FINALLY received my findings!

10% DoD and 100% VA. Officially it was 45 days Post-VA QA and I received my proposed findings.

It's really a best case scenario, since I don't need a military retirement. I only have to pay back $133/month of my $3268 compensation to cover my seps pay. I will be receiving about $73k in seps so it will only take 46 years to pay off lol. I didn't claim any combat injuries even though I probably could have. My family and I get VA medical care, and I can purchase the cheapest employee plan to supplement it if I need to.

It's been a long, miserable process. All the paperwork and everything went incredibly smooth, but the wait was just stupid. My surgeon, PEBLO, and VA rep were all super informative and helpful. I had to have the only good PEBLO in the DoD as it sounds like lol.

I will have about 25 days of leave on top of 20 days PTAD. I am not sure if I am going to bother with the leave, I might just sell it and take the PTAD only. I'm in 29 Palms, so the BAH is only $1100ish and BAS like $368 or somewhere around there. I would be giving up close to $1300-1400 by selling back those 25 days, but my seps check and VA pay would start that much sooner.

I don't have much debt, and I have 2x 2015 vehicles. My seps pay will pay off both vehicles and eliminate any debt I still have with some left over. I am buying a $30k Kubota tractor so I can clear my 25.5 acres and build a driveway and pole barn so that I can start building my house in 2018. My VA pay will cover the tractor, pole barn, and house so that is accounted for for the next 15-30 years.

I intend to get a job as long as I can handle it. I am awaiting my SSDI determination right now. I applied a while back, but they deferred my case until November. I am getting a lawyer for that because the effective start date should be March 2015, and not November 2015 as they are claiming. I don't even know where they got that date in any of my paperwork or records so hopefully I can sort that out.

Now I'm just waiting for the PEB to forward my findings to HQMC. I was told they forward them every Wednesday so HQMC might get it on the 31st but maybe not until the 7th. Of course I have learned from this forum that the PEB is completely unreliable and random so who knows when HQMC will get it, but you bet I will be calling daily starting on September 1st.

I am going to ask for my EAS to be ASAP after they get it. A week or two max is what I need to move out of housing and expedite TMO here. I am ready to leave the living hell of the Mojave Desert and move back to beautiful green Michigan.
 
Last edited:
Click to expand...
Congrats on finally getting to the end of the tunnel! I appreciate how you came back to tell use how your board is ending. I just got my call today, roughly 6 weeks after the VA was done so I'll be in the same boat. Did you receive any notice if you're Permanent and Total or if you have to check back into the VA every so number of years?
 
Pronovice said:
Congrats on finally getting to the end of the tunnel! I appreciate how you came back to tell use how your board is ending. I just got my call today, roughly 6 weeks after the VA was done so I'll be in the same boat. Did you receive any notice if you're Permanent and Total or if you have to check back into the VA every so number of years?
Click to expand...

Neither the PEBLO or the VA rep mentioned it. I have to meet with a hospital case worker next week, and she will schedule my initial VA clinic visit in Michigan right after my EAS. I assume they will discuss that there. I was rated for depression/adjustment disorder and I know they usually follow up on those.
 
How did you come up with your monthly payment total of over. 3k?
 
OUSooner said:
How did you come up with your monthly payment total of over. 3k?
Click to expand...

100% disabled veteran with spouse and child is $3187.60. Add $80.52 for each additional child under 18. That comes to $3268.12. My boardable unfitting condition was rated 10%, so the VA withholds the "10% disabled rate" until my seps pay is recouped. The 10% rate is $133.17, which should leave me with about $3134.95 monthly compensation checks.

http://www.benefits.va.gov/compensation/resources_comp01.asp
 
Congratulations! Enjoy your future and all that you have earned!
 
Jeffrey11 said:
100% disabled veteran with spouse and child is $3187.60. Add $80.52 for each additional child under 18. That comes to $3268.12. My boardable unfitting condition was rated 10%, so the VA withholds the "10% disabled rate" until my seps pay is recouped. The 10% rate is $133.17, which should leave me with about $3134.95 monthly compensation checks.

http://www.benefits.va.gov/compensation/resources_comp01.asp
Click to expand...
This is awesome info. I am shocked. So if I understand correctly if you are separated with severance the most the VA could collect is 20%? Because if you were above that they would retire you and you wouldn't get it. So am I correct in understand that the VA will only deduct for DOD unfitting conditions? I thought if you were 100% VA that they could take it all.
 
OUSooner said:
This is awesome info. I am shocked. So if I understand correctly if you are separated with severance the most the VA could collect is 20%? Because if you were above that they would retire you and you wouldn't get it. So am I correct in understand that the VA will only deduct for DOD unfitting conditions? I thought if you were 100% VA that they could take it all.
Click to expand...

They will take my entire seps pay $133 at a time, until my $73,000 is repaid lol. Good for them.

I'm not aware of a situation where they would take more than the 20% rate, but I am sure there are. I've learned a lot about this over the last nine months, but I have only focused on and really retained what applied specifically to me.
 
I received my findings on August 25, and called HQMC MMSR-4 on September 31 about my new EAS. Their info is here:

https://www.manpower.usmc.mil/webce...enterWidth=100%25&_adf.ctrl-state=2m99ntjo_35

They told me that when they received my case from the PEB, they would assign me a new EAS based on 20 days of PTAD + my entire leave balance + 30 days of transition time. I told them I wanted to sell all 28 days of my leave and only needed 20 PTAD + 15 transition, so please set my new EAS only 35 days out instead of the 78 days they would by default. The LCpl and Cpl both told me sure no problem, just send an e-mail to SMB.MANPOWER.MMSR4@usmc.mil and to CC my Battalion CO and Battalion SgtMaj. So I got that cleared up the chain and sent the e-mail.

I started checking my MOL daily after that. On September 6, MOL was down all morning for maintenance. It came back up around 1300, so I logged in and checked my BIR and had a new EAS of 30 October 2016. There was no notification or anything, I had to actually click on my BIR to see it.

So MMSR-4 did not listen to me at all in setting my new EAS. However, they did do me a solid. I joined the Marine Corps on 11 April 2005, which means 10 October 2016 would mark exactly 11.5 years of service. By setting my EAS late October, they pushed me over the hump to 12 years for seps pay computation. That is around $6700 more than I would receive so I am happy about that.
 
How is your family receiving healthcare from the VA? I'm currently appealing my 20%/90% findings of the IPEB and it was explained to me that above 50% VA that I will receive healthcare, but my family won't. What am I missing here?

My FPEB is 20 Oct in DC, yippee.
 
Nevermind, I think I figured it out:

CHAMPVA Beneficiary? What You Should Know
The Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA), is a health care benefits program that provides coverage to the spouse or widow(er) and to the dependent children of a qualifying Veteran or Servicemember who:

  • is rated permanently and totally disabled due to a service-connected disability, or
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top