Techniques to mitigate the effects of link imbalance for the uplink between a terminal (or UE) and multiple base stations (or Node Bs). In one aspect, the serving base station (i.e., the one designated to transmit packet data to the terminal) monitors the uplink received SNR for each terminal designated to receive packet data transmission. The serving base station then determines, based on the uplink received SNR and an SNR threshold, whether or not link imbalance potentially exists for each such terminal. In another aspect, if it is determined that link imbalance potentially exists, then a 3-way handshake is performed to check the reliability of a feedback mechanism used for packet data transmission. Appropriate responsive actions may then be performed based on the result of the check.