How to Appeal Your VA Disability Rating
If you're a disabled veteran rated by the Veterans' Administration, you should be receiving benefits from them based on that rating. Your disability rating will be based on VA guidelines dictating disability percentages for your injuries. If you don't believe the VA has rated your injuries correctly, you can appeal. It's best to appeal within the one year grace period after the VA first notified you of their decision on what rating they've assigned.
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Instructions
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Contact the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) or some other organization that can assign someone who understands the VA system to represent you. Not only can their representatives help you prepare your appeal if you need that service, but they can represent you at your VA hearings. If the nearest VA center is a long way from where you live, it may not be easy for you to make all of your hearings.
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Be sure to appeal within one year of receiving the VA's notification of your final rating, if you don't believe some or all of their findings are correct, and be sure to attach a statement explaining why you disagree. If you've received a diagnosis from your own private doctor or some other specialist you've seen, you can also attach their findings to your statement. The goal is to get the VA to revisit your condition, based on new facts, or at least a new interpretation of the facts.
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Decide whether to use the Decision Review Officer or not. The DRO is a mediator assigned, when requested, to modify or even reverse a VA decision with regards to your rating. You don't have much to lose by trying to work through the DRO, because the process is sometimes successful and can save a lot of time. The only downside is that if the DRO doesn't find for you, you've added whatever time it took to get that decision to the overall decision process.
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Make all follow-on appointments with the VA on time if they do agree to revisit your case. You need to make your appointments because even if the VA agrees to reconsider your rating, their findings are always based on an examination by a VA specialist. If you fail to make your appointments on time, the VA can dispense with your case by denying it, saying that their specialists were unable to verify the facts of your appeal.
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Answer all subsequent claim-related correspondence from the VA within 60 days. In fact, you should try to answer as quickly as you can and not wait for the end of the 60-day period. The quicker you respond, the quicker they can finish evaluating your claim and increase your rating and benefits.
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Tips & Warnings
It's also wise to respond as soon as possible following the VA's initial decision, although you have a year, for the same reason -- a quicker response from you will mean a quicker overall process. However, you can still appeal a rating even if you miss the one-year appeal period, particularly if you didn't become aware of the nature of the disability until after the appeal period expired. It's a lot harder after the year is up because you'll then have to show that either you have new evidence about your disability to introduce or the VA made a mistake. Either one of those is hard to establish. For further information on whether you have a valid appeal, consult the VAOPGCPREC 4-2001, which you can download from the VA website. Your DAV representative should be familiar enough with the process that he can also assist you in determining whether you have a valid appeal. If all else fails, contact the VA help line at 1-800-827-1000 for assistance and/or answers to questions.
