john999

That "non service connected" thing makes me think the VA is looking at your claim as a pension claim. Did you ask for some kind of pension from the VA? Big difference between pension and service connection. I have never seen a claim for SC referred to as a Non Service Connected claim. They may be confused and wrapped their mind around some concept that is not what you want. These people are very easy to confuse so I would try and get to the bottom of the "non service connected" statement about your ankle. Like Larry says you are going to have to prove through SMR's that your ankle problems started in the military. It has been 20 years since discharge. They won't just accept your word that this happened in the service. I agree with everything said already.

Bob I wish we could just get interest on our retro. There has to be some punishment for the VA when it delays a claim for years via some underhand method. If there is no punishment for them like punitive damage they will just keep on doing it to vets, and only the most persistent will win. As it stands now what is to stop them from just denying claims forever? If you finally win all you get is the retro you should have gotten in the beginning. I don't even know how I won my claim for sure. I had plenty evidence, but so what?

In my original claim for IU the VA took part of a sentence out of the context of my doctor's letter to deny my claim. I won in the end, but I had to get another IMO to refute just those four words and it cost me. It was dirty business and just a clear attempt to deny my claim. The VA has distorted some of the issues in my CUE claim so much I did not even recognize it. That is when I got a lawyer. The VA was trying to add a medical report 15 years after the error to deny the CUE claim. They will pull the wool over anyone's eyes if they can get away with it.

Mako When you hand in the TDIU form get a date stamped copy from the VARO! You don't want the morons losing it and saying they never got it. This way you have proof.

You don't have to take Part D if you have veterans medical benefits. The VA sent us a letter when Part D came out saying we did not have to sign up for Part D because our pharma benefits were considered to be at least as good as Part D. Maye one day Part D will be worth getting and then you could get it with no penalty. You have to decide about Part B which I think is worth the money. This gives you a pretty good option if you don't like what the VA is doing for you. I probably have too much medical insurance but my wife was in the hospital for a week and we did not pay a dime due to BCBS and champva. Medicare and champVA coordinate so you don't pay a dime for most care. ChampVA provides a drug benefit so if you get P&T you will never need part D anyway.

That is bull. Get the copy. If you read the exam you can get a pretty good idea of how your claim may go. The VA just does not want to take the trouble to provide you the copy. I have never heard that asking for a copy of your C&P exam will slow down your claim. Never trust the 800 number people. You should perhaps send an IRIS request for the exam copy.

Federal jobs are not easy to get even for disabled vets. I worked for the VA and the post office. I found mobility inside these organizations depended more on who you know rather than what you know. I was offered a job as a AFT agent, but did not want to chase moonshiners and gun runners in Kentucky. Most openings you see posted are already filled by insiders. The feds put a person in a job that is vacant and then when the official opening comes up then they put the "most qualified" person in the job. The most qualified person is the guy or girl who has been doing it for a year already. Get a degree in something real like accounting or pharmacy and you can work lots of places. Really, the feds are awful. Nepotism is rampant and the good old boy network rules the roost. I worked for them because I needed a job with good insurance.

Mako The VA has to figure your retro. Did you give them a document that shows the date you stopped working? I got SSD before I got IU. That made it pretty easy for the VA to know the date of my IU. I think you are ok. Just wait while the VA works out these details and if you get worried ask your lawyer what is happening. He is anxious to get his fee so he has an interest in you getting your retro. The good part is that the more retro you get the more he gets so you have an advocate to get as much as possible. What prompted you to get a lawyer for this? I think it was probably a good idea. The VA infers (should) IU when they have evidence you can't work due to a SC condition. When you get the letter of IU that is a grant. They tell you that you are getting IU and what the amount is and when it started.

Actually, I am pretty sure that the 20 year protection for IU means you can go back to work and they can't touch you. This does not help me much since I will have to be 71 years old before my 20 years on IU. When and if I reach 71 I don't think I will be working. Same with 100% for a mental condition. After 20 years you can work as a brain surgeon and they can't reduce you. This probably never happens but if you got 100% at age 20 and kept until age 40 you could work and keep the 100%.

In the Army they said I had a PD, depression, anxiety and drug abuse. The VA changed that to schizophrenia (residual type). That is what I got SC'ed for. A few years later the VA changed it to major depression. Then to bi-polar disorder and then finally back to schizophrenia, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, PTSD and chronic pain disorder. They just throw it at the wall and see if it sticks.

Individuals inside the VA need to be punished when they violate the vet's due process. There needs to be a legal sanction with teeth to make these people behave. People need to lose their jobs and there need to be fines that individuals have to pay, otherwise they will just laugh at this. How can you punish the VA? By taking money away from the institution? That will hurt veterans.

Yes, Bob, and the fire in St. Louis destroyed mostly Army records from WWII. The VA claimed my father-in-laws records were destroyed and he was a Marine. I think they lied because they were too lazy to look for his records. They also claim my father's records were destroyed except I have them.

Often vets just don't know how to respond with good information if they don't know anything about a particular topic. I know nothing about sciatica except I don't want it. Can you back be relatively OK while sciatica affects the leg? I have a bad back but no sciatica. The docs always ask me about pain in my legs, and I say I don't have that kind of pain. Does sicatica come from disc or bony growth putting pressure on the nerve? How do you treat sciatica...surgically? Can a so-called slipped disc cause sciatica? Does spondylosis cause sciatica?

We have to see how this decision is going to apply. Will courts be allowed to take serious action against the VA for denying due process? It will take some time for VA legal community to digest this. In the civil legal system when people are denied due process it is a big deal. I don't know about administrative law arena.

I would appeal the denial of IU. Does the VA have some other alternative explanation why you can't work with an 80% rating? I would just get another doctor to review your evidence and make a statement that you cannot work solely due to your SC disabilites. The VA's denial is weak. Do you have some NSC disability that would make you unable to work? I was granted 70% and denied IU because the VA said there was a NSC reason I could not work even though I was on SSD due to SC disability. I got another opinion and appealed it and got my IU. Sometimes they just deny you in hopes you will quit. Don't file a new claim since you will lose the effective date of your IU. have you applied for social security disability? You have quite a few options of how you want to handle this denial. Keep asking. I would probably file a NOD and ask for a DRO Hearing. You probably want to get in front of a real person who can look at you to see the shape you are in. John999

You got your award at the speed of light. Great news. Your evidence must have been superb.

Runnbare Sometimes the proofs of stressor is hard to get even in a combat zone with all hell breaking loose. Have you even seen some of those after action report copies. They look like hen scratchings. After you get out of service and discover your have PTSD you have to go back and get documents to prove stressors. If you served in a combat zone and have PTSD why do you have to prove it? I know some would fake it for the money, but most just want to get on with their lives. I think this places a unfair burden on the vet. The VA conceds all vets in RVN were exposed to AO, so why not to stressors? Every base in Vietnam got hit by rockets or mortars or sniper fire. I almost got killed by idiot officers playing with foo gas.

Stretch I want the truth. Do you have a truck stuck up your nose? What kind of truck? Is it a clunker? How big is your nose anyway. Is it an American truck or a Toyota? These are very important questions the VA needs answers too.

When the VA ignores important evidence to a claim that is surely a violation of due process. This is what my lawyer in my CUE said. I wonder if this decision could affect my claim since the decision was not in effect when the error was made in my claim? I wonder if this decision could be the basis of a class action lawsuit against the VA? Undue delays, lost evidence, distortions of evidence all seem to be violations of due process. I hope this decision is more than just a whack at claims that were fraudulently alterd. That is a more narrow group of victims. What about a claim where you have three IMO's that the VA just ignores or dismisses out of hand? My gut tells me this is a violation of due process, but the technicalities I am not certain about. VA has proven they can't be trusted without a whip hand to make them behave.

Right, I think the VA only gives out information when the vet confronts them with intelligent questions the vet already knows the answers for. If you don't know, the VA ain't going to tell you. I imagine the widows who go to the VA and ask if they are eligible for some kind of survivor benefit. If they don't know their rights I bet they get a pack of distortions and half-truths. Most spouses of vets in nursinng homes don't know they are entitled to aid and assitance to help defray these costs. One thing Elder Law attorneys tout is the fact they can get extra money for the spouses of vets who are in nursing homes. They charge for this information because the VA does not tell the spouse. My Aunt was getting DIC when she went into a nursing home. I knew she was entitled to some extra benefit. I got the VA to contribute significant money to pay the nursing home. My Aunt was not on medicade so this helped her bottom line. I believe the VA's thinking is that unless the vet demands the benefits he/she is due then we will just let it slide. They must have some affirmative duty to inform vets and survivors/dependents of their potential benefits. They just ignore the duty and nobody gets whacked for that negligence.

Rock I bet if you keep going to the VA doctors that you will build up enough due to their errors and mistakes to justify your increase. The rater will get tired reading all the reports he does not understand and just grant you. The people who do the ratings have no medical knowledge at all. Keep complaining and getting referrals and you will hit the jackpot eventually.

If VA claims were slam/dunks there would be no Hadit. When you are experimenting with your ability to pay your bills I would proceed cautiously. I have IU and SSD. If I went to work earning 10,000 a month for 9 months and then quit do you think the VA would look kindly on that? If I could make 10,000 a month why would I need to be on SSD or IU? Let's get real. Most of us spent months or years in the wilderness waiting for our SSD or IU/100%. I lost 20 pounds just waiting five months. I don't want to go through that again for any reason.

Tiki That sounds like a good claim for IU. However, the rater can overrule a C&P exam. The VA often just goes with the C&P, but if they want to be nasty they can impeach their own doctor. Is your PTSD stressor verified? I assume it is if you got a C&P exam, but that verification is what usually screws up PTSD claims. I bet you get IU, but you won't know until you get the rating letter. Don't start spending the money yet. The VA can do anything and that is why we have appeals. Don't blow your stack if they find some excuse to slow you down. Your train is on the tracks, but the VA can put on the brakes.

Very correct! That is what the VA is there for to help vets with disabilite. As I understand it you put in 18 years before they kicked you out. That is a crying shame, but they knew what they were up to doing...screwing you out of your pension. I knew guys who got kicked out of the AF with only a year left due to weight problems. You think it was about the money for the AF? Deny a guy a pension because he is a few pounds overweight when he sits behind a desk. Dirty business.

It could be a remand with no real decision on the rating. Yes, just wait for the letter. It is good if possible to get out of the BVA/Remand/BVA cycle. More evidence is one way to do that.