When I talk to my friends about filing a VA claim, I hear the same response: “Isn’t there a checklist for this stuff?” It’s a fair question. Whether you spent four or 34 years in the military, we are all very familiar with “the checklist.”

There were safety checklists, pre-flight checklists, checklists for deployments, changes of station, adding dependents, and the longest checklist I remember – the separation/retirement checklist. In the military, we like checklists about as much as we like acronyms because they keep things simple. We hear you – VA needs a checklist on how to file a digital claim for compensation through our new Fully Developed Claims program (FDC) – the fastest way to get a decision. Here it is:

1)  WHAT IS FDC?  A program designed to rapidly process VA compensation claims.

2)  WHAT KIND OF RECORDS DO YOU NEED? Military personnel and treatment records are vital to establishing your claim for compensation.  Military personnel records can contain deployment orders, pay records, medals and certificates not reflected on the DD-214. Obviously, your military treatment records may keep a log of any conditions or injuries you suffered in service.  Other federal records, like those from Social Security Administration (SSA), are often necessary too – they may contain a lot of medical evidence and sometimes even evidence as to the cause of a disability.  Non-federal records, like medical files from your private doctor, are also important to establishing your claim. These can tell us the degree of your condition, if it has become worse over time and general information needed for rating purposes.

3) WHY SUBMIT AN FDC?  You get a faster decision because it saves VA time.  When you file a claim, the law requires VA to make an exhaustive search on your behalf to obtain service records and other relevant evidence held by federal agencies and requires VA to ask at least twice for relevant evidence held by private parties, unless we get them on the first request.  This translates into months of waiting for evidence before VA can decide your claim.  By submitting all your evidence with your FDC, identifying any relevant records held by federal agencies and verifying that you have no more evidence to submit, you shave a lot of the wait time off the process.

With an FDC, VA will still collect all federal records you identify.  What we won’t do is spend time asking for non-federal records like private medical files.  We also won’t ask for National Guard and Reserve medical and personnel records, which are usually in the custody of your unit or state.  So, if you are or were in the National Guard or Reserve, make sure you go to your units and obtain those records.  Right now, it takes us more than 300 days on average to obtain National Guard and Reserve records, and if you don’t submit them with your FDC, we will have to process your claim the traditional way.

There is no risk in filing an FDC — if we find that there is a piece of relevant evidence you did not submit, but should have included (like private medical records), we will obtain that evidence on your behalf and process your claim the traditional way.

The Fully Developed Claims checklist (click to expand)

eBenefits will guide you through the process. You can answer the questions and upload all your supporting evidence all at once, or you can start and save your claim online, collect your supporting evidence and log back in to finish applying.

Once you hit Save, you have one year to return to eBenefits, upload your evidence and click Submit.  Don’t forget to save – in many cases VA may be able to pay benefits as early as the date you first save that application. Your Veterans Service Officer can also log into the Stakeholder Enterprise Portal – a VSO’s window into your eBenefits account – to look over your claim and give you advice before you press Submit.

5) WHERE IS THAT CHECKLIST YOU PROMISED?  Follow the checklist below to make sure you submit the right type of evidence for your compensation FDC claim.  If you have questions about what is relevant, call VA at 1-800-827-1000 or contact your VSO:

FDC CHECKLIST

Identify Federal Records, if any (not all of these may apply to your claim)

• If you received VA medical care, tell us where and when
• Tell us if you receive Social Security benefits for a service-related disability
• Tell us where your Military Treatment or Personnel Records are, if you know, or where your last duty station was
• Identify any other relevant records in the custody of a federal agency, like federal worker’s compensation (OWCP) or the Public Health Service

If you have a copy of your Military Treatment or Personnel records, or records from other federal agencies, save time by submitting them with your claim by uploading them to eBenefits.  If not, VA will go get them, but this will slow down the claim.

Gather Records (not all of these may apply to your claim)

• If your private doctor is treating you for a service-related disability, get a copy of those records
• If you don’t believe the incident is recorded in you military records,  get statements from you, your friends or family explaining in detail why you should be service connected
• If you are or were a National Guard / Reserve member: include all service medical and personnel records in the custody of your unit (Collecting and submitting these will expedite your decision because they are difficult for VA to collect). VERY IMPORTANT!

Upload the documents you gathered to eBenefits

• Scan the documents
• Under the Upload Documents tab, select Manage Files
• Upload your documents

Verify you have No More Evidence

• If you have additional evidence to collect and submit, SAVE your record now. You have one year to collect and upload additional evidence.  During this time, a VSO can log-on, view your application online and provide guidance on filing an FDC before you submit the claim.  When you have finished uploading your evidence you are ready to

Click Submit

6) MORE ABOUT COLLECTING AND SUBMITTING EVIDENCE

To get the fastest, most accurate claims decision, collect and submit the following evidence along with your online application: 

Private health care:  It’s important to collect and send all of your relevant private medical records.  This reduces the time it takes VA to request and wait for these documents from your private physician.

Statements from friends and family:  These optional statements may be useful to describe when onset of your disability, details about the injury or event that caused your disability (if they were there and saw it), and the disability’s impact on you.  These types of statements are especially helpful if the disability or event or injury that caused the disability is not recorded in your military records.

Personal statements:  You are your own best advocate. While VA and VSOs stand by ready to assist, both need to hear from you why you think you should be service-connected, especially if the incident or condition is not recorded in your military records.

Once you have collected all your supporting evidence, log back into eBenefits and upload all your documents. There is no limit to number of documents you can upload, but each file must be 5 megabytes or smaller (about 150 black and white pages at 300 resolution).  Once you verify that you have no more evidence, VA can start processing your claim right away. If you do submit more evidence after you submit the claim, VA will remove your claim from the FDC program and process it through our regular channels. For more tips on submitting your claim, click here.

The FDC program is the fastest way to get an accurate decision on your VA claim.  By ensuring you submit all your evidence with your claim, you allow us to get you an accurate decision as quickly as possible.

Cat Trombley is a public affairs specialist with the Veterans Benefits Administration. Prior to working for VA, she was an assistant director at a Veteran Service Organization and represented Veterans before the Board of Veterans’ Appeals. She is also an Air Force Veteran.

Twitter provided me with my first inkling that something had gone very wrong at the Boston Marathon. I saw a tweet reporting explosions at the finish line. I was on a call, but all of my phones started ringing almost at the same time. My son, the son of a career military officer, always assumes that I am in the middle of whatever is going on and wanted to know if I was okay and was frantically trying to reach me. Like the rest of us across the nation and especially those of us in the Boston area, this tragedy overwhelmed our sense of security and elicited such powerful emotions as it began and then came to a tense and bloody conclusion over several days.

VA deployed five mobile Vet Centers from across the region to assist Boston area Veterans as well as first responders to the tragedy, providing on the ground counseling and referrals to essentially anyone who needed it. I was deployed with the Vet Centers located at the Boston Marathon Memorial site in Copley Square, not far from the site of the bombings. Hundreds of people from all over the world came to the site to pay their respects.

My mission was to get media coverage for our efforts to let the public know that we are a critical part of our nation’s well being. While I was out walking the line of satellite trucks parked at the site trying to get some coverage, I also was talking to the police and any others who I thought could benefit from our services. The Vet Center counselors were talking to all those who walked up and I was out in the crowd sending people over.

Vet Centers have long been a Veteran’s lifeline and can be a critical entry point into the VA Healthcare System. In fact, the Vet Center program was established by Congress in 1979 out of the recognition that a significant number of Vietnam-era Vets were still experiencing readjustment issues. Vet Centers are community based and part of VA.

A Mobile Vet Center near the site of the Boston Marathon bombing. VA staff began seeing affected Veterans onsite following the attack.

In April 1991, in response to the Persian Gulf War, Congress extended the eligibility to veterans who served during other periods of armed hostilities after the Vietnam era—Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, and Kosovo/Bosnia. In October 1996, Congress extended the eligibility to include World War II and Korean combat Veterans. The goal of the Vet Center program is to provide a broad range of counseling, outreach, and referral services to eligible Veterans in order to help them make a satisfying post-war readjustment to civilian life.

One of the Boston Police officers I was chatting with told me that all of the police had received many opportunities for counseling and that I should look for the people who helped out who are not traditional first responders. I wasn’t quite sure how to do that until I struck up a conversation with one of the pedicab drivers who typically carry tourists around the city for a fare. He told me that some of his coworker buddies were having a hard time.

A makeshift memorial near the site of the Boston Marathon bombing.

They were right in the area of both explosions and were driving the perfect vehicle to bring doctors through the panicked crowds to those who were injured and sometimes to bring the injured to the medical tent or other assistance. When I told him that they were indeed first responders and that they should come over and talk to our counselors, he just started weeping. Quite accidentally, I had been the first one to validate what he had done was indeed to act as a first responder.

Although I couldn’t get him to come over to the Vet Center, I was able to connect him, with the help of my Boston Police buddy, to the counselors Boston’s Mayor Menino had walking through the crowd.

I love my job as a communications officer, but I couldn’t help but feel that what I did that day was the most important work I had done in a long time

Maureen Heard, a Veteran of the U.S. Air Force and Coast Guard, is the chief communications officer at VA’s New England Healthcare System.

VA enjoys a proud and storied history of employing the Veterans its mission it is to serve.  As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq come to a close we can anticipate the next generation of Veterans entering the federal workforce just as their predecessors.

How can we prepare our agency to welcome them into our fold?  What are some best practices managers can use to attract and retain these individuals? The answers start with understanding some of the characteristics of today’s Veterans.

Today’s Veterans are most likely a member of Generation Next (also referred to as Millennial) and a product of their experiences fighting in Iraq and/or Afghanistan.

The Veteran’s experience on the battlefield is unique to the American war.  Veterans are coming home after fighting a non-linear war in a fluid environment. They achieved their best results working as a team when they were given the proper amount of guidance and mentoring.

The battlefield decision-making process has been flipped on its head thanks to the inclusion of new technologies that have flattened the globe, combined with the emphasis on counterinsurgency operations.

No longer is the platoon or theater commander the most important instrument in completing wartime objectives. It was the strategic corporal who had the most responsibility and burden in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Serving as squad leader he or she was conducting operations in an area that combined hostile, neutral, and friendly forces in one city block. This situation placed a great amount of responsibility in the lowest ranking enlisted personnel than had any other conflict.

It’s from this battle-tested arena that veterans emerged as decision-makers with awesome responsibilities who can bring that rich experience into VA.

Veterans respond positively to a decision making process that gives them a sense of efficacy and responsibility within a chain of command.”  They will reject a work environment that is not open to their ideas and does not provide them with the responsibility commensurate with their experience.  Managers must provide incoming Veterans a substantive role in the decision-making process.

This new generation understands that being part of team is conducive to achieving better results. This lesson was learned and reinforced during military service.  As Veterans leave the military they will look for organizations that provide the same opportunity.  This is already having an effect on government agencies hiring from Generation Next and the managers who work with them.

In its efforts to incorporate aggressive intelligence reforms the Central Intelligence Agency has relied on incoming Veterans to carry out its desire for a new workforce that collaborates and shares information across multiple spectrums. This prevents stove piping information—something many of us are familiar with.

Managers who hire Veterans from Generation Next will reap maximum rewards if they place their new employee in a team environment where they can learn from their peers, contribute equally, and have their opinions and experiences valued.  Strive to learn their interests and goals and align them with your mission.

With more federal employees retiring everyday the importance of incorporating these recommendations will be vital for VA to continue its proud tradition of hiring well-qualified Veterans.

Managers must give these Veterans a larger role in the decision-making process as well as provide them a cohort of peers and mentors in which they can grow and become the next successful generation of veterans in VA.

Barrett Bogue is a 2006 Presidential Management Fellow, a Team Leader at the Veterans Benefits Administration, and a combat veteran of the Iraq War.

Stable housing leads to long-term stability, which factors into reliability and other characteristics of successful employees. Are you aware that loans guaranteed by the VA Home Loan Program have had the lowest foreclosure rate in the past 19 quarters compared to all other types of home loans? This is pretty significant given the trials and tribulations of the housing market during the past several years.

Many do not know that VA’s Home Loan Program Benefit is not a one-time benefit, but can be reused. Since 1944, more than 20 million Veterans and Service Members have enjoyed the benefit of a home purchase through the VA Home Loan program. Veterans who have already used their VA benefit in their home purchase may reuse that benefit to purchase another residence, or to refinance to a lower rate. This is referred to as an Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan (IRRRL) or Streamline Refinance Loan. No appraisal or credit underwriting is required.

Consider this: If a Veteran used their benefit, perhaps while on active duty, to purchase a home, they should compare their interest rate with current rates in their area. That Veteran can reuse their VA benefit to refinance their home with “no money out of pocket,” as costs may be included in the loan. If that Veteran has since separated or retired from the military and receives disability compensation of at least 10%, he or she is exempt from the funding fee. This can be a considerable monthly or total savings for the Veteran. On average, Veterans saved more than $200 per monthly payment on IRRRLs last year, saving those Veterans over $900 million in their first two years alone!

Veterans may obtain a Certificate of Eligibility online through eBenefits or through their lender. I encourage Veterans to seek the advice of a financial professional and to contact several lenders for quotes to determine what is in their best interest. If you have any questions, you can contact your closest VA regional office with Loan Guaranty staff by calling 877.827.3702, or visiting this website.

Curtis Coy is VA’s Deputy Undersecretary for Economic Opportunity and a U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force Veteran.