{"id":127657,"date":"2017-08-23T14:48:32","date_gmt":"2017-08-23T19:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=127657"},"modified":"2017-08-23T14:49:12","modified_gmt":"2017-08-23T19:49:12","slug":"new-law-improves-veterans-claims-appeal-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=127657","title":{"rendered":"New law improves veterans claims appeal process"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-93766\" src=\"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/VAlogo-300x202.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"202\" srcset=\"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/VAlogo-300x202.jpg 300w, https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/VAlogo-259x175.jpg 259w, https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/VAlogo.jpg 445w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/strong>Washington\u00a0 (CSi)\u00a0 \u2013 Senator John Hoeven Wednesday announced that the President has signed into law bipartisan legislation he cosponsored to update and improve the benefit claims appeals process at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).<\/p>\n<p>The Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017, which was passed unanimously by the Senate on August 1, modernizes the VA appeals process and reduces wait times for veterans who are not satisfied with the VA\u2019s initial decision on their benefits claims. Currently, veterans face a five-year wait on average if they appeal a decision.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Hoeven says, \u201cThis bipartisan legislation modernizes the VA\u2019s claims appeal process and will help ensure that our veterans have better options when they don\u2019t agree with a benefit decision.\u00a0 We need to ensure the highest quality care for the men and women who have served our nation and this legislation will help us to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, the bill:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Includes reforms consistent with legislative proposals by the VA, veterans groups and other stakeholders<\/li>\n<li>Creates three options for veterans dissatisfied with the initial decision on claims:\n<ul>\n<li>Higher-level review by a regional office with the same evidence presented to the original claim processors<\/li>\n<li>Supplemental claim with a regional office that would include the opportunity to submit additional evidence<\/li>\n<li>Appeal directly to the Board of Veterans\u2019 Appeals, resulting in a possible hearing and an opportunity to submit additional evidence<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Helps ensure that current pending appeals will be acted on as quickly as possible<\/li>\n<li>Requires the VA Secretary to certify that the VA has the necessary resources to implement the new system and requires the VA to report to Congress as to whether or not the new system is succeeding in better serving veterans, their families and their survivors<\/li>\n<li>Protects the effective date of a benefits award by dating back to the original filing of the claim<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington\u00a0 (CSi)\u00a0 \u2013 Senator John Hoeven Wednesday announced that the President has signed into law bipartisan legislation he cosponsored to update and improve the benefit claims appeals process at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017, which was passed unanimously by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":93766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=127657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127658,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127657\/revisions\/127658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/93766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=127657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=127657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=127657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}