Ricky

I tend to agree with carlie. The press will most likely be the only way to save yourself from this. I do not know the complete story of what is going on but if you post is the nutshell of it then it appears that they have over-stepped the boundary. It just goes to show that when one is bucking the system one has to be very articulate with the spoken word. They can twist anything into a threat for they have the American people thinking that we are a bunch of drunk, dope smoking crazy terrorists. I think that contacting a worthless congress person or senate person will only serve to have someone hold your head above the water line so they can still pop you with their stingers!!! Just be careful how you tread the water my friend and as Larry said keep the ole head down.

Although I have passed along to a few via IM why I have not been around much I would like to let all know so you don't think hey he another one of those got mine now see you later guys!! A few months back my mom was diagnosed with Small Cell Lung Cancer. Although it is uncurable they offered her chemo along with a trial drug. Since I am the only one she could stand to birth (hahahahha) my wife and I have had our hands full with a very stringent regime of chemo. Well today we were informed that her cancer has stopped responding to all three chemo drugs and the trial drug. It is now very wide spread so all drug treatment was stopped. The doc gave us anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to enjoy her here on earth. He did offer that there was one more drug that she could try but the side effects would be so devastating that the extra 3-4 weeks it may give her would not be worth it. We have one week to make our decision - which at this point I will recommend to her that we forego any further treatment. Her poor body has been tormented so much by the previous drugs that I do not believe she can stand it and if she can have somewhat of a normal life for the next 2-3 weeks then I think it would be selfish of me to attempt to keep her here with me just a few short weeks all the while completely putting her mind and body through pure hell. I will check in from time to time just to try and stay sane - for you guys and gals have been a life saver for me ever since I became a member of this wonderful community in 2005. God Bless each and everyone of you.

Thats why I said the quickest way to beat it was an IMO. If not then you will just have to sit all tied up in cobb webs waiting on the BVA to direct a new exam.

Do you think they would pay for an old fart like me with the use of one hand and one foot to take flight training online? hahahahahahaha

The only problem with inadequate exams is the rater is the only one to determine if your exam was inadequate or not. If the ole doc answers the question/concern, relayed to him/her by the rater, on your claim then you will probably beat your head against the wall for quite some time trying to get a denial reversed on the claim of an inadequate exam. The quickest way to defeat an enadequate exam is with an IMO or other claim specific refuting medical evidence.

If the VA has your process well documented and the IRIS response team can determine the answer to your question then no it has no effect. However, if information on your claim contained in the computer is lacking (probably 75 percent of the time!) the response team will forward your question to the assigned RO. At the RO the lead will be set to the Administrative Supervisor for the contact team who will have to pull your claim or if the rater actually has your file signed out they will sometimes first ask the rater to provide a quick response (don't hold you breath on this one). If your file is pulled by the contact team then yes it could affect the processing of your claim. Say the rater has 20 files pulled to work on and yours is number 2. If the file is pulled and while pulled the rater finishes number 1 then he/she has no choice other than to grab the number 3 file and start to work. They surely are not going to sit there and wait for the contact team to finsish and return the file to them before they work on any other claims. So it could be put at the bottom of the stack of the 20 files so it delays it just a bit. But heaven help you if the file goes to some whacked support person in the contact team who answers your question and returns the file to the file room instead of assigning it back to and giving it to the rater (this is the common practice in most RO's) If it is in the file room and not assigned to the rater he/she might just forget about it and go on to the next 20 claims assigned to him/her. The error might not get caught until 6 months later!!!!! Just something to think about. Keep in mind that anytime you ask the VA to do something with your file you are rolling the dice!!!! hahahhahaha. But if you really need to know something about your claim then you gotta know - so roll the dice. Probably only about a 2-5 percent chance that a screw up will occurr, but when it does it is normally a big one cause we all know that the VA loves to be complete in their screw ups hahahahha.

An extra-schedular rating is a rating percentage that is awarded to a vet that is above and beyond the maxium level listed for a particular disability. As an example - if a vet suffers from and is service connected for a (example) lung disease - if the max rating percentage for that disease listed in 38 CFR is 40 percent however, the rating authority for some reason truly believes this disease has caused the vet to really be 70 percent disabled then he or she can recommend that the vet receive the 70 percnet level even though the rating schedule only lists and allows a 40 percent max. Hence the term extra-schedular - a rating for a disability that is above and beyoned the maxium percentage level allowed by 38 CFR. If the max rating percentage for a disability is 70 percent and the vet's medical evidence truly shows a disability of 50 percent, however, the rater rates him or her at 60 percent that is not extra-schedular. It is simply a judgement call on the raters part that the vet, in the raters opinion/eyes, meets the requirement for the higher rating level. Both of the situations above are very rare. In the first case my guess would be that it may happen in about 0.5 percent of rating decisions and maybe 0.001 percent of those request are approved. In the second situation when was the last time you applied for a 30 percent rating for PTSD and the rater came back and said, "nope I disagree with you - I think you are 50 percent disabled from your PTSD - maybe in 0.001 percent of the ratings? So when you see, hear or think of extra-schedular which, is approved only by Washington, think - a rating percentage that EXCEEDS the max/highest rating percentage for a certain disability category. If the max allowable is 0-60, and you and your evidence think you meet the 30 percent level until you get your rating back and you were awarded 50 percent - sit back and thank your maker and lucky stars cause all you got was lucky not extra-schedular. I hope I wrote this in an understandable way. Heck sometimes I even confuse myself.

Joey your claim should be fine. As to the waiting game and application of the rules you hit the nail on the head - subjective. However even in our justice system the same thing happens with decisions. You have a circuit court that issues a decision based on the judges interpetation of the law. You do not agree with his interpetation so you have the opportunity to take your case to the court of appeals. The appeals court judge agrees with the district court judge and continues your denial. You then have the opportunity to send it to the state supreme court. The state supreme court looks at it and says those other two guys were off in their interpetation of the law so he changes the decision and grants whatever you were claiming in your case. Now the legal system was using the Constitution to decide your case and it took them several years to settle it. The judge's actions were based on their subjective reading of the law. The VA system, although an administrative system, follows the model of the legal system however, they do it with simple minded, poorly trained normal people off the street who interpet and apply the law, rules and regulations that govern the VA - so you see even the legal system can get it wrong at a couple of levels and that is doing it with highly trained, very experienced legal experts interpeting the laws that govern us. I understand your flustered feelings. Sometimes they go away and you stop thinking about your claim and other times your claim and the process controls your every feeling and action. We all have been there and some are still there fighting the system. It will all work out in the end my friend. Just try and remove it from your mind so you can have some peace and quite and enjoy your life - I know this is easier said than done but you can do it.

It would be nice if they would produce updates to the basic manual and offer them for lets say 45 or 50 bucks per yearly update. They could do this on a three year cycle producing the full manual only every three years. This way they could offer the basic manual if you do not have one and then allow you to purchase the updates if you want them. Kinda like the publishers of other living books such as encyclopedias. Oh well, I guess you gotta make money some way. I still love the book and purchase the new edition every year. As a matter of fact for some reason lexus-nexus automatically sends me a copy every year and I just send them a check for the bill.

Some states have benefits for dependents. ie..... at a 70 percent level you may qualify for these benefits. Most of the qualifications require that you must have been a resident of that state prior to entering active duty. Just check out your local (state) veterans web site for more information.

There you go. Five copies just for you post_60_1258041511_thumb.pdf post_60_1258041511_thumb.pdf post_60_1258041511_thumb.pdf post_60_1258041511_thumb.pdf post_60_1258041511_thumb.pdf

First please define "review". Do you mean you asked for an increased rating for PTSD? or was this just something VA did as part of their normal review process? If you asked for an increased rating based upon medical evidence in your possession showing the increase in the disability then the effective date should be the date of the claim (the date of your request for an increased rating). If it was part of the normal review process that we all go through and you had no new evidence then the effective date will be the date of the C&P exam.

In cg's example the answer would be yes as it would have been "within the spirit of the law" in effective for 10 years. Betty the same in your case - 1997-2007 equals protected. However, please remember this is speaking solely about "service connection" not the rating percentage. ie - say in 1997 you became service connected for PTSD at 50 percent. Then in 2005 you became 100 percent P&T. In 2007 your "service connection" would be protected. In other words they could never say you are not disabled from PTSD. However, the level of the award is another story. Say in 1997 you were awarded 80 percent for PTSD. Then in 2009 they called you in for a C&P after which they sent you a rating letter reducing you to 50 percent. That would be legal as they only decreased your level of rating and did not take away your service connection. A rating percentage must be in effect for 20 years in order to be stable. So in 1997 they gave you 100 percent P&T for PTSD - after 2017 they could not "reduce" the rating. Staged ratings are the same in that - PTSD awarded 1997 50 percent-------2002 PTSD increased to 80 percent then in 2005 PTSD awarded 100 percent P&T. This equals ----- in 2017 50 percent is protected from reduction---------2022 80 percent is protected-------2025 the 100 percent P&T is protected. Hope I did not confuse anyone!

Bq you will get your full retirement plus 100 percent from the VA. If you are claiming the headaches secondary to the stroke they will not rate them until the six months has passed.

This is specifically for CRSC. Your disability must be the result of one of the three things they list on the CRSC site for your service component. A direct result of war, an instrumentality of war etc.......

David welcome. You have already admitted/stated that the non-service connected injury is the true reason that you cannot work. Therefore, you will have an uphill battle with your claim. Once you get your PTSD rating you can make the application however, when the evidence begins to accumulate on your work history the VA will see that the back injury caused you to stop working. It is true the SSDI award helps vets with their TDIU claims but that is when most or all of the reasons for the SSDI are service connected disabilities and the evidence along with the work history supports the TDIU claim. In your case you stopped working because of the injuries from the accident per your own statement. When the VA begins to collect evidence from the employers then this will come to light and they will use it to deny your claim. You are going to have to have a doc with excellent writing skills in order to have any chance of approval of your claim (based upon your statement and not know at this time the relevance or outcome of the PTSD claim). I know you do not want to hear negative things such as this but these are the issues you will have to work through with the VA. It is true that SSDI claims can be very helpful to vets seeking TDIU from the VA. However, most or all of the time the SSDI claim is based upon all service connected disabilities. The way the VA works is that even if you stopped working because of PTSD that was service connected and then were awarded SSDI based upon the PTSD and a severe back injury which was not service connected, the VA would run you through the wringers by taking a microscopic look at the back injuries to determine their effect upon your ability to not work. They would then match this to the effect of the PTSD and make a call. In the end you would probably win but it would be a drawn out process because of the severe non-service connected disability involved. jmho

If they are treating TDIU claims as extraschedular claims then yes they are not rating them correctly. For as indicated extraschedular only comes in in very unusal circumstances. Extraschedular would apply in a situation for example if a vet had three disabilties lets say a 40, 10 and 10. If the disability that gained the 40 percent rating was truly the reason the vet could not work, however, the 40 percent rating was the max allowed by the rating schedule then the extraschedular requirements would apply and the claim should be sent to D.C. However, if the 40 percent disability had a max rating of 70 percent extraschedular does not apply. It would be a call by the local rater, based upon the evidence, to raise it to the level that would allow the TDIU claim to be approved. I know you more than likely knew this already, I just ranted on it so those reading this post who did not know the difference could see the commonsense explaination. jmho any way.

Usually a decision comes in about 3-6 months. Just remember this is not a trial. Be professional but be relaxed. If you are presenting your own arguments then just stick to the facts. If you have new evidence that attacks their prior decison then stay in that lane. Don't try to quote the regs over and over just present your new evidence and explain in your own words why this evidence truimps any decision/arugument they used to deny the claim and by doing so why it demands a favorable decision. I said above don't quote the regs to them, if the issue involves an interpertation of a reg (their interpertation provided the denial) then that is when quoting the regs and providing your arguments in support of your interpertation becomes critical. However, I think in your case it should be an argument centered around the evidence. Just my opinion... Good luck my friend.

7005 Arteriosclerotic heart disease (Coronary artery disease) will a rating for this due to service connected DMII and Hypertension be rated seperate from the hypertension or will they combine the two into one rating? I have a rating for DMII and HTN. I was recently discovered to have CAD with blockages of 65, 40 and 50. I have to take Imdur to keep away the shortness of breath, dizzyness etc...

Congratulations!

I take four atenolol per day plus two other HBP meds. If you have DM which will more than likely lead to CAD Atenolol is the drug of choice for heart docs. They says it helps to slow the heart therefore, decreasing the need for oxygen in the heart. It also causes panic symptoms such as chocking/lump in the throat, ED, etc........

www.va.gov/ogc/docs/2005/PREC52005.doc This may give you some idea on how they look at it. Also remember - when they speak of the proverty level it is the proverty level for one person. For 2009 that it 10,830.00. 900 bucks a month puts you at 10,800.00 So they take this, your education level, and past/present work history into consideration when they make this decision. If you are a four year college grad who could do a sit down job and still make 10,800 they probably would deny the claim. If you were a 9th grade drop out who relied on manual labor to make that amount they probably would grant the claim. Just my 2 cents worth.

No sir, not pathetic - simply realistic for a veteran. The alcohol will simply allow you to be someone that you are not so drinking and committing such an act will not accomplish anything as it will not really be you committing the act! If it is the claims process that has you wrapped up just think of it as a game. A game of combat where you are sitting quitely waiting for the enemy to make a mistake and then you make your move - the kill will be the granting of your claim. It will take time so you will have to be patient----------HOWEVER, remember, it is hard to win a battle alone so you will have to have help and that help is only a skip and a hop away at the ER. There you will find the help and relief you need to make it through this battle my friend. I am sorry you are suffering this way and it breaks my heart to read your words and not be able to reach out and touch you. We vets are a special group one that loves each other and feels the pain that our vet family during such times. Hang on and give in and seek the relief your truly want and deserve. Go ahead and go to the ER and in a couple of weeks we will be posting on how to kick butt with your claim.

BVA decisions are excellent reference material - for you not the VA. By studing BVA decision one gains a somewhat inside view of why the VA denies or grants a benefit. If the appeals you study are closely related to your claim they can and will assist you in formulating your arguments for the grant of your claim. I would not reference them or attach pages upon pages of previous decisions in hopes that the rater will read them and use the same rationale to grant your claim. He/she does not have the time to do so.

I am just glad it finally worked out for a deserving veteran.