purexattrition

Thanks Navy4Life. That's nice to hear that they don't automatically deny the claim based on that language, though I suppose in your case it was pretty obvious that you rated.

Thank you broncovet. She seemed well qualified and competent, and was polite enough to deserve not having me attack her character just for being honest that she can't give an opinion without speculating. At this point I'm basically just wondering if they'll have me do another exam or not. I'll just wait and see. If they just deny my claim without giving me a chance to be evaluated one way or the other I suppose I will contest the result.

Thanks TBird. I've seen that link about grounds for challenging it. I was just curious if anyone has actually gone through this before and what the outcome was, i.e. if their claim was denied based on this (no nexus, I guess), or if they just had another CP exam scheduled with another doctor, or what, before it comes to the point of having to challenge anything.

You don't need to do any of that... just log on through the healthevet website, then go to your blue button and check "va notes", you have access to all your exams right there, no forms.

If a CP examiner in a mental health claim reports that they'd have to resort to speculation, does that basically set up the claim for denial? I guess I'll find out soon enough, but just thought I'd ask if anyone else has had this happen and their result. Thanks.

I was given a "less likely than not" smack down by my CP examiner (as prior existing MH issue, so not service connected), but some of the things he wrote in his reasoning were direct contradictions to statements in my other documentation (showing that he either didn't read them properly, or that he was intentionally attempting for some reason to cause a denial). In any event, since it's still in the "preparation for decision" phase, I wrote up a document saying I wanted to contest the CP Exam based on (yada yada) and brought it to the regional office so they could add it to my file. Has anyone done this before? Will this be taken into consideration? Do they make you retake the CP exam, or simply continue with the decision and have you appeal? At this point I've pretty much given up any hope that I'll be getting any benefits, but if anyone has had success after such a decision, I'd love to hear your input. Thank you. (Also, if there is any way to file a complaint about an examiner for either gross negligence or intentionally putting false information in a report, I'd like to know how to do that as well, since he put multiple condemning remarks in my report that were the exact opposite of whats stated in the medical documents he was reading through.)

I completed my CP exam and the examiner, in short, said my condition (MH issue) was "less likely than not" incurred in the service due to it existing before I enlisted. Is there anything additional I need to do to claim that if they want to say it was not incurred then it was at least aggravated by service? Is the connection of aggravation as strong as it being incurred in the service? Will the rating officer take this into consideration, or do I need to specify that it was aggravated? The CP exam doesn't make any mention of this, only that it wasn't incurred, so I'm confused. Thank you.