john999

I would send in the award letter and any other material that shows you are on SSDI for RA. The thing is that you really need to be SC'ed for RA and that will depend on your SMR's and any other medical records that provide a nexus to service for the RA.

Have you had your c&p for the Crohn's disease yet? If you have I would wait to file the increase for TBI. If you just filed the Crohn's claim then you might as well add the TBI increase.

My CUE claim was remanded back to the BVA from the CAVC in July 2011 to correct an error. It took them one year to do that and then I had to appeal it back to the CAVC. BVA used the wrong rating schedule to discuss my rating. It went to the CAVC with this error and it took them four months to find it. Time means nothing to these jerks. Of course, I have already waited 35 years without knowing their was an error in my original rating. Looking through my C-File and using what I learned here and the VBM I found the error. If you have a really old final decision go back and look at it.

You could attack the VA's doctor exam on some basis of incompetence, but I think it is better to get your own IMO as well as trying to undermine the VA's man. As long as the VA has accepted the IMO doctor and knows about his past it probably won't help you to dwell on his problems. What you want is your IMO to attact the facts and method of your VA doctor's exam backed by medical evidence.

DOD does not care if we all die as long as politicians don't complain. Once we come back we have served our purpose.

ChampVA is a no cost major benefit.

Not unless you do something crazy to get the police involved.

I noticed my SSDI claim was logically put together when I got a copy. My VA lawyer does SSDI work as well and he was shocked when he got my C-File. It was a total mess. The VA just threw stuff in their and it was in no kind of order. I got my SSDI claim accepted in about 3-4 months. It took years with the VA using junior grade medical students to do my C&P exams over the years. I think if you have a legal argument that is when you need the lawyer. You still need good evidence usually. You don't want to go pro se to the CAVC that's for sure. If your opponent is a lawyer then you need one. The relationship lawyers have with SSDI has become a money maker and job security for a lot of people. That sucks but when in Rome!

If there is a medical report offered as evidence and the VA neither considers it or lists it that makes two prongs of the three steps for a CUE. The third step depends on if the excluded evidence would have changed the outcome of the rating decision. Then that gets into other areas of "reasonable minds" and "undebatable certainty" which are really the judgement of the VA. That is when you need a lawyer.

I would get an IMO if I had the money. Ask for a DRO Hearing in your NOD. I was 70% and on SSDI and my TDIU was turned down the first time. They said I was disabled due to opiate addiction. Nothing in my two IMO's said opiate addiction was why I was disabled. Both reports said bi-polar disorder and that I was totally disabled. I had thirty years of treatment. You just have to fight them with evidence and their own regs.

There is a milestone case that deals with the VA changing evidence to suit themselves. It is Cushman vs Shinseki. The federal court said it was a due process violation. The VA cannot alter a exam doctor's notes. They are what they are. They cannot alter your doctor's report or exclude it either. You can go to CAVC and look up Cushman. The VA altered this vet's TDIU exam notes.

I have had C&P exams where they tried to sever my SC and dx me with a personality disorder. I have had them where they held my education againt me. The same exam doctor said I was using fraud because he said my stated symptoms fit the DX too well. This was because I had a degree in psychology. The guy just did not like me and tried to put that whammy on me. Where do they find these guys who are supposed to be in helping professions? Maybe they will be like Dr. Death the Texas forensic shrink to sent many people to death row.

I think you should just argue your own unique claim with unique medical evidence at the BVA stage.

Service connection opens all doors. I went from 10% to TDIU and two SMC awards. Of course, it took 35 years. However, when I really needed it the basic building block had been laid forty odd years ago.

I sure would take the VA loan if I was looking to buy. I used it once, but refinanced at a much lower rate on a 15 year mortgage and paid it off back in 2001. I think even if you have used the VA loan program once you can use it again?

TestVet You went through hell getting 100% now you have to live on and on to collect for the misery the VA caused you. I am glad your heart is doing a bit better. When I get depressed I just think how I am collecting from the nation that disrespected me and 2.7 million other RVN vets. Everyone here from the old days has had to fight to collect. You know some Civil war spouses collected DIC right up until the 1950's I think. Our spouses go forth doing their duty of collecting once we are in the great messhall in the sky. John

K&K is willing to take CUE claims. A lot of these lawyers won't front their services on this kind of claim because their is risk beyond a clerical error.

Never heard of it.

Are you still working?

You lucky dog!

Getting a personality disorder DX from the VA is the house special. I would fight this thing. A borderline PD is the kiss of death like a sociopath PD. It is the garbage bag of psychiatric medical DX. When they want to &^%$ someone over this is the DX you get. On what did they base this DX?

ChampVA will always be secondary but it works very well with medicare and with BC/BS in my experience. I have medicare and my wife has BC/BS as primary. She has ChampVA. She almost never has to pay for anything. She had cataract surgery and BC and ChampVA paid it all. I may drop her off BC when she can get medicare since it does cost me about 400 extra bucks a month for family BC. That is federal group plan and it is cheap for what we get I think.

Zoloft helped me with depression. It is not an anti-psychotic medication. It is for depression and about 10 million people take it, but it can make you impotent just like all SSRI uptake inhibitors...prozac type drugs. The wonder drugs come with a curse.

I have heard no so good things about nursing home care via the VA. They don't pay for assisted living according to what I have read which is a shame. In my area I heard that eligible vets are sent to a few nursing homes some are good and some are a quick death sentence. I heard this from a doctor whose daughter works for the VA in Tampa.

They should look at the thousands of PD discharges and bad conduct discharges that later are compensated by the VA as mental disorders. During and after Vietnam there were probably 20,000.