BDD Claims Guide
Benefits Delivery at Discharge, From Window to Wallet
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About this book
The Benefits Delivery at Discharge program lets you file your VA disability claim while you are still in uniform. The window opens 180 days before your separation date and closes 90 days before it. File inside it and your VA exams happen before you leave, so VA can work toward a decision soon after you separate. Many service members hear about BDD too late to use it.
This guide walks you through that window in plain language: the exact math of the dates, which of the three pre-discharge pathways is yours, how to fill out the Separation Health Assessment, how to build your conditions list from your own service treatment records, and what to do when the decision letter arrives.
Inside this book
- 1The Window That Changes Everything
- 2Do You Qualify? The Complete BDD Eligibility Map
- 3The Separation Health Assessment: The Document That Opens the Gate
- 4Build Your Claim List Before You File: The Strategic Conditions Inventory
- 5Service Treatment Records: Finding, Requesting, and Using Your Own Evidence
- 6Filing Your BDD Claim Step by Step
- 7The Pre-Separation Compensation and Pension Exam
- 8IDES: When the Military Refers You First
- 9Monitoring and Protecting Your Claim Between Filing and Decision
- 10Your Decision After Discharge: What to Do in the First 30 Days
- 11When It Goes Sideways
Free with the book: the field guide Filing a Pre-Discharge BDD Claim, a short step-by-step companion, free to download with no signup.
Pairs with
Free guides and worksheets need no signup and no book. Books and workbooks are coming soon.
Workbook · Coming soonThe Master VA Claim Workbook
Free guideFiling a Pre-Discharge (BDD) Claim
Free worksheetBuddy Statement Pack
Free worksheetFlare Log
Free worksheetThe Frozen Record
Free worksheetTwo Week Record
Free worksheetVA Math Worksheet
Free worksheetWhere You Were
J. Erickson
Author, educator, former veteran service officer.
J. Erickson is a service-disabled Air Force veteran. He served as a military firefighter and as a veteran service officer, where he spent years walking veterans through the same claims process he writes about now. He holds an MBA and writes plain-language guides for veterans who want to understand the system without a translator.
Read more about the author