U.S. Military (Ret.): Vets can’t be passive when dealing with VA - Military Benefits | Marine Corps pay, education, health, housing, moving, MWR - Marine Corps Times

U.S. Military (Ret.): Vets can’t be passive when dealing with VA

Nothing speaks wisdom like the voice of experience. I recently wrote about the Veterans Affairs Department disability claims system and offered a few do’s and don’ts for submitting a claim or appealing a VA decision on an initial claim.

Retired Cmdr. Peter Gregory, who often shares his thoughts with me on retirement issues, weighed in on this one with some comments worth sharing.

“As a 20 percent disabled and service-connected veteran, I too have had my encounters with the VA system,” he wrote.

“I started my application while on active duty, and it took two years when all was said and done. Am I bitter? No, that’s the nature of the system.”

He thinks that the core of VA’s claims process issues is a lack of communication/integration/data transfer between the active-duty Tricare system and the VA health care system. He likened that to a “Berlin Wall” that needs to fall.

But until it does, he said, a veteran navigating the VA claims system must be “his own best advocate.”

“You can write any congressmen you want, but you, the veteran, have to press the case forward,” he said. “VA is not your friend; it was never designed to be your friend. You need to prove your case. Too many veterans are either too passive or assume some helper will advance their cause for them.”

He emphasized that these are all problems with the VA process; he said he considers VA health care itself “the best in the world.”

The main point for both Gregory and myself is that veterans must be prepared to deal with a system that is often slow, cumbersome and unresponsive.

Do your homework, obtain all your military personnel and health records, research the VA Web site for the facts; if you need help, there are many veteran service officers and associations that will gladly assist you. VA’s Web site even provides an outline on the steps you should follow when filing a claim or appealing a claim.

The bottom line, as Gregory said, must be this: You are your own best advocate.

I would welcome thoughts from other retirees who think they have any insights to share about the VA claims system. Knowledge is power; the more we share our hard-earned knowledge and experience with each other, the wiser we all become.

Retired Command Master Chief Alex Keenan served 28 years in the Coast Guard. E-mail him at retired@atpco.com.