The most expensive decision I see veterans make is not a wrong claim, it is no claim. Fear of denial keeps people frozen for years, and every one of those years is money that never comes back.

Effective dates do not wait

VA compensation runs from your effective date, and for most claims that date is tied to when you filed, not when you got sick. A condition you have had for a decade only starts paying from the day you put the VA on notice. Wait another year and you have simply thrown that year away.

Denials are not permanent, silence is

A denial can be appealed, supplemented, and overturned. A claim never filed cannot. The downside of filing is a "no" you can fight. The downside of waiting is a benefit you can never recover.

File the Intent to File. Start the clock. You can always build the evidence, but you cannot buy back lost time.

Every VA disability claim is adjudicated under the procedures in M21-1, the VA's internal Adjudication Procedures Manual, and the regulatory standards in 38 CFR Parts 3 and 4. Raters are bound by these rules, and when they deviate, veterans have grounds to challenge the decision. Under Gilbert v. Derwinski, the benefit-of-the-doubt standard at §3.102 requires the VA to resolve every evidentiary tie in the veteran's favor. Under Esteban v. Brown, separate disabilities producing separate functional losses must be rated independently, even when they arise from the same injury, the VA cannot collapse distinct impairments into one rating.