diagnosis.
This conclusion flew in the face of the prove of record, wherein the VA had actually diagnosed the Veteran with PTSD (and other mental health conditions) as a direct result of his armed services service.
We sought review by a DRO; inside a few weeks, the Veteran was invited to the closest VA Medical Center for an evaluation for the purposes of generating an impairment rating for PTSD.
Inside a few months of requesting the DRO, the Veteran was service-connected for PTSD.
Within thirty (30) days of that decision, the Veteran received a substantial payment of past-due benefits from the VA, and volition continue to receive benefits into the future.
Had the Veteran not requested a DRO, I suspect information technology could have taken 1-2 years – at to the lowest degree – before we got a risk to persuade the BVA Hearing Official of our version of the facts.
Even if successful at the BVA, it is likely that we would have just been able to get the BVA Hearing Official to remand the Veteran'south claim back to the VA for a mental health impairment evaluation and further development of the record.
I Think the VA Got it Right with the DRO Briefing.
While not a guarantee that y'all will get the benefits y'all are seeking, the DRO process seems to work for just about anyone.
It helps Veterans get the benefits they are entitled to earlier than they would have by going through the traditional appeal procedure.
It helps the VA reduce its backlog of claims. Surviving issues that need to be appealed to the BVA (ciphering of effective dates, disagreements over the percentage of impairment rating, etc.) are narrowed for review by the BVA Hearing Official, and are more clean in their presentation to the BVA.
Despite these advantages, all too many Veterans don't yet know that the DRO process is a very good selection to pursue in almost every type of claim.
Perhaps the VA could explain the process better to Veterans.
Perhaps Veterans are tired of going through all the same one more than stage of review of their merits and are "once-bitten-twice-shy" virtually the VA'due south claims of a more efficient procedure for helping the Veteran.
With the likelihood that you will wait many months or years before y'all can contend your position on a denied merits before a BVA Hearing Official, it makes sense to ask that a more senior representative review your claim.
Using the comment department beneath, what was your feel – practiced or bad – with the DRO procedure?
Source: https://www.veteranslawblog.org/dro-review/
0 Response to "Decision Review Officer or Traditional Appellate Review Process"
Post a Comment