john999

How long were you in the service? The military would not enlist you if they knew you were schizophrenic, so I assume there was no mention of schizophrenia in your enlistment documents. Why do they assume your service aggravated instead of precipitated a schizophrenia state? What basis do they have for believing your problems pre-existed your service?

Getting P&T is probably more important than an extra 10%. P&T usually means money in some form.

I may not be able to define a political post, but I know it when I see it.

Yes, it should carry weight. He needs to say that because of your SC disability that Voc Rehab is not going to help you, and you are unemployable.

I would stay put until I got all my decisions. Once you get the ratings and start to get the money then you can move. Your money will follow you, but just make sure you establish your direct deposit at the new address. You will probably find all VARO's suck. I would never move in the middle of a claim if I wanted to win it.

I had a PA do my heart C&P. She was training another PA to do exams. Her exam was a joke. She just estimated things like METS. I read the sheet for the exam and she had just ignored the requirements for stress testing etc. I appealed it. What they do it to get the PA or NP to do the exam and a doctor signs off on it. This is just to save money at the vet's expense. I don't know what they pay these PA's and NP's. I know it is all about money. It is a nice way for a doctor to get paid and really never treat patients or have to pay any malpractice insurance.

I got a letter today from the VARA saying my file is being held at the VARO for my travel service BVA board member hearing. They say it takes on average 400 days to get a travel board hearing. My lawyer will be there. This is my CUE going back to 1971. The teleconference BVA hearing takes over 500 days. The VARO keeps my file until the hearing and then it goes to the BVA. I hope I live long enough to get a decision. If there is anything wrong with RSG's old claim he filed he should get it looked at by someone who can spot a possible CUE. Those old decisions were just awful from the 60's and 70's.

If by some rare chance the VA were to reduce you to less than 100% make known to the examiner that you are unable to work at this time. You should be considered for IU even if you were reduced from 100%. Until you get P&T you are going to get these calls. This is why I say that if you get IU or 100% you should appeal any denial of chapter 35.

They say a fish rots from the head down. I don't think the VA's problem is just a few bad apples. I think it comes from the top. The idea is to limit compensation and other costs. If a few thousand vets get crushed in the process no big deal. The government made promises to take take care of disabled vets, and now when presented with the bill they try and sneak away from the table.

I would not deploy if I were you. It may make your PTSD worse. You are going to be subjected to more stressors. A GAF of 52 means you have some serious symptoms.

I took a course in memory techniques for the P.O. Also, I was a ten point vet. If you passed the test in Florida and were a 10 point vet you got hired for something. I was hired as a clerk. It was just labor, but I had to learn a memory route to throw letters to the right carrier. I had 1200 memory items to learn in 6 weeks. If you could not pass the test on this memory thing you got fired. The USPS is like the Army on LSD. The place is run by the worst employees who can't do their jobs, so they get promoted to supervisors.

Leave the buildings for the sick and homeless vets. The rest of us should get a card equivalent to medicare of a medicare supplement. That would save me money. I have to keep my BC/BS because it is secondary payer for me and primary for my wife. I have medicare and she has ChampVA. The BC costs me half my federal disability pension, but they pay very well. We do need to tear down the VA brick by brick because it sucks in my opinion. I can't get the care I am promised due to rationing of care. I am priority one vet and I get the best and fastest care. I hate to think of those down the line who have to wait six months for a test or visit. The VA talks about prevention but I only get to see my dentist for an exam once every two years. I have DMII and gum disease. I go outside the VA for extra care. It costs me mucho. They admit that poor dental care can cause heart disease, but almost all vets do not get dental care. I get vision care but the glasses I get for free and like the ones you got in the army back in the 60's.

I got disgusted and went and got a job at the post office. They do hire disabled vets. Once you are in they start trying to fire you if your disability hurts their production numbers. I could not get hired beyond a GS-5 until I got the postal job where I got a 50% pay raise right off the bat. I never did so little for so much. They used to give me 2 hours of over time every night. The shift that gave the O.T. would leave, and I would go sit in the break room for about 40 minutes and then go out to the work floor and work in slow motion. My first year I think I worked 10-12 hours every day. Due to union rules I got paid extra for doing night work, and extra for working Sunday. I had it worked out that I got 40 hours of night pay and double Sunday pay. Then my feet started breaking down after a few years. Every big boss had his girlfriend working there plus his wife and kids. Half the people at my post office were related. They got all the best qualified jobs. The vets without connections got the grunt work. If my damn feet had not worn out and I had not torn my rotator cuff I would be there still. The last five years I was in miserable pain. Then the USPS started to tighten the screws on me. I went out on workers compensation and never went back. They treated me like a dog when I started to break down physically. It was all job related and that really got them mad because I claimed my workers compensation benefits.

The only way an attorney could speed things up would be to avoid errors, and to do a high class brief for the BVA or Court. When you get to your appeals I think just by avoiding certain errors a good lawyer could help. Like if you have a complicated claim that involves legal errors you could probably use someone who knows the actual law. As Berta says, what wins claims is evidence. If you have good evidence you win eventually with or without a lawyer. You know I think the SSD system is rigged to provide job security to SSA administrative judges and lawyers. The same could happen at the VA. But at least at SSA there is a comphrehensible process. I was told the St. Pete VARO gets 10,000 pieces of mail a day. They have a trained chimp to sort the mail.

If you are rated below 100% for one condition it is almost impossible to ever get to 100% schedular. I am at 90% IU and I don't see how I can ever get to 100%. It is possible but very difficult. VA math is like approaching a wall. The closer you get to the wall the smaller the distance between you and the wall, so say 60% of that distance is much less than a true 60%. If you have 90% like me and get another 40% that is only an increase in rating of 4%.

No increase in rating during the years my claim was on appeal and bouncing back and forth from the VARO to the BVA. But I recently filed a CUE all the way back to 1971 and my lawyer says "we" will win. See what happens when you piss off an old fart.

I remember going to an Army dentist because my TMJ was really bothering me. He did a exam and told me I had TMJ. He never put it in my records. He just wrote "examination". So years later I tried to claim in and my rating said "veteran's SMR's are silent on this issue". I was going to Vietnam and I bet the dentist and all doctors had orders to not slow down the meat grinder. I had a shrink when I got back who never took one note during six months of treatment for a mental health issue. I have no respect for military doctors.

You need to look up disability rating index. However, working probably will affect your rating for a brain injury. A TBI is an injury that affects your cognitive functioning. If you are working at a job that requires complex mental tasks I don't think you will get 100% rating for TBI. For any injury or illness that affects the brain or mind being able to work full time at an above poverty level job is bound to be considered in your rating. What kind of work do you do? Have you read the rating scale for TBI? What constitutes the conditions for a 100% rating?

The heart cath has its own risks. Don't get it done at the VA. You want someone to do it who has done it a thousand times.

Right, Pete, I am my own expert witness. Well, not really since I just got a BA in psychology, but I was in group therapy for about 25 years. That is where I got my life back together from living on the street.

Go ahead John, you go ask in my topic. I am finished with this topic. I got what I wanted from the VA.

My father-in-law came back from Guam in WWII with his brains scrambled. They kept him in the hospital until he knew his name, and then gave him an honorable discharge. He was crazy and dangerous for the rest of his life. He never got a dime from the VA. He was a TBI, but they called it shell shock. I don't know how much is true and all the details since the VA said his records burned. I do know he was a danger to himself and others and did spend years in prison for his behavior. This was before I met his daughter so I could not help him. Now he is dead from being poor.

Kelly You became the Ghost in the Machine. My local vet center wanted me in one of their PTSD groups to fill a slot. I wanted to get IU. We did not see eye to eye.

TestVet It is sort of like agent orange. It is hard to prove you were directly exposed unless you had it sprayed on you, or marched through areas that had been recently sprayed. Spray maps show the areas that were espcially hard hit. However, since spraying was so widespread the VA can't prove you were not exposed, so they assume you were. This is because of pressure from vets and vet groups for years. In smaller contamination situations the DOD and VA will just deny the claims because there is not the pressure to at least give vets the benefit of the doubt.

I had a VSO from one of the NSO tell me when I got home that he had been in combat for four years in WWII, and that RVN vets were cry babies. I would like to know how any soldier could survive combat for four years. The average time infantry served in combat in WWII was about 90 days before being KIA'ed or WIA'ed. If you lasted 6 months you were an old timer.