This is the second post in a series of posts: “5 Reasons the VA is screwing up your claim and how you have the power to fix it.”
REASON #2: THERE IS TOO MUCH WRITING IN YOUR CLAIMS FILE
I order dozens of C-Files every month from the VA. Within minutes of skimming through a C-File, I can tell how bad a claim is going for the Veteran.
Its not due to some special legal insight.
I count all copies of handwritten Form 21-4138s in the C-file.
VA Form 21-4138s are like age-rings on a tree. The more there are, the longer and harder a veteran has battled the VA.
But here’s the catch: More 4138s equals less success.
Many veterans waste a lot of time, paper, and energy filling forms and letters with complaints about the VA’s horrible delays, its poor decisions, and the lack of any sense of duty to the Veteran.
The hardest part is that those vets are right. The VAs delays are obscene. Ratings decisions are, more often than not, unconscionable. I often wonder myself who the VA cares less about: the veteran they exist to support or the taxpayer whose money they fritter away.
Where does complaining get us, though?
Even when we are right, does the VA move faster? No.
Do they get us what we are entitled to? No.
Instead, when you have to send something to the VA, take your time. Don’t miss the deadline, but don’t rush to get something in the mail to them tomorrow, either.
Haste makes Waste.
Instead, submit a well written, concise, persuasive and well-documented argument, along with the evidence to support it.
Have a friend that knows nothing about VA claims read it.
If your writing doesn’t make sense to him, it is not persuasive.
If your friend’s eyes glaze over, you were not concise. If your friend struggles to “get it”, you were not persuasive.
If you were a VA Rater, and had 1 hour to work, which would you read?
- A 20 page manifesto in illegible handwriting ranting about all the VAs ills?
Or,
- A 5 page, double spaced, outlined and tabbed argument, printed legibly or typed, on clean white paper that was easy on the eyes?
If you want a better result from the VA, you have to put a better product in front of them. Submit the right papers, not more papers.
As always, it is one thing to know you should do something, and another thing to know how to do it.
I’ve created a video training course called “Get to the Point” that helps you figure out how to write better arguments in your VA claim.
And, throughout the Veterans Law Blog®, I teach you ways to say what needs to be said to the VA more directly, in fewer words, and with more impact.
