john999

Bi-polar, panic attacks and PTSD and you only got 30%. If you are unable to work due to these disorders I would appeal till the sun goes down for a higher rating. All it takes is for a doctor to say you are unemployable due solely to your SC conditions for a good TDIU claim. I was 30% and became IU and filed for TDIU. I used a psychiatrist who did a report and I eventually was granted my IU. Don't bring anything into the claim that is not SC. I think being able to work is the key ingrediant in getting a higher rating for a mental disorder. As long as you are able to work you won't get more than 50% as a rule.

I did not know about the 7 year window for MS after discharge. Presumptive AO exposure is for vets who were either boot on the ground in Vietnam or in certain other places where AO was used. If a vet can show that he was somehow exposed to AO then there is a long list of diseases he can be service connected for, but not MS that I know of at this time. Even non-presumptive AO exposure cases will sometimes fly if you have medical evidence that AO caused the disease. It is very hard to prove that as a rule. Just about every year or two now a new disease is added to the AO presumptive list. Is there medical evidence that AO causes MS? That is a new one on me. There is evidence and then there is evidence the VA will accept which is different.

I can't believe the VA is actually going to go the extra mile and do something pro-active to help a vet. It sounds like that phrase may be money in your pocket. I would focus on that like a laser. They ignored vital records in my C-File for 37 years.

MS is not a AO presumptive disease. You would need a doctor to say that exposure to whatever shots or gasses caused the MS. You need to build a solid case using medical experts. The VA won't give you this without a fight unless you got the MS within one year of service. When were you diagnosed with MS?

I would try and get the adjustment disorder and depression SC'ed first before I worry about CUE or EED's. You have to have a doctor state that your psychiatric disorders are secondary to the TBI. That is step number one.

Erich Stay in treatment regardless of your rating. The initial rating is just the beginning of the process usually. If you get 50% rating for PTSD you want to eventually get your 100% or IU. The way to do this is to stay in treatment so you build a mountain of documentation. Don't get a rating and then disappear. Make the VA work for you.

30% is too much for a VA lawyer to charge. I believe they have to stick with 20% of your retro. Lawyers representing vets have certain guidelines they have to follow regarding fees. I would question charging 30% of retro.

Never take the VA's word for anything, and persist above all else. Persistence is what separates the winners from losers. Good claim or bad claim you have to be a persistant son of a gun to win with these guys. You know the VA is going to screw up your claim at least once or twice even if it is perfect. You just have to hang in there and keep fighting and insisting on your rights until they get sick of you and grant your claim. It is a mess, and has nothing to do with justice or anything else. The graveyards are full of vets who died without a dime because they gave up.

Will we get a better VA if democrates in Congress and White House get veto proof majority? If we don't get it under those conditions we will never get it.

With the VA anything is possible both good and bad. Persistence is what pays off in the end. You have to wait them out and hope you live to see it.

Regular VA doctors don't know much about what the VBA wants in terms of nexus statements or they may know an shy away from using those terms. Some VA doctors want no part of the compensation process.

Rock That 10% is the lever you can use to crack open the vault door of the VA. You can build on it. I started at 10% many years ago and pecked away until I got TDIU.

No one knows how long this shreddergate has been going on, or how common it has been in the past. Will a whistleblower come forth and admit he has been shredding documents for 20 years at the behest of his boss?

If I am paying for the IMO then I want the doctor to say "It is my medical opinion that the vet's condition is due to an injury or illness that is directly due to his service". If you are asking for a secondary condition to be SC'ed the the doc should say something like " It is my medical opinion that Mr. Jone's condition (X) is secondary to his service connected condition (X)". Why leave room for doubt? Also, have your IMO deal directly with the reasons the VA used to deny or low ball your claim. You want the IMO to rebut the VA's decision in detail. Plus, a specialist is better since the VA often uses PA's and Residents to do your C&P exam.

Raters keep a very low profile since their lives are probably at risk if vets knew who they were and where they lived. They are scared of us and they should be considering the damage they have done. You get to speak to a DRO face to face if you ask for a hearing.

I second Pete's warning about surgery at the VA. I say it even stronger for anything to do with your feet. If they mess it up you can be in a wheelchair. They can really make a mess of foot surgery anywhere. I have foot problems and I would not let them operate on my feet unless I had a compound fracture. I would look at every single option before I let anyone cut on my ankles or feet. You could have a very long recovery (one year) if you let them do surgery on your feet.

If you are not working I think you should apply for TDIU because I think you will meet the criteria for IU percentag wise given your BVA decision. How does you Hep C affect you? They will rate you for only one mental disorder. They will probably rate you under PTSD taking into account the depression. Did you have a GAF score when you got your C&P exam? I think you should probably get more than 50% for the PTSD considering the major depression. It just sounds like it should be 70-100% on its own with the leg as an extra percentage. You might just get 100% for the mental and 40% or more for the leg and hep c which would give you SMC. If you are not working you should be 100%.

Pete If you got the same insurance as members of congress then your medicare would be primary and your insurance would cover all of the other costs if you stay in the PPO network which is huge for BC/BS. I get that insurance now but I pay for it over $300 a month. My wife was in hospital for a week and her co-pays and deductible on a 34,000 dollar bill was 100 dollars. ChampVA will pay that once they get their act together. Any provider in the network has to accept what BC/BS pays. It is good insurance and a major benefit for federal employees. We could do away with the VA system except for those who are in need of long term care.

Give us all the information you can about your successful CUE. These things a technical so we would like the details to see if they can be related to our CUE's.

I know one thing and that is you don't want your file going from VARO to VARO for any reason. As far as time limits for hearings I would not transfer my claim just to get a quicker hearing. Every time your claim leaves the VARO there is the possiblility of it being lost. Whatever your VARO or VSO tells you I would take it with a grain of salt. If you live close to your VARO that is the best situation. You want your claim file and your VARO close to you so you can more easily check it.

ST. Petersburg lost my evidence and claims so often I got to the point that I would only hand deliver stuff to them. They scare me. I have gotten denials from them that contained so many errors and were so dumb I could hardly believe it. My and my psychologist can't make heads or tails of some of their decisions. They are just not logical.

Those remands add potential years to a claim. I had a remand due to an inadequate C&P. It took one year to get another C&P and that one was also a dud. It took another year to get a decent rating plus two more IMO's. Then there was aother year to get TDIU after being unemployed for a year.

Right, you need a diagnosis to win with the VA. I had symptoms of DmII and PN but no diagnosis. The VA just flited around the DMII diagnosis saying pre-diabetes and glucose intolerance. Finally, I got a C&P exam that diagnosed DMII. Based on that I got the PN connected as secondary. As we have said many times the VA will not connect the dots on their own without a medical opinion. The guy who rates you is not a doctor or a lawyer. He just reads the claim and looks at the evidence (you hope) and goes by the numbers.

Ricky I would raise hell about that delay. That is too long to wait for money.

If these were Haliburton invoices being destroyed it would be fixed in 20 minutes and they would get a bonus for the trouble. Vet records and documents just don't seem very valuable to the bums running the VA. Why are not all documents scanned into a computer file instead of sitting in paper files. This is 2008 and still the majority of our files are paper documents stored in warehouses. The VA could hire a few thousand low level temporary employees to scan the files of every veteran so there would be a backup. Pay people on welfare 10 dollars an hour to scan the records. No less insecure than the present system.