john999

Put in for disability retirement from your federal job. It is easy to get. This shoul help some with IU. I think you have to put in for SSD at the same time. That is what I did back in 2001.

If you have trouble controlling your bladder or bowel then that may be serious impingement of your spinal cord. That is very serious symtom like inability to walk or numbness of your legs.

Most long term care facilites are a disgrace. VA and non-VA alike many are warehouses for elderly people to just wait around to die. Patients who are confined to bed are always in serious danger of pressure sores and worse. They often overmedicate the elderly to manage them. The elderly then seem to by psychotic when they are just overmedicated. They have bottom of the barrel doctors who see their patients every few weeks for 15 seconds and charge as if they see them daily. The story about the vet with maggots in an infected leg is nothing strange. If the VA outsources elderly to private nursing homes you can bet they are the cheapest, and worst in the state. Most of the people who do patient care get minimum wage, and minimum training or advancement.

I have had good luck with DRO process. I believe that the DRO's want to settle claims. If they simply pass on denied claims to the BVA what is the purpose of their job? I am sure being a DRO is a better job than being a claims examiner doing five or six claims a day with no contact with the veterans.

Larry Get a nice soft surface on your desk so when you start pounding the desk you don't hurt your hand. With what you know you should be a good VSO. You are up against a very conservative and inert system. You have a big boulder to push up the hill, but you can make a dent if you stay focused on helping individual vets. Don't take it personal.

If the VA granted IU and denied chapter 35 benefits then I would appeal the denial of Chapter 35. Get an IMO to state that your disabilites are permanent in nature with no expectation that you will get better in the future. If you win your appeal for P&T it will be effective to the date you got IU. I used this method and I got P&T within one year of being granted IU. I got an IMO to state my disabilites were permanent.

The VA in Florida seems to have never looked at population trends. When I first went to the VAMC in Tampa in 1972 it was surrounded by empty land. The VA did not buy up this empty land with an idea that they would need to expand as millions of people moved to the state. Now every square inch around the VA is either owned by crummy apartment complexes, strip malls, or the University of South Florida. It takes me 20 minutes to get to the VA, but it takes me thirty minutes to wait for a shuttle bus and actually get to the hospital. In summer the VAMC usually quiets down, but not this summer. It is crowded now, and I hate to see it in winter when the snow birds come down, and head for the VAMC with their pill bottles, hover rounds and walkers. Most of the vets I see at my VAMC are older, poor and sick. I don't have any idea how many are service connected. It is basically a charity hospital. The VA people doing the paperwork move so slowly you need time lapse photograhpy to see if they are moving. It is a degrading, depressing and demeaning experience to visit my VAMC. I always want to take a shower when I get home because the place is dirty. I go to get my pills and to make sure I document my continuing disability. I just hold my nose and make the trip.

It is sad to file a claim, and then wait for 18 months to get a low ball rating, and then spend a couple more years getting it right if you are lucky. You can get caught up in the BVA,Remand,VARO,BVA cycle for decades. I think if the VA granted me everything I asked for I would faint. They either cheat you on the rating, or the effective date. The majority of vets use a broken down VSO to do their claim, and what a mistake that is when the VSO advises them not to appeal because they might lose what they have. When I got 70% my DAV VSO advised me not to appeal, and ask for IU. What an idiot. I just used them as a mail drop. I have ignored everything they have ever told me since that time.

If you have vocational rehabilitation records they won't be in your C-File. You get those records for Voc Rehab. If the VA Voc Rehab has turned you down for rehabilitation that could be important for IU or 100% purpose. My C-File goes back 38 years and included my first rating decision. It also included evidence the VA did not use in my rating. When I got that I decided to file a CUE.

When I claimed IU I had two IMO's and was on SSD and federal disability retirement for my SC disability. The rater examined my IMO's with a microscope and found three words in a sentence to deny my IU claim even though I was 70%. I had to get another IMO to get IU and then another to get P&T. This was a total of four IMO's. The first IMO said I was totally and permanently disabled. The second said I was totally disabled due to SC condition. The second IMO mentioned a NSC condition. The VA said that even though I was 70% SC the real reason I could not work was the NSC condition. Two more IMO's to prove the NSC condition was not the reason I was totally disabled. I certainly believe that my VARO was looking for any reason to deny my IU claim.

Get that P&T. Has it been one year since you got IU or 100%. You can file an appeal for denial of chapter 35. You don't have to wait years for P&T.

Four years for a widow to get DIC is a disgrace and a shame on the nation. This is how the VA treats the spouses of the fallen. I heard some politican on TV today saying recruitment and retention is at an all time high. I wonder if they know about the trials and tribulations of the spouses and DIC.

I am proof that you can have pretty miserable back pain and have an MRI that does not look that bad. Some have herniated disc in their back and no pain. I think it is individual. We all know about the guy with no foot who has horrible pain in his phantom foot.

I got 10% to start and now I have a total of 90% and IU. That first 10% is the most critical. The way the VA usually does it is 30%, 50%, 70% then IU or 100%. 10% for PTSD is a low ball figure but your foot is in the door.

SSI is basically welfare for the disabled. You have to be really poor to get it.

The VA claimed they could not finalize my AO claim because they did not have a copy of my DD214. I have been SC since 1971. I used the G.I. Bill. I got a VA home loan. I got VA life insurance. How did I get all these things if they did not have a copy of my DD214. They were stalling. Lucky I had multiple certified copies of my DD214. The DD214 was right in my C-File. How lazy, stupid and incompetent can they get? The VAMC still gets me confused with another vet who has the same first and last name as I do. I get calls about missed appointments. What is wrong with these people?

Vets have to organize at the grass roots and put pressure on congressmen. How to go about doing that I don't know since so many vets have such different ideas about the quality of the VA. If congressmen and the Prez got 20 million letters about the VA I think that would be a start. Congress and the Prez respond to mass movement pressue, but it takes a lot of focused outrage to get them to move. They know how to count votes and money.

I had to send my lawyer my copy of my C-File since the VA just refused to send him a copy.

If you can do some job as a handy man or some minor service job on cash basis you might be able to stay under the radar. You have to keep a low profile. You can't have employees or have a payroll. You could flip houses but you can't do the work to repair them yourself. Start a lawn care business with just you and the mower.

I would avoid VA therapist except for drugs. They don't have the time for you. They see hundreds of patients. They can't even remember your name without checking their notes. If you can get fee base that is good, but remember that anything you say can get back to the VA.

Yes, send in the IU form. You can't actually get IU until the VA gets the form. The VA should use the date you got SSD as the date your IU began. This is where it gets tricky. You were not rated 80% until recently, but according to SSA you have been unemployable since January 2008. After you get IU I would file an appeal if the VA does not use the January 2008 date. The VA knew you were on SSD and this is an inferred claim for IU. You won't get the earlier effective date unless you fight for it. The VA pretends that you suddenly became IU when you get the right percentage rating.

No, I got IU via a DRO Hearing. My C&P exam did not address IU. I got a 70% rating via a reconsideration,but was denied IU. I went to a DRO Hearing and got IU. Then I went to another DRO and got P&T. I tell I had to fight for everything. The IU was retro to 2001. August 30, 2011 I will have ten years being IU. Two more years for DIC for the wife.

They have your POA in regards dealing with the VA.

You know I was told my VARO gets 10,000 pieces of mail a day. Can you believe that? I don't believe any statistics the VA puts out because they cook them first. The VSO's go along with the program and meekly complain. I think the situation is very, very bad. The quality of decisions is just unspeakable. Nobody is sticking up for us. We have been sold. Those of us who get decent ratings are the lucky few. If not for Hadit I would still be at 30%.

I remember asking for Vioxx and the VA gave me morphine instead. Morphine is cheaper. One used to be used as anti-inflammatory and the other is major narcotic. What were they thinking?