Veterans Crisis Line — dial 988, then press 1. Text
838255. Chat at
veteranscrisisline.net.
TTY
711 then 988, or
1-800-799-4889. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
You do not have to be enrolled in VA benefits or health care to connect.
A denial letter or a notice that your pay is being cut is a hard thing to open alone. If that letter
put you in a dark place, make the call before you make the appeal.
Read this first if VA is proposing to cut your rating
A proposed reduction starts two short clocks — not a one-year clock
Do not wait for a decision letter. By the time the decision letter comes, both windows are gone.
When VA proposes to reduce or stop a rating you already have, it sends you a PROPOSAL notice
first. From the date of that proposal notice you have 60 days to submit evidence showing
the reduction should not be made — and only 30 days to request a
predetermination hearing, which is a hearing held before VA makes the cut final.
- Ask for the hearing in writing, inside the 30 days. Requesting the hearing and sending
evidence are two separate acts. Do both.
- The VA official who conducts that predetermination hearing may not be the same official who
proposed the reduction.
- If you do nothing, the reduction takes effect the last day of the month in which a 60-day period
from the notice of the final action expires.
- Once the cut takes effect, you are appealing to get money back that has already stopped coming.
The three lanes below are still open to you — they are just a slower, harder road than
answering the proposal on time.
What the proposal notice looks like: it tells you VA intends to reduce or discontinue a rating,
and it tells you what you may do about it. It is not the final decision. It is your warning shot, and
the clock is already running on the date printed on it.
★ 30 days for the hearing. 60 days for the evidence. Move today.
Option 1
Higher-Level Review
VA Form 20-0996 — within 1 year of the date on your decision letter.
- An experienced higher-level reviewer who did not take part in your original decision
looks at your claim again.
- That reviewer can also find and return the claim for a duty-to-assist error — an
error where VA failed to do its own part in getting your records or scheduling your exam.
- No new evidence. Nothing new may be added in this lane. It is for when VA had what it
needed and still got it wrong.
- You can ask for one informal conference — a call to point out the errors you see.
VA makes reasonable efforts to hold one conference. It is not a guarantee.
- You cannot request a Higher-Level Review after a previous Higher-Level Review or Board Appeal
on the same issue.
★ Same evidence. New set of eyes.
Option 2
Supplemental Claim
VA Form 20-0995 — no filing deadline.
There is no deadline to file a Supplemental Claim. You may file one any time after VA issues
a decision. One year later, ten years later, thirty years later — that door is still open. If
somebody told you that you were finished because a year went by, they were wrong.
- This is the lane for new and relevant evidence VA has not already considered: new medical
records, a nexus letter, buddy statements, service records you finally got your hands on.
- A nexus letter is a letter from a medical provider connecting your condition to your
military service.
- A buddy statement is a written statement from someone who served with you, or who lives
with you, describing what they saw.
- The one-year mark here is about money, not about your right to file. Filing within one
year of the date on your decision letter is how you protect the earliest effective date for
benefits later granted. File later and you can still win — you may just lose the back pay
for the months in between.
★ No deadline to file. The back pay has one.
Option 3
Board Appeal
VA Form 10182, the Notice of Disagreement — within 1 year of the date on your decision letter.
Your case goes to the Board of Veterans' Appeals and a Veterans Law Judge. You choose one of three
dockets, and the docket decides your evidence rules:
- Direct Review — no new evidence at all. The judge decides on the record as it stood
when VA made its decision.
- Evidence Submission — you may send new evidence with your Form 10182, or within
90 days of the date VA receives your request for a Board Appeal.
- Hearing — you speak with a Veterans Law Judge. You may submit new evidence at the
hearing, or within 90 days after the hearing. If the judge tells you to go get something,
that is the window you have to send it in.
★ Pick the docket that fits your evidence.
Choosing
One lane at a time — and one exception that bites
- While a review is pending on an issue, you cannot file under a different option on that same
issue. Wait for that decision, then choose again.
- No second Higher-Level Review after a prior Higher-Level Review or Board Appeal on the same
issue.
- All three can be filed online at VA.gov or by mail on the form for your lane.
Contested claims: 60 days, and only to the Board. A simultaneously contested claim is one
where another person is claiming the same benefit you are. If that is your situation, you have only
60 days from the date on the decision notice, and only one route — an appeal to the
Board. The one-year deadlines on this page are not yours. If you are unsure whether your claim is
contested, treat the 60 days as real and get accredited help this week.
★ The wrong lane costs months. The wrong clock costs the claim.
What help costs
Accredited help — and which kind is free
VSO, claims agent and attorney are not the same thing. The difference is your money.
- A VA-accredited Veterans Service Organization (VSO) representative works your VA benefit
claim for free. Always. Recognized organizations and their accredited representatives are not
permitted to receive fees for this work.
- An accredited attorney or claims agent may charge you — but only after VA has
issued notice of an initial decision on the claim. Nobody may charge you to file your original
claim.
- A fee of no more than 20% of your past-due benefits is presumed reasonable.
- A fee agreement must be filed with VA within 30 days of being signed. Ask to see that it
was.
★ Free help exists. Check before you sign anything.
If the Board says no
The Board is not the end of the road
A denial from the Board closes one door. It does not close the building.
- You may appeal a Board denial to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. The
deadline is 120 days after the date notice of the Board's decision is issued.
- You may ask the Board to reconsider its decision.
- You may file a Supplemental Claim with new and relevant evidence — and that lane
still has no filing deadline.
★ A no from the Board is still not a final no.
This week
What to do the week the letter lands
- Read the reason. The letter says what VA decided and why. That reason tells you which
lane you need.
- Check the date on the letter. That printed date starts your clock, not the day you got
around to opening it.
- If it is a proposal to reduce — go back to the top of this page. 30 days and
60 days.
- Request your C-File, the claims file holding everything VA used to decide. Ask for it
with a Freedom of Information Act or Privacy Act request — VA Form 20-10206 — or
download your records from VA.gov.
- Read your C&P exam in that file for errors. A compensation and pension exam is the
VA exam your rating was built on. Wrong limb, wrong dates, conditions never examined —
those are the errors a Higher-Level Review is built to catch.
- Gather what is missing: new medical records, a nexus letter from a provider, buddy
statements from people who were there.
- Keep a copy of everything you send and the date you sent it. Mail it in a way you can
prove.
- File. Online at VA.gov, or by mail on the form for your lane.
★ Date on the letter. Reason for the decision. Then move.