What Does A Voluntary Services Officer In The Va Do?

Veterans, I'll be the first to admit I dear my Veteran Service Officer.

We need accredited VSOs and accredited claim agents to help you navigate the tumultious waters of the VA merits process.

But before yous go hiring a Veteran Service Officer to help you with your VA inability merits, I call back it's important to understand how your Veteran Service Officeholder might be screwing up your VA claim.

In this postal service, I explicate five Reasons Why Veterans Don't Demand a Veteran Service Officer.

ane. Veteran Service Officers "file" VA disability claims for Free

Costless is crawly.

Everybody loves costless.

Only ofttimes, you lot get what you pay for.

Earlier y'all get searching for a Veteran Service Officeholder to aid y'all with your VA disability claim, you might want to remember about some things…

Fellow Veterans!

You need to understanding there is a huge difference between filing a VA inability claim and filing a "winning" VA disability claim.

Filing a VA disability claim is actually easy.

Y'all should never pay someone to help you with that, because yous can practice information technology yourself online in about two minutes or less inside eBenefits or VA.gov.

A few clicks hither and a few clicks there, and boom, you simply submitted your VA claim.

This is exactly what your VSO does for yous.

They "submit" your VA inability merits and they have Power of Attorney to human action on your behalf.

The problem here is that a VSO has no "skin-in-the-game" when they accept you on as their client.

Regardless of what happens at the end, win, lose, or draw, it doesn't affect them.

Your VSO still gets paid, and you still become screwed, regardless of the outcome.

According to our data, this is exactly why 8/10 veterans are underrated, pregnant yous exercise not currently have the VA disability rating and bounty they deserve.

Translation: This means you lot could be missing out on thousands of dollars of tax-gratuitous income and benefits that you should be getting each month.

2. A Veteran Service Officeholder is simply a "process owners."

When yous a hire a VSO, yous're getting a person who understands the VA claim process.

GREAT!

Again though, this part is not hard.

In fact, information technology's really like shooting fish in a barrel.

Your VSO will likely ask you for a laundry list of documents, such as your full name, social security number, engagement of nativity, your medical records, whatsoever dependent birth certificates, power of attorney, and a list of things you call back you're eligible for regarding your VA disability.

Aren't these all things y'all can upload to eBenefits or VA.gov yourself?

My point here is you don't need to hire somebody to own the VA merits process.

YOU demand to own the VA merits process.

Nobody should care about your VA inability claim more than you practise…

three. Veteran Service Officers are overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated

How motivated will a VSO exist to become higher up and across with helping you and your VA claim when they tin barely feed their own family?

Truth bomb: Many VSOs are paid at about the poverty line, accept fashion more veterans that need help then they can possibly serve, and many of them are role-fourth dimension workers stuck in non-profit cultures of low performance and unaccountability.

Yikes…

A few months ago I picked up the phone and called the sole VSO who services all of JBSA-Randolph in San Antonio, Texas (15,000+ people on-base).

After sending three emails and making iv phone calls over a two calendar week span, with no response, I finally drove over to his facility on-base.

I asked him if he could help me with my VA claim.

He angrily responded with "Deplorable, you need to make an appointment."

When I told him I had attempted to brand an engagement vii different times, he gruffed a flake under his breath and mentioned he'd been out sick.

He so went on a bluster about how he'southward the simply ane serving all these people on base and he has no aid and blah blah apathetic, so proceeded to tell me he could come across me in-person in two months…

I thanked him for his time, and walked out.

My fellow veterans, this is what nosotros're up against: VSOs who are overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated.

I don't know virtually you, but how likely is this Veteran Service Officeholder to help a boyfriend veteran file a winning VA disability merits?

And once again, where are you going to get the medical bear witness you demand to bear witness service connexion and get rated at the appropriate level under the constabulary?

4. A Veteran Service Officer tin lack specialized VA claims knowledge

Nearly a year ago, we experimented with having a onetime accredited Veteran Service Officer join our team at VA Claims Insider.

The experiment lasted a total of 5 days.

No matter how much education, preparation, strategy, and medical consulting advice we gave him, the uptake was literally non-existant.

He couldn't acquire and utilise the necessary specialized VA claims cognition needed to help veterans ready-up the right VA claim strategy and obtain the appropriate medical evidence needed to prove service connexion and get rated at the advisable level under CFR 38.

The next fourth dimension you meet your Veteran Service Officer, I'd like you to ask them a few questions:

I'd similar to file my Obstructive Sleep Apnea secondary to another service-connected inability I already have, which 1 should I choose and why? Click Hither to read about Sleep Apnea Secondary Conditions.
I was previously denied my non-gainsay PTSD claim because I couldn't prove my in-service stressor events. Exercise you know why this might have happened and the all-time strategy for me since I was just denied 6 months ago?
Because of the electric current service-continued disabilities I endure from, I now have daily chronic hurting. I'd like to file a VA disability merits for Chronic Pain Syndrome, should I go chief or secondary, and do I demand any other supporting medical evidence to assist me win and service connect my claim?

If your VSO can't reply these questions with confidence, this should exist an immediate red-flag that y'all're in the wrong place.

It'southward kind of like hiring a nurse to do brain surgery.

The nurse has some general medical knowledge and can assist you with simple questions about your health and various medications.

In contrast, a Brain Surgeon possesses highly specialized noesis and contempo and relevant feel doing brain surgery.

Which one would you rather have doing the surgery?

While your VA claim isn't brain surgery, it does require highly specialized VA claims noesis every bit well every bit contempo and relevant experience navigating the VA disability merits organization.

It's also critical to obtain medical evidence, such as Disability Benefit Questionaires (DBQs) and Contained Medical Opinions, also known as Medical Nexus Letters from qualified medical providers.

That's what WE DO at VA Claims Insider.

We connect veterans with the correct medical professional for DBQs and Medical Nexus Opinions in back up of your VA merits.

5. A Veteran Service Officeholder is Non a trained medical professional

This is arguably the MOST IMPORTANT one on this listing.

The number ane reason why VA inability claims get denied is due to a lack of medical evidence.

The number two reason is because the Rating Veteran Service Representative, as well known as the RVSR, is unable to determine the Nexus, which is the logical link or connectedness to an in-service injury or issue that led to the disability you suffer from today.

The success of your VA disability claim largely comes down to medical evidence, in the course of Disability Benefit Questionnaires (DBQs) and Medical Nexus Letters.

Only trained and certified medical professionals can provide you with the DBQs and Medical Nexus Letters needed to win, service-connect, and rate your various disabilities at the advisable level under the law.

Think of it another style: Information technology'south kind of similar hiring a Plumber to do Electrical work in your home.

A Plumber is very adept at all things plumbing related, merely doesn't know the first thing almost your Electrical systems, and isn't training and certified to sign off on things to code and in accordance with local, state, and federal law.

Veterans!

Very rarely practice we encounter veterans lose their VA disability claim on a process issue or a technicality.

In nearly every state of affairs, it comes downwards to a lack of medical prove, and/or a bad C&P examiner.

Delight do me a favor and share this article with fellow veterans.

We need to get the discussion out that veterans have the option to file their own VA disability merits online and stand for themselves in the process.

Botton line is don't permit yourself get stuck with a bad Veteran Service Officer —you have options!

You might also like my video, "Are You My Veteran Service Officeholder?"

Click below to watch now.

Picket: Are You My VSO?

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We're Veterans helping Veterans Worldwide™, and since 2016 we've helped ten,000+ Veterans just like you Increment their VA disability rating!

Brian Reese

Founder & CEO

Brian Reese is VA benefits good, author of the #1 Amazon Bestseller You Deserve It: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Veteran Benefits You've Earned, and founder of VA Claims Insider –"The About Trusted Name in Instruction-Based Resources for Veterans."

His frustration with theviii-step VA disability claims process led him to create"VA Claims Insider," which provides U.Southward. military veterans with tips, strategies, and lessons learned for successfully submitting or re-submitting a winning VA disability compensation claim.

Brian isalso the CEO ofMilitary Disability Made Easy, which is the world's largest gratuitous searchable database for all things related to DoD inability and VA disability claims and has served more than 4,600,000 military machine members and veterans since its founding in 2013.

His eBook, the"ix Secrets Strategies for Winning Your VA Inability Claim" has been downloaded more than than 300,000 times in the by iii years and is the #1 rated gratuitous VA inability claims guide for veterans.

He is aformer active duty Air Forcefulness officer with extensive experience leading hundreds of individuals and multi-functional teams in challenging international environments, including a combat tour to Afghanistan in 2011 supporting Functioning Indelible FREEDOM.

Brian is a Distinguished Graduate of Management from theU.s.a. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, CO and he holds an MBA from Oklahoma State University's Spears School of Business, Stillwater, OK, where he was a National Honor Scholar (Elevation 1% of Graduate School form).