The VA has officially started their renovation of the VA appeals
process—hooray!
However, it isn’t quite time to celebrate for everyone. The
VA’s new RAMP (“Rapid Appeals Modernization Program”) will only be available by
invitation until the full program is implemented sometime before February 2019.
Starting this month (November 2017), the VA will be sending
out RAMP invitations to eligible veterans with pending VA appeals. The invites
won’t go out to everyone, so even if you are “eligible” and have had your
appeal pending for a while, it doesn’t mean you’ll get one.
The VA’s goal is to slowly grow this program over the next
year or so until it can support the full load of every veteran’s appeal. Thus,
they’ll be regularly sending out invites throughout the year, and once their
infrastructure is solid enough, they’ll open the RAMP program up for everyone.
So what does this mean for you?
If you have not yet submitted
an appeal, then you can submit your appeal using the current
VA appeals process. You cannot yet apply directly to the RAMP program as invitations are
only going out to veterans who already have their VA appeals pending. Sometime
before February 2019, the VA will open up the RAMP program to new appeals as well,
but there is no way to know exactly when, so you have to still apply via the
current system. Although, once your appeal is in the system and pending, you
might get a RAMP invite.
If you have already submitted
a VA appeal, then just sit back and wait. You might receive a RAMP
invitation sometime this coming year, but there is nothing that you can
actively do right now.
If you receive a RAMP
invitation, then you have the option to choose whether to participate in
the new RAMP process or to leave your appeal in the old process. Either way
could be fine, depending on your case, and it is completely up to you.
The goal of RAMP is to make the VA appeals process faster,
so it may be in your best interest to switch to RAMP. However, if you’ve been
pending for awhile and your case is more complicated, it may be better to stay.
Under RAMP, you have the ability to choose one of three
“lanes” to put your appeal in. If you pick the best lane for your type of case,
then it will be reviewed much more quickly than the current system. If,
however, you pick the wrong lane or it is too complicated for a particular
lane, it will then be transferred to the other lane or the BVA’s longer line.
Even under RAMP, more complicated cases must go to the Board
of Veterans Appeals (BVA), but the BVA will not be reviewing any RAMP cases
until February 2019. Until then, the BVA will simply focus on the pending
appeals in the current system.
It’s important that you understand the types of cases that
should be put in each lane so that you make the best decision for your VA
appeal:
1.
Local
Higher Level Review. This lane is
for cases that don’t have any new evidence and are fairly straightforward. If
the VA made an error and the evidence in the claim clearly proves their error,
then this is the lane for you. The majority of appeals that don’t have new
evidence will be fine in this lane.
2.
New
Evidence. This lane is for claims that have new evidence that wasn’t
submitted with the original claim. If the VA made a decision about your case,
but didn’t have all the evidence and you’d like to submit additional evidence,
then this is the lane for you. Only submit to this lane if you have new
evidence regarding your conditions that the VA has not yet seen.
3.
The Board.
This lane sends a case directly to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (BVA). Again,
however, the BVA will not be reviewing cases under RAMP until February 2019 as
they are already overwhelmed under the current system and need to focus on
that.
So until the RAMP program is fully implemented, only the
first two lanes will be beneficial. If you decide to participate in the RAMP
program under one of the first two lanes, and disagree with their decision,
then you can appeal directly to the BVA.
As the BVA will be focusing on the current appeals, it is
definitely fine to choose to not participate in the RAMP program. Depending on
your case, however, the RAMP program may be a godsend. In reality, the majority
of VA appeals are fairly straightforward cases that are simply bogged down in
the overload of the current system. This new RAMP system will allow those cases
to be separated out and reviewed more quickly.
Ultimately, the VA’s new RAMP program should make the
VA appeals process much better in the long run by dividing the labor among three
lanes instead of it all landing on the BVA. However, it will take some time to
fully implement and be available to everyone. Hopefully during that time,
they’ll be able to work out the kinks and have a solid system ready to go by
February 2019.
