MikeHunt

I had mixed results with them, the office knew more than most, but didn't know as much as they thought they did- and that's the dangerous part.

Go to the RO and ask the desk person to print a copy. Go to your VSO (Legion, DAV, VFW) and ask them to print a copy. The VA is a bureaucracy with one mission; to increase the bureaucracy. drawing out and complicating your access to your own information is just one way they accomplish that.

Great advice- I suggest first using your cong representative or senator. It's kinda like how they suggest not talking to police without a lawyer- The VA can take anything you say, or said you said, and use it against you. 'He told us to withdraw the claim' Then you can use the written lies they send to your cong rep to send to the White house. "They lied to a US Senator, for God's sake" All outa personal experience.

If you get someone else's records you need to report it to everyone. IG, news, the VA congress. They absolutely refused to use secure print feature included standard in the printer software, so an employee would just go to printer/copier and grab the stack another employee had printed, then they got your records and you got theirs

Yes. You should claim them. What happens is the VSR goes through your medical records and annotates the document and page number in the exam request. You can certainly get an IME (Fills out DBQ) for them. I'm not sure why Its repeated that PTSD can only be diagnosed by the VA. This is totally false, yet is repeated in every thread. The VA is doing less and less C&P exams, they're 'farming them out' to private contractors.

Well, I FOUND receipts for 6/23/00 that lists visit for "Dx 088.81 Disease, Lymes", and orders, pay and an EFMB badge award all showing I was in Ft. McCoy on 6/17/00. That's enough for a clinician to say ' ... More likely than not.' The original question - Sounds like it CAVC 04-1210 from Mr. Lippman's agent. I couldn't find it online (just some reference) and my local Law librarian though it was Smith v Nicholson. I'm not sure, however, it will do any good if it's a single judge decision. The thing I need to work on now is getting that IMO/IME, and sorting out what to claim. The decision, against what were told, has the Veteran SC for Lymes, eventhough it's the residuals that are the current disability, and those residuals. Make sense? They really jacked this guy around in that BVA decision . If the same thing occurs to me, it would be likely most of us would be dead before a final decision, so I want to avoid it.

One bit of advice in general, if you are filing for a disability, DON'T put anything unnecessary in box 14; Old VA records held up so many claims it was unbelievable! You'd get exactly what you got, and many times it was just redundant- Enough to show a 'current condition' was already in the record. You need to go to the hospital's ROI and use their form. If they want to mess with you, go to your congressman. They may not get it for them, but at least you get something in writing to 'adjust fire' off of.

DRC are a VA scam. They aren't decided any quicker than any other claim. all they do is put the workload and responsibility on your VSO, who is the one who is supposed to be watching the VA, and start that timeline AFTER the VSO has completed the work the VA is supposed to do!! Two scenarios: 1. You 'file' at your VSO. VAs accountability (and start of clock) only begins when your VSO has gotten the exam, and other records to the VA. This is likely to be months. My VSO has no clue how to schedule an exam; when I worked at the VA I scheduled hundreds.It's really easy to mess up. 2. You file traditionally: VA is responsible-and accountable- for nearly ALL aspects of developing the claim from the moment they receive it. The VA conceivably could do the ENTIRE claim in close to 30 days, not just rating.

Depends on how strong your claim is, and on which examiner you get. If you want a for-sure, do the last. The VA doesn't publish the common audio/hearing DBQ, or at least didn't 10 months ago.

You can get your FBI file, but that you don't have ready access to your VA C and E-file is just absurd. Unless you're the VA, then putting up another roadblock totally make sense.

The DBQ helps the rater determine the % of disability. So, yes. The rater can't determine whether a vet has Leukemia or not- Only an examiner. Some presumptives, I'd just ask the examiner to report based on presence (Agent Orange and Cancer) of the disability in records, as it's always 100%, like leukemia. so no There is verbiage that a clear medical record is supposed to be sufficient to rate, but I didn't see it- Not that I'd seen everything, or close to everything, or be in a position to see it.

As far as Lymes specific- I'd rather have an overview of finding Vet friendly doctors. I noticed one of the appeals ( Burns-2934.pdf ) CACV was highly impressed on a quote of a University specialist on a particular of the Veteran's Lyme's. Perhaps a University would be a good place to find a doctor. I don't understand why the VA was ordering exams when they had an IMO.

Thanks! I wrote Mr. Lippman. I couldn't find the case by online query, nor the law librarian through Westlaw (or whatever) and the 2006 batches aren't searchable, so that'll be my last resort. They are interesting to read, the Burns-2934.pdf CAVC beats the BVA down like ... But you have to remember, the VA is a bureaucracy that loves to build more bureaucracy, every remand is a major win for that end, even if some judges make you look dumb.

I think there's a typo that limits my understanding of the question. If you had an operation on something (say, sinuses), and a complication of the operation is that you now have headaches, you can file for headaches. If you got a high enough rating for the new headaches disability, of course your total rating would increase. My guess is it's a little more personal than sinuses, since you didn't mention it. Sounds like it would be 'Direct' as opposed to 'Secondary', but that's just academic from your perspective.

No. Future exam date is set in a program (a 'diary'). Ask for the 'Codesheet' from your RO. They instructed us NOT to give the codesheet to the Veteran, because it contains the rater's name, so expect resistance. They do have to give it to you. The codesheet will reflect when a future exam (RFE) is due, or whether it's a 'Static disability.' Obviously, the VA can, and does do whatever it wants. If you have a codesheet that says there's a RFE in five years, and suddenly you get called for exam for an old disability, unrelated to the new claim, you can raise heck. The second example is extremely old, it looks like the first one is corrupted. 20170606 Decision Codesheet redact.pdf