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TDIU Claim Related - Doctor suddenly "unavailable", or will not return phone calls.

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commodog

Question

I'll try to keep this short and to the point.

I have two other posts, on here in the TDIU section, wherein I stated my VA doctor had agreed to write a letter for me.
This is what she actually wrote, and is taken directly from my notes within BlueButton in MyHealtheVet:

Quote

(2) Therapy: - education on psychotropic medications provided; and supportive therapy provided - Will write a support letter for his application of Total disability and individual unemployability upon receiving his signed authorization of releasing information
 

The authorization was signed and delivered to her over 4 weeks ago.
Release of Information has been very communicative with me, and has politely informed me that they have never received the letter.

Worse than this, the doctor is now obviously avoiding contact with me.
The last response she sent to me via secure messaging, was over 3 weeks ago, despite me messaging her once the following week, and "Secure Messaging" showing me that she had read the communication (a feature it has), but has not replied.

I am running low on a particular psychotropic, and I have 0 refills remaining in MyHealtheVet, and was hoping we could avoid the whole withdrawal thing, and therefore requested a refill.
She has read several requests I wrote her, informing her that the supply is running low.
She still refuses to correspond with me.

I contacted the clinic coordinator, and the front desk now knows my voice and name distinctly.
The front desk has been exceedingly polite, and when I stated the doctor has not been returning my calls, the receptionist said, and I quote directly, "That does not surprise me at all....".
The clinic coordinator has been polite, and both her and the front desk have reached out to the doctor, telling the doctor to call me, via secure message, instant message, and in person.
The doctor told them she will call me immediately after her shift.
She never called me, but says she left me a voicemail.
I offered to share my call logs, or print them off, as I never received a call from said doctor, despite receiving numerous phonecalls from other individuals that day, mostly for the wife's medical appointments.

This has been occurring since the middle of last week.

Today (3/27/2017), I got a hold of her for about 10 seconds on the phone, but she immediately stated she was with another veteran and could not talk, but would call me after work.
I understand that, and do not want to take precious therapy time from my brothers and sisters.
I have, as of yet, not received a phone call, and am not entirely of the belief that I will.

I think she decided to say "I'm not writing this letter in support of TDIU...", or got it in her head that I am chasing benefits, despite making this request 8 years deep into therapy, and attempting multiple jobs since then.

Is there any recommendation you can make to me?

Do any of you with hospital experience have any clue why she would avoid me so obviously, or not take time to correspond with me?
Any recommended course of action?

I'm getting kind of pissed about this...

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13 hours ago, pwrslm said:

Symptoms sometimes make mountains out of mole hills.

If I could hand out some sort of award for understanding the nature of the beast in your comment, I would.
They deal with it all the time I bet, and we're kind of naive to that perspective.

I have terrible trust and paranoia issues.
This causes said mountains.

I'm only lucky that the doc (who has been my therapist for well over a year) is clearly aware of this phenomenon.

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2 hours ago, Vync said:

Awesome! Most VAMC MH docs are seriously overworked. Glad she was able to contact you!

Yeah, roger that Vync. She literally said to me, "Well, I have to eat lunch and sleep sometime.", and her call was like nearly 7:30pm last night.
She also told me she works for the VA part-time, and has another full-time job on top of her part-time one.

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