Editing a decision review - department-of-veterans-affairs/caseflow GitHub Wiki

Editing Issues

Even with the myriad of automated checks, it is still possible for users to make mistakes when adding issues for a decision review. Additionally, issues may need to be closed for a variety of reasons (i.e the veteran requested a withdrawal) In these situations, downstream attorneys, VSRs, DROs, or other VA employees can make adjustments to the issues by using the Edit Issues flow.

If the decision review is processed in VBMS. You can access the Edit Issues screen by clicking on the "Edit in Caseflow" button on the Claim Details page of VBMS. If the decision review is an processed in Caseflow, there are links on the decision review page that take you to the Edit Issues page.

On the Edit issues page, the user may add and remove issues additional issues just as they did in the original intake. There are some additional actions can only be performed on the edit page. Those actions are described below. When all changes have been made the user may save the changes. The saved changes are processed in a similar way to the initial intake. The details of the change set are saved in the Caseflow DB, along with who performed them. Then the appropriate external operations will be performed asynchronously as part of a separate job.

Editing the Contention Title

This feature is in development. By default, the contention title for each issue on a decision review that's processed in VBMS is the text of the rating issue being contested. This is often not desirable, as the contention text is used to order exams, and automatically create correspondence. If a caseworker wishes to change the text to suite their needs they may do so by clicking the "Edit Contention Title" button below any issue.

Can only be done on the following types of forms:

  • Higher-Level Review - VA Form 20-0996
  • Supplemental Claim - VA Form 20-0995

Requires the following conditions to be met on the Request Issue:

  • Has one of the following:
    • Contested Decision Issue
      • The ID of the decision issue that this request issue contests. A Request issue will contest either a rating issue or a decision issue
    • Contested Rating Issue
      • If the contested issue is a rating issue, this is the rating issue's reference id. Will be nil if this request issue contests a decision issue.
    • Contested Rating Decision Issue
      • The BGS id for contested rating decisions. These may not have corresponding contested_rating_issue_reference_id values.
  • Does not have an ineligible reason.
    • The reason for a Request Issue being ineligible. If a Request Issue has an ineligible_reason, it is still captured, but it will not get a contention in VBMS or a decision.
  • Is not unidentified
    • User entered description if the request issue is neither a rating or a nonrating issue" t.boolean "untimely_exemption", comment: "If the contested issue's decision date was more than a year before the receipt date, it is considered untimely (unless it is a Supplemental Claim). However, an exemption to the timeliness can be requested. If so, it is indicated here.
  • The related End Product Establishment synced_status is not CLR

Withdrawing Issues

This feature is in development. Issues should be removed if they are found to be erroneous. However, a veteran can also request that their issues be withdrawn. In this case, we want to record that the issues were withdrawn by the veteran, along with the receipt date of the withdrawal request. A user may withdraw issues in the edit issue screen. If all issues on a decision review are withdrawn, then the entire decision review will be considered withdrawn.