john999

When I go to my VAMC I see uniformed military appearing to be getting treatment at the VA? How is that possible?

When I was a kid I swear my mother got some kind of benefit from the VA for the family after my father died. He did not die of a SC condition, but we still got some sort of benefit. This was back in the 1950's and 1960's. She got SSA benefits as well because she did not work until I was about 14 and my father died when I was 6. Were benefits of those sort reduced or done away with later? I do believe that many thousands of vets and survivors don't get benefits, especially poor and/or homeless vets. In order to get benefits you have to be in one place long enough to apply and go through the process. How does a homeless vet file a claim and go through all the BS that we here on Hadit have to do? It is hard enough when you have expert advise.

When your claim goes to BVA your C-file goes with it. I don't know what the VA does with your C-file when you file a new claim at this point. I don't know how a new claim can go forward without your C-file being available. I know there is some procedure, but I don't know if it will slow down the new claim or the claim on appeal.

The head of psychiatry at the Tampa VA told me there was no chance I would get more than 30%. I am 80% now with TDIU. Don't believe them. Get your own IMO's.

I would not worry about tipping my hand. Present all the evidence you have as soon as you can. You know the VA is playing dirty when they ignore the complete body of an IMO and focus on one phrase they can use to deny the claim. This is why it is important to inspect all evidence you give the VA to make sure there are no traps in there the VA can used to dispute your claim. SSD records, for instance, should not include anything that is not SC'ed. This before DMII diagnosis, and after DMII diagnosis is an old trick. They said I had PN before my DMII diangosis, but they had evidence of DMII long before they got around to making a diagnosis. Either way things like cataracts, PN, vascular artery disease go hand in glove with DMII. Pre-diabetes is the biggest scam the VA ever came up with to deny claims. Just get medical opinions saying your conditions are linked to DMII. There is reasonable doubt.

The risks from being underinsured are so great I would not drop any insurance I had unless all my co-pays and deductibles were covered. I pay about half my federal employee disability check for BC/BS for me and my wife. She also has ChampVa. She was in the hospital for almost a week and we won't be paying a dime. I have medicare Part A&B as well. If you were in intensive care for a two weeks it could mean 100,000 bucks unless you are in the VA, and you might not want to be in the VA. It is like homeowners insurance or flood insurance. You may only need it once, but that could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars if you don't have it. I even have an umbrella policy for 1,000,000 bucks for liability.

You don't have to apply for P&T but I did, and I got it within one year of getting TDIU. What you need is for your doctor to make a statement that you are permanently disabled from your PTSD. When you apply for SSDI they want a statement that you will be disabled for at least one year. When you get this exam you may be made P&T, but I would give the doctor a letter from my doctor saying I am P&T in his opinion. I never waited on the VA to make these decisions.

I think any veteran with a combat medal can win a PTSD claim. This is what the VA is afraid of since there are a lot of potential claims out there. PTSD is a subjective finding. The combat award opens the door to win the PTSD claim for anyone if they can describe their symptoms to fit the criteria. It shows how honest most vets are, or there would be many more PTSD claims. Not every combat vet has PTSD. Some even thrive on combat. It is an individual reaction to combat.

I don't think most VA doctors are there to either help or obstruct a vet from making a claim. The ones I have had dealings with don't want to be involved in that process if they can help it. They just want to treat medical conditions. I think in the old days some of them did go out of their way to make it harder for a vet to file a good claim.

Rental What you are saying is the only way it makes sense. If the VA could choose which evidence to evaluate, and which evidence not to evaluate no one would ever win a claim. They could ignore SMR's, SSD records, IMO's you name it, and just deny a claim. Now if they grant a claim the evidence needs to be reviewed to determine the percentage of disability. If one doctor said the person has a mild disabilit, and the other doctor said the person had a severe disability how can the VA simply ignore one or the other opinions without saying why? I had that very problem with my PN claim. One VA doctor said the PN was secondary to my DMII and the other said it wasn't. The VA ignored the one doctor, and went with the doc who said it was not secondary. I won on appeal. There is the benefit of doubt in this case.

The VA is obligated to review and evaluate all evidence that is relevant in its decision. If they do not list, mention, or cite important evidence you submit how can you determine if they reviewed it or not? For instance, if you send in two IMO's and the VA neither lists or comments on the IMO's, and denies your claim this seems to circumvent due process. If then are not required to list evidence they could ingore any and all evidence you submit, and you are left in an impossible situation. This simply does not make sense. This is the situation me and my lawyer are in where a medical opinion stronly in my favor is not listed or mentioned in a decision. We say it is CUE because it is impossible to determine if they reviewed it or not, and it would have altered the outcome of the decision if reviewed.

Because their are some psychological factors in Chronic Pain Syndrome the VA lumps it into any mental inlless claim you have already. However, if you don't have a psychiatric claim then your chronic pain claim is a stand alone claim. I don't know what kind of rating percentage you can get but more than 0% I bet. I was SC'ed for chronic pain syndrome because of neuropathy due to DMII. So I get trips to the VA's crummy Pain management clinic. They give me three choices: morphine, methadone or percoset. Morphine and methadone make me sick so there is only percoset for me.

Rockhound I had a DRO Hearing 6 months ago, and I am still waiting on the decision. The VA says they are "working" on it. I bet they are just trying to find a way to get out of paying me via the legal office.

By the time you get to the exam if you argue with the doctor you get whacked. I know because it happened to me.

After you deal with the VA you get a little paranoid, so I get that way myself. I think you have a good claim TankerJoe. It takes time. No one is against you here! We have differences of opinion here because we all have our individual experiences with military and VA and our own history.

Karl has to make a judgement about taking a claim as to if he will get paid in the end. He flew at his own expense to represent me at a DRO hearing. If we win he will get a nice paycheck and so will I. We are talking at least 20 years of retro.

My code was for character and behavioral disorder. That means a PD. It made it hard to get SC for a medical mental disorder. The army cheated me and they knew what they were doing. Why did not they discharge me in Vietnam if I was a PD which their half-wit psychiatrist said half way through my tour? They wanted to get the use out of me before kicking me out.

Do you have other insurance besides VA? If you do the VA won't pay. I hate to say but if you want care for this finger from the and want them to pay you should drive the 150 miles to VA ER. Don't go on weekend. Wait until after the holidays. If I had medicare or any other I would just go to a clinic.

I had a C&P exam recently. I felt and was right that the examiner did not do a full exam. She left out required parts of the exam because they would have required more testing (stress test). She was just a PA, but what right did she feel she had to short change me? Fish rot from the head down, so she must have got the word that it was ok to do this half-ass C&P exam.

Rentalguy Considering your experience with back problems do you think it possible that if you have SC foot problems that might cause back problems as a result. I had the foot problems first and then developed the back problems. I have become more sedentary because of my feet and now my back hurts all the time.

I believe the CAR for Marines is same/same as a CIB for Army. Now the newest invention is a combat action badge which is different. That is for those without combat MOS who engage in or are engaged in combat. I don't know the fine print on this, but it was to address the fact that many in Iraq are exposed to enemy fire, but are not infantry. Like convoy drives who are exposed to suicide bombers and small arms fire. They are not grunts but they die just like grunts. In Vietnam if you did not have combat arms MOS you had to prove you were engaged in combat with the enemy either direct or indirect. If a rocket lands on your bunker and you survive then you have been engaged with the enemy. You have to hope you get a little wound in your ass so you can get a PH without getting badly hurt.

I don't believe I have ever met anyone with chronic pain who is not depressed and angry that this happened to them. Today my back and shoulder are hurting so much it was all I could do to go to the food store. I was grouchy and got in an argument with my wife over a trifle. This is the result of chronic pain and pain meds. Chronic pain short circuts your frustration tolerance. It actually changes your brain chemistry along with the drugs we take to try and deal with it. If not for chronic pain I would probably still be working. It was the factor that set off all my other problems that I was able to deal with as a pain free person. i get so frustrated with all the "cures" that are promised by the pain industry that don't pan out, but cost me money. Ibet the others here who have chronic, untreatable pain would agree with this. I am only 58 years old, and yet there are 80 year olds in better shape.

Tankerjoe has a CAR. Why does he need to verify his stressor? His statement of the stressful event should be accepted without him having to get buddy statements. Grunts with CIB don't need buddy statements or other such proofs of stressor.

I had an exam for DMII and for PN and both exams took less than ten minutes. It was basic to say the least. I still had to appeal even though the conditions were presumptive.

topiramate can hurt your eyes. You need to keep a watch on the side effects.