Did the VA start paying you from the day you filed—or the day they finally made a decision?
If it’s the decision date, you could be missing out on significant VA back pay. And this isn’t a rare mistake.
The VA’s own Inspector General found that one in five claims have incorrect effective dates, costing veterans thousands of dollars they’ve earned but never received.
Last year alone, Tucker Disability Law recovered $14 million in VA back pay for veterans—money that was sitting on the table because of wrong dates, overlooked evidence, and paperwork errors. That gap between when you filed and when the VA got around to deciding? It shouldn’t move your effective date forward. But for tens of thousands of veterans, it has.
One Veteran’s Fight for $200,000 in VA Back Pay
Ira Gold served in the Army from 1974 to 1977. After sustaining serious injuries during a training exercise, he lived with the pain for decades before filing a VA claim in 2012. What followed was years of denials, appeals, and bureaucratic roadblocks—made worse by the fact that the VA had lost all of his service and medical records.
When Ira came to Tucker Disability Law, attorney Dan Clarke took on his case and refused to let go. The VA eventually acknowledged they had made “irrefutable and irrevocable mistakes” and granted Ira TDIU—but assigned an effective date of 2016 instead of his original 2012 filing. Dan kept pushing until the VA corrected the date.
The result? Ira received $200,000 in VA back pay.
You can read Ira’s full story HERE.
Your Effective Date Determines Your VA Back Pay
Every VA disability award comes with something called an effective date. This is the official start date for your benefits—the point from which the VA calculates what they owe you.
Here’s how it’s supposed to work: In most cases, your effective date should be either the date you filed your claim or the date your disability began, whichever came later. It should not be the date the VA got around to making their decision.
Why does this matter? Because VA claims take time. According to the Veterans Benefits Administration, the average processing time for disability claims hovers around 85 days—and many take far longer. Ira waited years.
Let’s put real numbers to this. Say you filed a claim in March 2023, but the VA didn’t issue a decision until December 2024. That’s 21 months of waiting. At the current 2026 rate for a single veteran with a 70% disability rating ($1,808.45 per month), that gap represents nearly $38,000 in potential back pay.
That’s not a rounding error. That’s real money that belongs to you.
Why Effective Date Errors Happen
The VA processes millions of claims every year. With that volume, mistakes are inevitable. Some of the most common errors that cost veterans their rightful VA back pay include:
Using the decision date instead of the filing date. This is the most straightforward error, and it’s more common than you’d think.
Missing an earlier Intent to File. If you submitted an Intent to File (VA Form 21-0966) before your formal claim, that should lock in your effective date—even if your full application came months later. But sometimes the VA overlooks this paperwork.
Overlooking service treatment records. If your military medical records show your condition began during service, your effective date could go back further than your claim date.
Failing to connect related claims. If you previously filed a claim that was denied, and new evidence now supports approval, your effective date may trace back to that original filing—not your most recent one.
Getting increased rating dates wrong. For veterans seeking a higher rating, the effective date can sometimes go back up to one year before you filed, if medical evidence shows your condition worsened during that window.
How to Check If You’re Owed VA Back Pay
Fortunately, checking your effective date isn’t complicated. Here’s what to do:
First, pull out your Rating Decision letter. This is the document the VA sent when they approved your claim. Look for the effective date assigned to each disability listed.
Next, compare that date to when you actually filed. You can verify your filing date by logging into VA.gov and checking your claims history, or by reviewing any Intent to File confirmation letters you received.
Now ask yourself: Does the timeline make sense? If you filed your claim in 2022 but your effective date shows 2024, something may be off. The gap between filing and decision shouldn’t move your effective date forward—the VA’s processing time is their issue, not yours.
Pay special attention if you submitted an Intent to File. That form exists specifically to protect your effective date while you gather evidence for your full claim. If the VA assigned an effective date after your Intent to File, that’s a red flag worth investigating.
What You Can Do About a Wrong Effective Date
If you believe the VA got your effective date wrong, you have options. The right path depends on how long ago you received your decision.
If your decision was within the past year, you can request a Higher-Level Review. This asks a more senior VA reviewer to take a fresh look at your case without submitting new evidence. It’s a relatively straightforward process designed to catch exactly these kinds of errors.
If you have new evidence that supports an earlier effective date—like service treatment records you recently obtained, or documentation of an Intent to File the VA missed—you can file a Supplemental Claim.
If more than a year has passed since your decision and you don’t have new evidence, you may need to pursue a Clear and Unmistakable Error (CUE) claim. This is more complex, as you’ll need to demonstrate that the VA made an obvious mistake based on the evidence they had at the time.
The key in all cases is to act. While there’s no hard deadline for challenging effective date errors, the sooner you address the issue, the easier it is to gather documentation and make your case.
We Can Help You Claim Your VA Back Pay
Effective date disputes require a careful, line-by-line review of your complete claims history. You need someone who knows where the VA commonly makes mistakes—and how to prove it.
At Tucker Disability Law, we recovered $14 million in VA back pay for veterans last year. We’ve seen what Ira went through, and we’ve seen it hundreds of times over. If something doesn’t look right on your rating decision, we want to hear from you.
Reach out for a free consultation, and let’s make sure you’re getting every dollar you’ve earned.
Just like we never gave up on Ira. We’ll never give up on you.
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