Good afternoon and welcome to this episode of Alabama Law TV.
My name is Cindy Speaker, I have with me as my guest today Nathan Guin, one of my favorite
guests and he is with Gardberg and Kemmerly, Attorney's at Law, in Mobile, Alabama.
Nathan, welcome.
Thank you very much, that's very flattering.
I'm glad that I've made the tops of your list.
Absolutely, absolutely.
I always love talking to you, so we're gonna talk today as we usually do about veteran's
disability law, and I understand that you have been very, very busy so I'm so glad we
got to get to you today.
Yeah, it's been a little hectic.
You're all over the place.
I've been all over the Southeast it feels like, it's good to be home for a little bit.
Oh, well that's good.
Well, our topic is the new VA appeals process.
So you're gonna tell us some ... Yes.
Some maybe really trending things that we haven't heard before, let's start off and
talk about what is it, and when will it be implemented?
Okay, so that's probably the easiest and most concrete part I would say.
Okay.
What it is and when it will be implemented.
So, it's supposed to be implemented in February of 2019, that's per the experts at NOVA, which
is the National Organization of Veteran's Advocates.
That was the conference I was at a couple weeks ago in Saint Pete down in Florida.
So this is all brand new information from that, so that's when it's going to be implemented.
Basically what it's going to do is change the rule of the regional offices in the board
of veteran's appeals.
So, now what you have is you put in your claim at the regional office, you get a rating decision
from the regional office, you file a notice of disagreement with the regional office,
and then you get a statement of the case from the regional office.
So they act as the original I guess adjudicator, the original decision maker and they also
act as the first level of the appeals process, well now that's gone.
So, now when you do want to appeal, you'll still file a notice of disagreement, but what
you'll do is file it directly with the board of veteran's appeals, and then at that point,
there are three different tracks that you can choose based on what your case looks like,
what kind of evidence you have, what the issues are and appeal.
There's also some interesting stuff that I think we might get into a little later about
changes in strategy at the regional office because of the way that they are redefining
those rules.
Wow, okay so lots of changes.
What are the most basic changes that have been made?
There's not going to be a statement of the case, there won't be strictly speaking decision
review officers at the regional office, they'll have high level review officers.
New material evidence, a lot of terms are like new material evidence, is now we're doing
relevant evidence.
A lot of different small things like that.
Some of them stay the same, but the biggest difference is obviously is you get to kind
of customize what you want to do.
You have options at the regional office level, before you file a notice of disagreement.
Once you get to the board, you have three different options, all of which has pros and
cons depending on what you want for your case.
Okay.
I guess the most basic changes is that everything seems to be somewhat changed, other than the
fact you still can have hearings, you'll still have decision review officers, they'll just
be at the board rather than the regional office and they're called something different.
A lot of it's the same, but a lot of it will allow for the process to not be so linear.
Everyone is in the same line right now, and this will break it up into a bunch of different
lines.
Okay.
Which is really helpful.
Oh it will be helpful.
So you see this as a positive change?
If it works the way that it looks like it should, I'm very excited about it.
Oh good.
I think it'll help us as attorney's be able to customize more to each case, rather than
... You know you can't, there's only so much you can do, and obviously the legal arguments
are different for every case because all the facts are different, but you know different
cases have different strengths, different weaknesses, and a lot of times you wish you
could just bypass in my opinion, I would just to bypass the statement of the case and the
format all together, which is now what you can do and go straight to the board, because
I really think that the board gives you a really good shake down and they're very fair
and they get the decisions, I believe, right most of the time as opposed to, you know,
the regional office where you get the same decision twice, just two and a half years
a part.
I'm really excited about it, if it works.
Good.
Anywhere close to the way that it hopefully will.
Do you think this will accelerate the time it takes to get cases through the system?
So, that's the biggest point, or the biggest reason that they did it was to try and get
these cases moving forward.
So the idea is yes they will, I don't know what it means necessarily for the speed of
current claims.
That's something that is still kind of been addressed, but not really.
It's raised a lot of questions, and not a whole lot of answers.
So, I think for the newer claims as we're going along, it'll speed those up.
For the older claims, I'm not sure if it'll make that big of a difference.
I think they just have to ride it out, but we'll see what happens here.
You mentioned something staying the same, is there anything thing that's going to stay
the same but maybe be called something different?
So I think I've alluded to it earlier, right now you can file a notice of disagreement
and ask for a decision review officer review.
Basically that's another rating specialist who you have a conference with, talk to them
about it, they'll review the case completely separate from the original decision, and they
issue a new decision.
Now that's just going to be called the High Level review officer now, that's a different
... It's essentially the same thing, but it'll be at the board of veteran's appeals, not
at the regional offices and they'll have a different name.
So that will look different, but stay the same.
Okay.
The same thing for like new material evidence is now new and relevant evidence, it's a little
bit broader of a statement, which makes it a little bit easier for us in terms of what
constitutes new and relevant evidence as opposed to new and material, but that's essentially
the same it's just kind of different terminology on those.
Okay.
You just ... Yeah.
It's just a little bit different.
Okay so you said something would be easier for you, how is it going to effect attorney's
and your strategy?
Well, from that perspective, it might be a little bit more challenging 'cause we'll have
more decisions to make, but I think it'll be helpful for the veteran's.
It'll be a pro, just gives us more work, which is fine obviously, that's what we're here
for.
What it'll do for the attorney's and this is something I haven't really gotten into
yet, instead of filing a notice of disagreement, what you can do is file what's called a supplemental
claim.
You put in a new claim, you get a rating decision, and if they say "We can see that you have
a currently diagnosed disability, that part is checked off."
Well now, all those favorable findings are binding.
So nobody can go back and say that that's incorrect, that's binding.
What you can also do is you can file, if you get new and relevant evidence, so if you get
some other evidence that shows that link or an injury in service and that previously was
an issue, you can put in a supplemental claim with that new evidence and you'll keep your
effective date from your original claim, which is different than before.
You kind of have a couple different opportunities at the regional office level to get your ducks
in a row and really almost have it handled there, and if it doesn't get handled there
when they you go to somewhere different.
You can get your ducks in a row, and if they still mess it up and you say "Look, I've given
you everything you need," and they deny you?
Well then you can file the notice of disagreement to the board of veteran's appeals and so I
think that it gives you the chance to be more efficient.
Yeah, well it certainly is complicated.
It feels like it right now, and we don't have probably half the details 'cause the regulations
haven't all been written yet, so still a lot of development but it's exciting.
Good.
It's really exciting, I'm really, really excited about it but also very curious to see what
it turns out looking like and how it actually works because what they want and what happens
is largely different with the VA.
Yeah, yeah, with everything.
Yeah exactly.
Well I love that you guys are on the cutting edge, you're always on the cutting edge at
Gardberg and Kemmerly, I think that's awesome, and it's certainly helpful to the veterans.
We try our best, we try to keep up with everything, it's ever changing.
These conferences, they have them twice a year, we usually send somebody to pretty much
every one of them.
That's good.
There's always just incredible information that comes out of that.
Basically a huge group think about what can we do advocates and attorney's to help fix
things and also to get all that valuable information.
It was a great conference, and I've come back and I've used, I can't even count how much
stuff I've used from it just since I've been back, so it's been great.
Oh wow, that's awesome.
So bottom line, what will this mean, what will these changes mean for the veterans now
and also in the future?
So for the ones that have current claims, the idea that's being kicked around now or
the solution that have for that is what's called a legacy docket.
So when this new system gets implemented, more likely than not the claims that are already
pending will stay within a similar system as to what they are now.
But, there won't be any new cases added to it as a person now, you can get new claims
and new appeals and everything just kind of compounds each other.
So, more likely than not, excuse me, the older claims will be dealt with in a very similar
manner, because they'll just have to clear those out.
It's gonna be very difficult for them to integrate them into the new system.
Now for new claims, and for other veterans, if you have a claim now that you are thinking
about filing but you might be able to wait until this new system gets implemented, you
may want too because it might behoove you to do that, it might be advantages to you
from a time perspective, and a number of other ways to do that.
For veterans now with current claims, I don't think it'll change much, but I think in terms
of people who want to file claims later or who are coming back from service where ever
it may be now, I think it's gonna be really advantages for them, it's gonna be a helpful
process and I think it'll make things a little bit more easier, a little bit easier and a
little more efficient hopefully.
That's great.
Okay Nathan, so if anybody has questions, they want to talk to you, how can they reach
you?
They can either comment on this video and we'll answer it on Facebook as quickly as
we can, or they can give us a call here at Mobile at 251-343-1111, or they can find us
at our website GardbergLaw.com and for those of you who don't know, if you practice VA
law, we are in Alabama but we have cases all across the country.
So if you somehow found us and you're in the Dakota's or where ever you may be and you
need help, you can call us.
We're licensed basically nationwide, as long as it's in the VA system, so we can help you
no matter where you are int he country.
Outstanding!
That is great.
Well listen, thanks for being with us today as always, it's a pleasure.
Absolutely, well thank you for having me.
I always enjoy it.
Awesome, and as Nathan said, to those of you that are watching now live, you can leave
your comments right on the page and we'll make sure somebody gets back to you and answers
them for you.
Thanks everyone, we'll talk to you again soon.
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