There are three main stages in a claim for veteran’s benefits. The first stage is when the claim is before the regional office, or RO. The second stage is when, if that claim is denied, it is appealed to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (also referred to as "the BVA" or "the Board"). Finally, if the claim is denied by the Board, it can be appealed to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC).

• Claims Before the Regional Office
• Claims Before the Board of Veterans’ Appeals
• Claims Before the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims

Note: The links provided above allow you to download forms from the VA. Although it’s helpful to the VA if you use these forms (therefore increasing the chances your correspondence will be dealt with correctly) it certainly is NOT necessary to use a specific form in the vast majority of circumstances. You could write "I disagree with your decision denying my claim for arthritis benefits" on a napkin, and that would count as a valid notice of disagreement as long as it was received on time. So use the forms if you can, but don’t worry if they don’t download correctly or if you have other problems. The most important considerations are that you send them to the right place (in most cases your local RO) and that you get them there on time.

If you have questions concerning any of the information on this site, please e-mail us at questions@vetlawyers.com. We’ll respond as soon as we can.

Claims Before the Regional Office

When a veteran submits a claim to a regional office, the usual procedure is for the RO to contact the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) to acquire the veteran’s service medical records. The RO also attempts to contact any sources of post-service medical treatment referred to by the veteran to acquire records of that treatment. (To download a copy of an official claims form, click here. If your claim is for pension benefits -- including cause of death -- click here to download the correct form).

At this stage, the RO sometimes requests the veteran be scheduled for a physical examination and sometimes does not. There is no consistently applied standard which determines when an examination will be scheduled (examinations should always be scheduled for increased rating claims, however).

If a veteran is denied benefits at the RO level, he or she has one year from notification of that decision to submit a notice of disagreement with the denial. The RO should then issue a statement of the case which details the specific reasons the veteran’s claim was denied and provides copies of the specific laws under which it was denied. (To download a copy of a VA Form 21-4138 ("Statement in Support of Claim") which can be used for your notice of disagreement form, click here).

Most statements of the case merely duplicate the reasoning set forth in the original rating, however. Don’t expect much.

After the statement of the case is issued, a veteran then must submit a timely substantive appeal in order to "perfect" the appeal. A VA Form 9 should always be included with the statement of the case to allow for the claim to be perfected. If you receive a statement of the case but not a VA Form 9, contact your local office immediately. While doing that you should also signify to the RO in writing as soon as possible that you wish to appeal the denial. As noted below, a substantive appeal can be filed on any piece of paper. Although a VA Form 9 is helpful, it is not necessary to perfect an appeal.

After a veteran’s claim is perfected, it is then put on the waiting list to be adjudicated by the Board of Veterans’ Appeals in Washington, D.C.

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Claims Before the Board of Veterans’ Appeals

Once the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (BVA) calls a case up, it usually decides the case within 90 days. Factors which can affect the turnaround time of a case include the complexity of the claims involved and the speed with which the veteran’s representative finishes its review of the claims folder (assuming the veteran has a national representative, such as The American Legion or Disabled American Veterans) and makes the case available to the BVA.

BVA decisions generally contain a much more thorough analysis of the laws pertaining to a veteran’s claim and to the evidence contained in the veteran's claims folder. The BVA will not lower a rating assigned by the RO or hurt the veteran’s interest in any other way, It is therefore always in a veteran's best interest to appeal a denial of a claim at the RO level to the BVA.

The BVA only renders a decision in about half the cases that come before it every year. In the rest, it remands (returns) the case back to the RO because of a defect in the decision by the RO.

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Claims Before the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims

If a claim is denied by the Board of Veterans' Appeals (BVA), a veteran has 120 days from the date of the BVA decision to appeal it to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims ("CAVC" or "the Court").

After a claim is appealed to the Court, the Department of Veterans Affairs officially works against the veteran in his or her claim. This is the first time the relationship is considered to be "adversarial" (the veteran is the plaintiff before the Court and The Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs is the defendant). Although an attorney is beneficial to a veteran at any stage of the VA process, it is critical that veterans with claims before the Court obtain counsel. The VA will have a group of attorneys working to deny your claim at that point. Veterans without an attorney are at a severe disadvantage.

Like the BVA, the Court also remands a large number of the cases that come before it. Also like the BVA, the Court will rarely (if ever) reduce a benefit that has already been granted to a veteran. Therefore, it is always in a veteran's interest to appeal a denial by the BVA to the Court. The Court is generally much more careful than the BVA in applying the law to the facts of a given case.

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