You’ve made the decision to leave the military, now what do you do? (Sorry for the long post)
TAPS:
You’ll be taking a transition assistance class of some sort 18 months to a year out from your anticipated ETS/retirement date. I believe the Navy and Army call it TAPs.
One of the briefings that you’ll get is from the VA. You’ll probably have suffered death by PowerPoint already but you really need to pay attention to this brief. This should cover educational benefits, disability, home loans, small business loans, lots of good stuff!
GET YOUR RECORDS NOW:
Even before signing up for TAPs class you should be requesting a certified copy of all your medical records. It can take up to two months to get a copy so don’t wait! You can’t start your VA exams without them either.
SURPRISE: Sit down and go through your medical records when you get them. Ask your spouse what s/he remembers about your injuries if you’ve been together for a while (especially for the Operators). You will be surprised at how many sprains and strains you’ve had when you start looking through your medical records (or maybe how few) and how many you’ve forgotten about. Make a list of every body part that is bothering you currently and see if you can find a correlating entry/injury in your records. And remember, you have been “owned” by the military 24/7/365 since you joined so every football game, scrimmage, car accident and physical fitness test is a place for potential injury that could be the beginning of what is now chronic pain. If you can tell the VA when the injuries occurred it helps ensure nothing gets missed and a better rating in the end.
**Anything you can’t find in your medical records, go to medical ASAP and get it documented, more than once!! We’ve been taught to be ‘Hooah’, to push through pain and down range we don’t have time to go to medical for every strain. Our bodies absorb a lot of stress just from everyday things like carrying a loaded ruck, a combat load, going up and down ladder wells on ships, schools etc, stuff we don’t think of as an “injury”. But these things take a serious toll on our bodies, so go get them documented ASAP!!**
MANAGE EXPECTATIONS: You can begin your VA disability claim process up to a year before discharge, but not any earlier. This is called a BDD claim, Basic Delivery at Discharge. You’ll have a case manager of sorts that will help you (should help you). You’ll go through all your VA exams, which takes time and end up with a ‘draft’ rating that serves as your 99% true estimate of what you can expect to get, usually eight to 10 weeks before your discharge. Now if you don’t like your estimated rating, tell the VA and go back for another exam. You can do this after your discharge too but why if you don’t have to?!
RANDOM CLAIM INFO: Your official VA disability claim start date will be the first day after your discharge date. Even with your ‘draft’ rating completed, it can take months to get your first payment. So manage your expectations and your budget. I’ve heard that your retirement check makes it to you first and the VA disability check is second.
You will be paid from the first day after your discharge no matter how long it takes to get your first disability check. The VA doesn’t pay for partial months so if your discharged on March 17th, your date of claim will be March 18th but a check won’t start until April 1st.
For those that ignore my advice and don’t start the disability claims process before you’re discharged, all is NOT lost and you do have the power to speed up your claims processing time!! You can have your doctor, civilian, military or VA, fill out all the exams, called Disability Benefits Questionnaires (DBQ) the VA needs and submit what the VA calls a Fully Developed Claim (FDC). See link to VA exams. (Your initial PTSD exam is NOT available to the public so the VA must conduct it)
The most common mistake with vets submitting their own DBQs…. make sure the last pages are signed, dated and include the DR’s license number. Make sure they are legible too….if you can. This will save you and your claim A LOT of time.
If an exam you need isn’t listed its ok, the VA will order it for you, presuming they can find what you’re claiming in your medical records. Some DBQs are not available to the public yet due to research still needing to be done.
One last tidbit….make sure your DD 214 is correct with your awards, foreign service and combat. The VA uses your 214 as a source document in your disability process. What I mean by this is that it has your rate/MOS that can tell them if your rate/MOS is prone to cause hearing loss for example or if it lists a parachute badge that can be used to explain joint pain, or a combat badge to explain PTSD, and more. Read my post about the Marine if you want a horror story of an incomplete DD214 and how it can end up causing your claim to be denied!!