SolInvictus

It is unbelievable how indifferent these people whose sole existence is predicated on veterans' well being brazingly and nakedly display their disdain for veterans. You could almost forgive an uninterested third party for assuming vets exist to serve the va and not the inverse. Just shameful.

I see. Is it safe to assume the senator might have more clout if the appeal is with the DRO instate, or is it likely to follow a similar beuraucratic route to a slow and unceremonious death as well?

Did he manage to at least get the real status of your file pulled out of the stack and checked? And how soon after you requested his assistance did you get any useful info? Thanks buddy.

I agree as with the writ as well

Great insight Halos2, that is quite a story you just related. That RO really climbed the walls just to deny. Sounds almost a bit too personal. And you are definitely right as well Deanbrt. Thanks.

I appreciate all of the educated and thoughtful advice and ill have to say John999's final comment sums it up and puts a bow on it quite nicely. It's complicated and varies greatly depending on the vets circumstances, location and proximity to the senator. But I think we can all agree that the closer the vets proximity, either by degrees of relation or professional association, to the political representative the better. In my case he's my 33rd cousin twice removed from another mother. I'm also the king of Siam so I should get my results as soon as yesterday. But a vet can always pray.

Does it help in a DRO appeal to involve your local senator or congressman to get your case closed? And does anyone know the average time that takes to get results. Thanks for any input in advance.

Not to mention the fact that we are only a woefully minuscule percent of the overall American population. Even the politicians have little to fear from such an insignificant electorate.

And I suppose the reason we can't bring this Ponzi scheme to a grinding halt is that they are highly organized with strategically placed advocates in high places while we the victims whose money it really is have a fraction of their organization and even less of their political clout. This also explains why the only ones among us that they permit to reach the 100% bracket and thus have the leisure to sit back, analyze and organize to combat this injustice are they worn and broken in spirit. It's like a dominant colonial power who ensures the preservation of the status quo by divide, conquer and selectively curbing of the male fighting offspring of the victimized nation. What a scheme.

That makes all the sense in the world when you look at it through that lense. So it isn't at all unreasonable for them to pepertually fail in their "strenuous efforts" to fix the flaws in the system. Why work yourself out of a very lucrative job right.

So in effect the house wins regardless right. Heads they win tails we lose. And all a poor vet can do is pray and take solace in the idea that his brothers before him have been dealt a similar hand, and probably will be for ages to come. Thanks Broncovet and PR, for staying in the fight to serve as a lighthouse of knowledge for those in peril in these treacherous seas.

Appreciate your prompt assistance PR and I thought that might be the type of pseudo math the va would prefer. So how would they then calculate a retro if you win a claim after you reach 100% bracket. I mean wouldn't they in essence be compensating you for the individual new claim you won? Or have they invented a new math for that scenario as well? Thanks again PR.

Hello family, I have a general question regarding retro pay. How is it calculated? Do they pay the vet the difference of the combined rating of his total claim, or is each individual claim assessed on its own merits and compensated back to the date it was originally claimed? I'm confused because suppose a vet was at 70% combined. Then files a claim or reopened a claim for PTSD and tbi. This vet had been previously denied service connection for these two. Then he is awarded 100% sc. Now will the retro compensate him for the difference between the combined previous rating of 70% and the new 100% combined rate? Or would he be retro paid for each individual claim, that is to say PTSD and tbi separate and distinct from the total. Now in my math compensating him for each individual claim sounds like a much more favorable outcome that using the total sum formula because the former adds up to significantly more, I'm just not so sure the va pseudo math works the same way. As always, I appreciate and am grateful for all educated and generous input.

Thanks chuck75. I'll follow through on your recommendation.

Hello family, I have a general question regarding retro pay. How is it calculated? Do they pay the vet the difference of the combined rating of his total claim, or is each individual claim assessed on its own merits and compensated back to the date it was originally claimed? I'm confused because suppose a vet was at 70% combined. Then files a claim or reopened a claim for PTSD and tbi. This vet had been previously denied service connection for these two. Then he is awarded 100% sc. Now will the retro compensate him for the difference between the combined previous rating of 70% and the new 100% combined rate? Or would he be retro paid for each individual claim, that is to say PTSD and tbi separate and distinct from the total. Now in my math compensating him for each individual claim sounds like a much more favorable outcome that using the total sum formula because the former adds up to significantly more, I'm just not so sure the va pseudo math works the same way. As always, I appreciate and am grateful for all educated and generous input.

I'm no expert on this issue brother but ill lend my two cents to ease your fears for now and hope some of our resident experts can assist you better. I'm on SSDI as well, I went through the vocrehab schooling program and graduated with flying colors even though my disabilities precluded me from gainful employment. Now maybe the sequence of events in my case differs from yours and I'm not sure how big a difference that makes, but it was never in conflict and I don't think yours should be either because the program is designed to "prep you for the workforce" as I understand it. It doesn't guarantee you can work once you've completed it. Therefore there is no earned income for them to claw back. What they paid you was simply a stipend to live on and tuition while you were in school. These are technically integral components of the va training program regardless of the fact that your school was outside the va. In my opinion, even if they could take it back from you, there should be a pretty high bar for them to meet in proving that you somehow abused the system. I don't think they can penalize you for trying to improve yourself because that is the point of the program. But I'm no expert, just thinking out loud. Hang in there brother.

The tireless work you folks do on this website for vets reminds me of that old Johnny cash classic, man in black. I feel like with your work you're stating to the va that even though you know there are things that never will be right for all vets where the va is concerned. You will keep complaining and agitating, that is keep wearing black, until things are brighter. Most of the elders on here have already reached the 100% summit of their climb. But remain in the struggle for the sake of those long forgotten and less fortunate among us. Till things are brighter for all of us, hadit remains steadfastly out front, as the men and women in black. I salute you.

Halos2 I appreciate your inspired advice and intend to follow through on it. I did try again at the ROI and they released all my records unintentionally, I assume this because the tbi examiner expressly states in them several times that they are not to release it. But you're right and I consider my case on track and fortunate when I consider the wrongs done to other vets in the obscene amount of time it's taken to award them benefits they had earned in their youth. It is a sad commentary on the state of our VA when all the veteran can do about such an injustice is pray.

I don't intend to buddy, the good thing is they have yet to rate my claim so I might just be overreacting from them mistakenly releasing the exam results to me before completing the process. I'm thankful for this slip up however because I now have all the evidence I need to take apart their case in my follow up Appeal if they use this examiners eval as the basis of denying or low balling my claim. They have no idea I have access to this so all ill have to do is punch holes in that examiners argument. I will simply argue that just because the science and medical technology hasn't advanced enough to sufficiently and accurately gauge the latent effects of tbi, doesn't give them the excuse to deny that such a case as mine exists. Their model is flawed, and I would argue intentionally so, and they shouldn't penalize the victim because of it. It makes no sense that they get to deny paying if their so called objective testing proves the veteran isn't sick enough, as well as deny if their testing proves the vet is too sick to be true. I mean its like heads they win, tails they win. If their testing is rendered invalid by the vets condition, they must rule in the vets favor, or at least have a higher burden to prove the vet is faking his condition than the opinion of a 30 min exam. It should not be what they think they know, it should be what they can prove. Otherwise the whole scheme is downright unAmerican.

Fellow vets and families of vets, you who bear the scars and horrid memories, the burden of healing and caring for those who bear those scars, pause a moment to think about this while you contemplate your response to my previous post. The tbi technician who in so many words accused me of faking my exam took great pains in stating repeatedly to her fellow VA employees that the patient should be denied access to her assessment of my case. Of course she couched it in the usual " out of concern for the welfare of the vet and the security of the examination process" double speak we are so used to hearing. We all know what she meant of course. She hoped to hide behind the protective curtain of the VA, while destroying the hopes and aspirations of the veteran with the subtle stroke of her pen. She hoped to take the food off my wife's table and leave my family homeless, without even giving me the curtesy of seeing who my destroyer is. I remember her well, she looked fairly young and comfortable in her well furnished office. Full of comforts and luxuries she as intent on denying me. In her secure job, paid for and guaranteed under the pretense of caring for disabled and permanently maimed veterans, she looked down her nose at me. She went through the motions of her important and all knowing job and figured she knew all she needed to know about my fake pain, then passed her judgement. In so doing she condemned me and cleverly covered her tracks in the same action, without so much as an afterthought to what my life was worth. What does she know about ambushes and dirty streets with death lurking in every trash pile and atop every roof? What does she know of the haunting dreams of friends loved and lost in violent and sudden death, and the memories that just won't die? When I signed my life away to them, I signed it away without hesitation or stipulations as to the circumstances and conditions under which I would consent to being used. I was young and full of life, and I went wherever they chose to send me. No I wasn't Rambo, but I did my job as bait for all the enemy could muster, until I was carried off the field of battle on my shield. So excuse me for not fully cooperating with your rigged rules of which I'm denied knowledge of their particulars until after the exam. Even criminals under our system are accorded the right to the knowledge of the evidence against them. Maybe I knew deep down somewhere that you weren't really concerned or interested in compensating me for what I lost as you promised when I signed that dotted line. Maybe I sensed that your so called exam, was just a mechanism designed to trick me into granting you the permission to pay me pennies on the dollar of what is my due. The way I see it, there is no wrong in refusing to obey Rules designed to cheat me. Instead to trying to guilt me with your high minded concepts of what qualifies as a technically traumatized brain, try to remember that the money you hope to save from cheating me, is what pays for the fine furniture that adorns your comfortable office. Spare me the lecture on morality.

Need some imput here family, how much weight does the objective testing for tbi carry with the raters when the examining doctor states that the test was inconclusive because the veteran scored less than 0.1% percentile and rendered the neuro psych assessment invalid. He further states that the veteran presented a poor effort/ motivation to engage/ malingering and therefore no other testing can be provided due to the nature of the vets presentation. All this is the opinion of the objective test technician which was an addendum to the chief examiners original diagnosis that the vet shows basically all the usual signs of tbi, just has no medical history outside this claim for a severe blast injury to the head in which the veteran suffered anatomical loss of one eye and severely reduced loss of peripheral vision in the other over time secondary to the anatomical loss in 2006. He further states that despite the severity of these injuries, the vet showed no signs of PTSD or tbi till 2011. Now my point is that can they use the fact that you have no history of complaining and this objective testing ( despite the fact that even they admit it doesn't prove you do not have tbi, they just can't tell how bad because they basically think you're faking it) as the sole basis for denying this vet tbi? Yes I dealt with it on my own as much as I could in the beginning and didn't aggressively pursue medical help. But that was because I was focused on healing and recovery from the main injuries of my vision loss and assumed the symptoms of PTSD and tbi were due to that. I assumed the va would look out for me after they originally awarded 70% for the eyes. I'm a marine, I was taught they wouldn't let me down if I did my best to cope. Can they really deny me my psych issues just because I did well in school for a while before I lost control of my symptoms ? Didn't they basically concede the tbi when they granted increase for the secondary vision loss from 60% to 70% in 2010? They said the vision loss was due to brain trauma. The PTSD examiner completely grants my case with a GAF of 46. I think they just realized they've been out foxed and cornered because they didn't see the tbi claim coming, now they are grabbing at straws and trying to unring the bell. Maybe the rater will wise up and follow the VA rule of giving the vet the benefit of doubt whenever they are unable to conclusively rule out your claim. Any ideas family I know this sounds complicated?

Thanks chuck75, really appreciate your informed input. I'm not sure I understand what the va considers an "acceptable fiduciary standard". I do have SSDI and have been unemployed for almost 2years due to blindness. My condition got progressively worse and depleted most of my remaining vision in my left eye since my injury in 2006. The va themselves put me through college with the vocrehab program only to explain to me that I couldn't meet the vision standards for most federal/ DOT and state jobs. I am legally blind in my remaining eye due to the trauma to my head that blew out my right eye. They've granted that basis already before I ever filed for tbi itself. I don't know why it's taking them nearly a year to conclude that if my blindness was caused by the blast injury from the tbi, I more than likely have tbi. I have to say that when I observe the length of time most vets here have had to endure for their issues, I am more than content to be patient. Just want them to know that before they think, I have thought. I am patient not slow.

Welcome brother, someone here will get you what you need.

Correction PTSD GAF score 46 not 43