Is it always beneficial to proceed with medboard?

[ynynym]

Long story short, I have had 3 surgeries for my shoulder in the last 2.5 years. In a couple of weeks I will see my surgeon, and I will likely have to decide if I will do a medboard or not during that post operative appointment because I have been on 2 LIMDUs. My Medboard situation is also interesting because the recovery from my surgery will take about half a year, but I have used both LIMDU periods. To be honest, I don't really care for a 3rd LIMDU with how my enlistment went.

Since my EAS is less than a year, a nurse has told me it may be better for me to not do the medboard and just process out normally/ try to do SkillBridge, which she said will not be available to me if I go on a Medboard - I'm not too sure if this is true. My unit has had a recent trend of denying people's SkillBridge, which draws me to go for the Medboard. The biggest negative is that I still have 3 months of leave left, which I wanted to use to move, settle in and start college because my TA also gets denied for insufficient job competence compared to peers (go figure). I am aware of other threads like this, but I'd like to hear fresh opinions/experiences.

 

[ynynym]

I guess I could have also posted this on the MEB subforum, my bad.

 

[S3Mi]

If you are med-boarding it is extremely unlikely your CoC will also give you a chance to do SkillBridge. It is what it is.

You should take the med-board, in my opinion, because you will have someone dedicated to walking you through claims, everything will be service connected most likely, and you will have your ratings prior to leaving. So, in theory, no gap in pay. You would get out, get your last military paycheck and then the following month get your VA disability check.

Med-board processes vary quite a bit, but if everything goes smooth it can be done in 4 months. I am 2.5 months in, and my stuff is already with a VA rater. Within 4-6 more weeks, I should have ratings.

 

[FatherTime39]

Pros
- VA stuff is done while you go through for both referred and non-referred conditions.
- You could potentially get a severance or medical retirement if your disability percentage is high enough (look up what each of those will do for you.
- You can do skill bridge once your VA exams are complete and you sign your stuff prior to PEB. You'd have to check for service specific but it was that for me (navy). Skill bridge is still at the approval of your command though. As far as Navy goes, I know several folks, including some that worked for me who have conducted skillbridge while waiting on PEB results. Its possible but i think will ultimately rest on your command.

Cons
- Timelines are not regularly met.
- Communication with the Medboard folks is hit or miss.
- No control over the process and insufficient updates will leave you anxious.
- Once PEB is complete and you sign your findings, your EAS will change and things will move rapidly, you will not be able to take all of your saved days as terminal and will be bound to message traffic or your updated EAS which on average is 30-60 days from the time the update happens.

If others want to add to this list or correct anything i posted feel free.

At the end of the day, what is better for you. You need to weigh the difference of separating normally vs going through a medboard and potentially earning a severance or being medically retired (each having perks better than just normally separating). Additionally, you don't decide on whether you do a medboard. Your PCM is the one that makes that call. You can ask about it but you can't make the decision. My opinion is that if you go through the surgery, they will not immediately start a medboard, they will wait to see how you heal before making that determination. Take a look at the 38CFR schedule of ratings for the VA and see what kind of ratings they give you for your condition. Use that to calculate disability or severance and you should know a good ball park.