In the first 60 or 90 days of the process is when they don't want you to leave the area.
When I was going through the IDES process, I was attached to an Army CB-WTU.
I was able to freely get 7 days at a time without question. I just needed to:
1. Do the DA Form correctly
2. Stay within 200 mile radius from my HOR (this is NOT a requirement/this can be waived, but I discovered my Platoon Sergeant "eagle-eyed" the long leaves/long distance leaves - not so much the short ones). But I did take a 14-day, cross-country leave shortly before I got my VA C&P appointments.
3. Not cancel/postpone any med/psych appointments
When it became later in my IDES process (like when the VA sent my ratings back to the Army), long-term/long-distance leave was highly discouraged.
So I would think that if you need to burn up leave, it's better to burn some leave now rather than later. I ended up having to sell back 59.5 days of leave. But it was a nice chunk of change that came in handy during that first couple months post-discharge and before the VA compensation came through.
I never heard from my PLT SGT when I was on leave. But I did get a call or two from my NCM (Nurse Case Manager) on a couple of leave periods. No big thing - she just had to write something down in my ALHTA records (her Patient Care nursing notes).
Oh. About that 200-mile radius thing. When I was in, it was WTU Policy that permission was to be granted before you exceeded the 200-mile radial boundary. It had something to do with liability. I was told (everyone got told) that CoC had to know if you were going to exceed 200-mile radius. Failure to inform, get permission in advance, and if you decided to go beyond the 200-mile & then got sick, had a car wreck, whatever-bad-thing, and you were outside the radius without formal permission, it was a UCMJ issue, AND you could be held liable for ALL the hospital bills from car wreck, sickness, etc., if issues occurred outside this 200-mile radius without prior approval. This prior approval policy included non-leave, 3-day holiday periods, too, even where leave was not required. So I made it a point to let them know anytime I was going to exceed the 200-mile radius because I didn't want UCMJ, nor did I ever want to get stuck with the medical bills if something did happen to me.
So wherever you end up, be sure you know what their current policy is on this, know your mileage limits, and know your time frames needed for advance notice/approval.
And send us a postcard!
V/R,
nwlivewire