john999

I don't think the C&P doctor and your VA doctor talk to each other. I think you don't like you doctor and he does not care for you either. It is a good idea to get a new doctor. I think you should get a IMO to help you with winning an increase since your regular doctor does not sound helpful.

Your mother would not be eligible for survivor benefits unless your father died from his service connected condition. She might have been eligible for widow's pension if she was very poor. I don't know what he could not discuss in a letter to you. Your mother never inquired about a possible pension?

If he cancels his FEHB then he will be depending on medicare and the VA. Unless you have other health insurance that covers all your health care expense I don't think it is wise to cancel FEHB. If he has medicare then medicare is his primary insurance and FEHB is secondary. If you get ChampVA FEHB will be primary and ChampVA will be secondary. If he gets medicare and has FEHB there should be no co-pays or deductibles for most plans. I would wait and see how the 100% is going to impact you budget. You kids will get education benefits for college from VA. Also if your FEHB is not active and he dies you cannot get it back as a survivor and neither can your kids.

I am not sure about how long it takes the BVA to remand a claim back to the VARO. You have to take into account that the VARO then has to act on the BVA remand and make a new decision. Your claim is going from one pile to another. I bet it will be a year before you hear anything definite but this is a guess. There are no time limits on this stuff. There are not even ballpark figures. My claim has been remanded back to the BVA from the CAVC. Then it will go back to the CAVC. I guess a year or longer for me.

There are special rules for POW's. You should do some research on that. I don't think they give PH's for non-combat injuries. It is getting more and more confusing since they give PH's for TBI I believe.

Six lawyers on the contract? I think that is five too many.

What bugs me is the low rate you get for having a dependent. A couple of hundred dollars a month does not support a dependent or spouse who can't work.

If our claims were done in a predictable time frame there would not be all this suffering. My claim goes to the BVA on remand and I have no idea when it will be decided. It has already been in appeals for five years with no end in sight. If I was depending on this to pay my rent I would be robbing banks on the side.

I never heard of a general medical exam for IU. It is done for the conditions you claim. That is one of the conditions for IU that it be solely for SC conditions. Are you also asking for a pension if you don't get IU?

Now that the VA has established you have PTSD I would get an IMO to show that it is worse than 30% disabling. I think you have got your foot in the door which is the hardest part. Now you have to gather evidence to show your condition is severe and chronic.

Have you read that " a man who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client". When lawyers get into serious trouble they go out and hire the best lawyer they can afford to defend them. I always did my own claims until the new law came into being where you could hire a lawyer at the VARO appeals level. I have a CUE claim going back many years. I was pretty sure my claim would end up at the CAVC so not being a lawyer and knowing my case would be in the hands of VA lawyers I got me a lawyer. I think that when you prosecute your own claim it is easy to get to close to the case. It is very hard to be objective about a claim that has dragged on for years. I wanted a different set of eyes and I wanted someone else to write the briefs. When you deal with lawyers being a non-lawyer you get zero respect.

There may be some horse trading done between the VSO's and the VA. I have no proof but I would not be surprised. I don't think the VSO's have that much weight with the VA. I have not had better outcomes using VSO's than doing it myself. I am using a lawyer on my only outstanding claim right now. I used the lawyer because the case was tricky and I felt I needed professional help at every level. So far my suspicions were right.

I don't know about surgery for tarsal Tunnel syndrome, but the CTS surgery has good outcome usually. Any surgery on the feet worries me since that is how I got a bad staff infection.

I really think you need a lawyer at the CAVC level. I would think about hiring one soon. They just get 20% of your retro if you get any. The way the BVA and CAVC quibble over stuff you need representation.

A good IMO/IME is the way you fight these off-the-wall C&P opinions.

ACE I think it is a good idea to get a Nova lawyer to do your case. There is a steep learning curve for vets doing their own claims. All it means is you learn by making errors the VA can take advantage of to delay you award. By the time you learn the system you claim is over and five years have gone by. I would gladly give 20% of my retro not to have to wait five or ten years to win my claim especially if I can't work.

It is harder to get a copy of your c&p exam with QTC.

Yes, you will end up back at the CAVC since that is the only place you can go from here. Did you have a lawyer the first time you went to the CAVC? I am waiting on a CAVC remand to the BVA myself. No decision yet but I already see a problem. These people make errors and you end up waiting years. It is a hell of a system.

Based just on this C&P exam you should get 100%. More goes into it than just the C&P but you have everything there for 100%, and you should get P&T because the doctor says chronic and severe.

Your doctor has to say that the condition is secondary and explain why.

He can still file but he won't get compensation from 1965. The sooner he files the better.

That sounds good to me!

You should get a medical statement that says you can't work due solely to your SC conditions. Did you take disability retirement or regular retirement?

If you are SC for these conditions you can get SSDI. If you were on a VA pension that is different.

Sharon If MikeS wins his reconsideration he should get the original effective date, correct? He would be asking the VA to take another look at his original claim. If he does not have new evidence he might as well file a NOD because the same people who considered it the first time are going to look at it again and probably make the same decision. This is how I see it.