VA gives vets up to a year of retroactive benefits for using FDCs to help reduce the backlog

The Department of Veterans Affairs is reducing the backlog in disability claims with approaches including Fully Developed Claims, FDCs.

FDC processing is expedited, and can reduce the time and effort it takes for VA workers to get ’em done… which means they can focus on more difficult cases.The deal with an FDC is that a vet provides all supporting evidence they can find when they submit the claim. It’s often easier for the vet to do that, since otherwise VA has to get it from the Department of Defense, which can take longer. (VA’s working on this, more on that later.)

Vets can use eBenefits to file, simply log in and select “Apply for Benefits.” Vets can also get help from Vets Service Orgs, who can do the same thing through their own online tools.

In turn, VA gives vets an incentive to file FDCs for disability compensation — by giving up to a year of awarded benefits if they use one. The incentive is part of the “Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012.”

Check details: only Veterans who are submitting their very first compensation claim as an FDC are potentially eligible for up to one-year of retroactive disability benefits under the newly implemented law.

For more: http://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=2464