You’ve made the decision to leave the military, now what do you do?
REQUEST A COPY OF YOUR MEDICAL RECORDS!!!!
I can’t be any more obvious, seriously, it can take two months for some of you to get a copy and you can’t start your VA process without them.
TAPS (no, not that TAPS)
Next….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!
TAKE NOTES & STUDY
Make a list of what ailments and pain you are currently experiencing and begin going through your medical records. As you go through them, you’ll most likely see the root cause of your current pain that was long forgotten. Make note of the dates of those injuries. This will help guide the person at the VA that processes your claim, avoiding any missed issues. If you’re young enough to have all your medical records digital that’s a plus as it is easy for the VA to do a quick search for what you’re claiming. If you’re like me, most of my medical records are hand written, so taking good notes and dumbing down my injuries for the VA was helpful.
PRE-DISCHARGE BENEFITS AT DISCHARGE (BDD) CLAIM
If you’re within 90 to 180 days of discharge your claim will be known as a BDD claim and should be completed before you’re actually discharged from service. You should get your exams completed through the VA and your expected disability rating prior to discharge. Anything 1 to 89 days prior to discharge is called BDD excluded but the VA will still do their best to expedite your claim. Make sure to keep the VA benefits and hospital up to date on your address and phone numbers, this is critical to your claim processing!!
For those 90 to 180 days out, you’ll get your VA exams, aka Separation Health Assessment (SHA) between the 10th and 45th day from the date your claim was received. The SHA is completely separate from your DoD sep physical. Your sep physical is you telling the Dr what is wrong with you and it gets written down on a form. The SHA done by the VA gives a current exam with current levels of severity of each disability you’re claiming. Without the SHA, the claims processors can’t determine how bad you are (if injury really exists) and may end up denying your claim.
The BDD process is very recently revamped by the VA to expedite servicemembers claims to assist in their transition to civilian life. Before the BDD process could take over a year, now it’s taking a month or two for you to have your disability check rolling in.
For reservists, everytime you come off active duty you can go through this BDD process (for any new disabilities of course).