john999

I am going for 100% back to 1971 via a CUE. The VA will try and cheat you on retro. Examine your old ratings with care and compare your evidence to their listed evidence. If they had evidence they did not use that might have helped your claim that is basis of a CUE on a final decision.

Anyone see the movie "Jacob's Ladder". This is about RVN soldiers given drugs to make them super soldiers. However, the truth is more sinister than fiction as TestVet describes.

There will be plenty more claims coming since we will be in Afghanistan for two more years. Two more years of PTSD and amputations. One of our aged congressmen here in Florida got a letter from a grunt SGT who was complaining that they were using his men as human mine detectors. Next thing the SGT was dead from stepping on a IED.

You know I saw a doctor at my VA when I got out of the Army in 1971. He was a shrink. He did not like me and he showed it on my rating. I went back to the same VA 35 years later and he was still there screwing over vets. My lawyer attacked his evalulation of my on many levels.

I read my recent C&P for AO heart condition. What I did was to ask for more testing and appealed the rating because the rating was based on the lame and incomplete exam. I got the VA doctors to rebutt the C&P and won a better rating on appeal. You can contest the c&p exam, but often this is a waste of time. It is better to dissect the exam and rating and rebutt it with your own new medical evidence. By the time you beat back the C&P exam you will probably have your rating. Then you might as well attack the rating. These C&P exams are almost always incomplete. Compare your exam to the exam schedule to see if all the T's and I's were dotted.

I sent complaints about the VA to the VA and they lost the complaint.

I know the USA bomed the Plain of Jars and this secret war went on for years.

When you get your VCAA letters be sure each and every disability is mentioned in the letter. If it is not listed then the VA is probably going to consider it. If and when you get denials the VA will consider all your conditions denied that are not specifically mentioned. You have a lot of conditions and you need a DX for each one besides a general description of a condition. You are going to be at this for a while, but don't give up. You ought to claim chronic pain and depression while you are at it.

The VA is supposed to consider you for HB if you are 100%. If they did not mention that at all I would file an appeal if the case is still not final. SMC's are not impossible to win. You are entitled to them under certain conditions. You are not even supposed to have to file for them.

I think you should get an IMO to say you are housebound. This may be the only way unless you can increase your non-TDIU ratings to 60%. If your psychological problems make you housebound the VA might bump you up to 100 schedular and then they need to consider you for HB.

I would not count on a settlement if my claim is an example. I have what I think is a solid CUE and CAVC refused to settle. If we could have gotten 50 cents on the dollar I bet my lawyer would have informed me. My claim goes back to 1971 for 100%, so maybe that is just too much money.

In order to get a significant EED there usually must be a CUE or lost service record that is found to justify going back to a final decision and revising it to pay years of retro. I believe there are lots of old decisions that could contain errors that would justify an EED or grant.

Yes, you probably will have to have a new C&P if you claim depression. The VA wants to determine if you actually do have depression and how severe it is to rate you.

The VA does tend to stick with the date you submitted the TDIU form even if it was well before your latest increase as long as the claim was still in appeals. I submitted a TDIU claim when I was 30%. That was the date they used when I got bumped up to 70% on appeal. Sometimes you can use a hospital admission to get EED on a TDIU claim. I did after asking for my TDIU to be the same as my SSDI award date. If a vet is on SSDI for a SC condition the VA should infer TDIU. They won't unless you claim it, however. They always want to cheat on the effective dates right down to the date of your C&P or the latest piece of evidence you submitted to them.

What ever happened to our 25% increase for loss of quality of life? I think we need a real base rate increase. If you are 100% and don't have a decent SSDI payment you are really almost poor. The median income is $50,000 a year in the USA. That means half make more and half make less than 50 grand.

Me and a buddy filed for and increase and IU about 11 years ago. I got mine because I went to my C&P. He decided he did not need to go because he had enough evidence already. His claim was denied even though he had been on SSDI for years. He called up the VA and rescheduled a C&P exam. 6 months later he had 100% and housebound. I would call up the VA and try and reschedule your exam.

You know even if the VA fails to evaluate or consider probative evidence in a claim you may not win the substance of your CUE. You must show that, but for the evidence that was not considered the outcome of the rating would have been different. This is where it gets sticky.

Get every bit of evidence from VA and private doctors if you want an increase. You always need more evidence with these things. Do use the VA pain clinic? You should.

If you are 100% and the VA did not consider you for HB I would appeal. If they did consider you for HB and denied you I would appeal with more evidence.

I know that a hospital admission can sometimes be used to support an EED. I think admissions can sometimes be used as an informal claim for benefits, but multiple admissions won't get you IU unless the evidence supports it.

I filed a NOD and asked for a DRO Hearing some years back. I accidentally found out that my claim was on the way to the BVA. I had asked to review my C-File and while I was looking at it I discovered that my claim was waiting to be certified to the BVA. I was shocked at the time (now nothing shocks me). By all means you want your claim decided at the lowest level. I don't know if you can or would want to get your claim back from the BVA. I sure derailed the VA from sending my claim to the BVA and had them do the DRO. I won in about a year. I might still be waiting if the BVA got it.

VA records are not service records as far as I know, but Bronco is right that 3.156 is easier than doing a CUE if they are service records.

I can't see why a vet like you could not get TDIU, and do college at the same time. You may be unemployable now, but after voc rehab and treatment you might very well be employable. The VA should accept this as a good deal since otherwise you most likely will be TDIU and P&T one day soon. In my day if you showed the least bit of improvement the VA would find a reason to reduce you. They are stupid really. If by supporting you now they could produce a taxpayer instead of a tax consumer that would be good from all points of view. I must be not thinking like the VA.

GREAT!

If you have not worked in two years I would apply for P&T now. Why wait?