Lemuel

TBI, by the 2008 law, is specifically separated TBI from the residuals such as personality syndrome, PTSD etc.  It was for the "dementia" residuals.  Check out 38 CFR chapter 4 on TBI ratings:  Woops, it has changed.  Your rating is probably correct under the new rating system per Hill & Ponton attorneys.  I just did a search to make sure I was not giving misinformation.
You are probably better with the rating if they did the simple adding together of the residuals of the TBI as opposed to my 40% TBI and 30% personality disorder which only add up to 60% in the combined rating schedule and would barely get me in the door for TDIU though I have not worked since September of 1990 and drew SDI from then.  I had a combined rating of only 50% until getting the TBI rating. Fortunately, the Director, Compensation Services recommended that I be granted TDIU back to September of 1985 which was the last day of my full-time employment.  And I received the big award in April of 2020.  And now that I am already TDIU, my cervical disc disease has been rated at 20%.  I expect my lumbar disc disease to be rated similarly since it is secondary to my temporal lobe epilepsy which has not yet been considered as a claimed residual of my severe TBI.
Depending upon your work income history, you might submit an extra-schedular claim to the Director, Compensation Services.  Especially if your past employers made special considerations for you because you were a veteran such as my last employer and a couple of the full-time employers before that.  I only had evidence of that in the file for my last employer.

Whistle blower retaliation is not just related to VA employees.  As a veteran activist. I currently have a whistle blower complaint at the BVA for destroying my VA Medical file and having had to replace it from a 2- or 3-year-old file copy to another medical organization.  Refusal to provide medical evidence by the Medical Division facilities to the Benefits Division facilities and refusal of the Benefits facilities to pursue the evidence until it was obtained.
The BVA cannot order an outside opinion on EEG tracings or radiographic film if it looks very similar to the untrained eye and yet there are two radically different interpretations on the evidence related to the same person's body part.

Sorry, I was not talking about the VA refusing to give the attorney list.  I ask the clerk at CCK for their attorney list so I could search attorneys by using the "attorney" check box on the CAVC docket search.
I am surprised that no one with the last name, Chisholm, ever file a case at the CAVC since it opened.  Plenty of Brays including me in pro se and one attorney have filed cases.  
The VA BVA search has probably been lobbied out by legal search engines that you have to pay to subscribe such as, Fast Case.  Lots of them now and the ones attorneys use cost a lot per year.  

Thanks for the info, Vync.  I am in the same position with part.  I have a medical malpractice claim and a denied to exist I-9 from 1994 when we wrote them in letter form.  The unprocessed I-9 is more clearly a CUE.  Coupled with Denver VARO's 1998 denial of its existence to the VA OIG.
I am thinking of going extra-schedular with mine by motion the BVA.  They may grant the motion and refer to the Director, Compensation Services to get it out of their backlog since the DVA did not process the remands as remanded and I can provide clear evidence of that in the motion.

There is the precedence of the CAVC requiring the DVA to process appeals within 18 months when the backlog of getting to the BVA was years. 
While the Appeals courts take longer, they are dealing with the laws not the facts or the application of facts to law.  They are not the decider of facts.
The deciders of facts must be timelier under the 5th Amendment "Due Process".
The BVA is the finale finder of facts in the VA appeals process for the DVA.
If the CAVC was willing to apply the 5th to the VA Benefits Division, I see it as a probability that, citing their precedence, the CAVC may also cause the BVA to get on the ball and fill their attorney vacancies and move up the delayed hearings.
The problem is COVID and COVID long haul.  How long should the BVA get to be back up and running at full strength?  How long should I, as a Vietnam era Veteran, have to wait given the impending backlog from the PACT Act? Will my appeal, because of being complicated by missing files from the VA's mishandling of hard copy files put me in the file, "delay, deny, wait until they die," at 81 years of age?
Much of my appeal is based upon remanded items that the DVA failed to complete from my May 2017 BVA Decision.
How many more are in my position?  Why isn't the age priority working in our cases at the BVA? 
During COVID, I had an at home BVA hearing scheduled.  But when the Office clerk, probably working from home, had a computer that was incompatible with the VA system unless communicating with a Google Chrome Browser.  Because of adverse experiences with Google Chrome security, I refuse to use Google Chrome.  I contacted the IT on the link provided and discovered a sound problem that could have been corrected the way it was for my BVA 2016 hearing by using a telephone for sound for my attorney who was unable to be seen on the video at the Cheyenne VA hearing room.
My computer connection was O K.  My telephone was also O K.  There was no reason to cancel my hearing by the BVA office clerk other than a probable shortage of a Judge to hear me Given the COVID status at that time.  So why did the office clerk just tell me the Judge was sick and unable to conduct the hearing?  Why the bull about a connection problem?
How much delay time should I allow given the COVID back log for all of us waiting?  Godsey v. Wilkie link- NVLSP is the CAVC Decision that prompted the 18 month limit for the RO DRO to certify a claim to the BVA.  Will the CAVC follow suit with a mandamus to the BVA on delays?  How much consideration will they give to the COVID delay excuse?

I consider my first DVA the best.  He made me record "residuals of" for all of the items he could find in my medical file which was reasonably short.  Especially for hospitalizations, everything does not make it into the hospital summary.
Example, the Army recorded hospitalizations summaries of only the rehabilitation in the medical record.  For those who went to rehab, it is necessary to get the IPTR (inpatient treatment records) from archives, especially those whose records were damaged in the fire.  The IPTR were housed in a different building and are in good shape.  My Navy OPTR (outpatient treatment record) went to the VA before the fire, so they are fine.  My problem is the VA lost my OPTR in 1987 or 1988 so the record had to be rebuilt from a copy of a copy made in 1985.  So two years of progress notes are missing and only those made in a new file after the loss are available.
Before you write your congressman about mistreatment, get a copy of you VA OPTR file.  Probably not a problem now since they are on a centralized computer, but I would download them anyway.  Especially, you need to download the report you are complaining about. 

You have the same problem I have.  Tinnitus and hearing loss are also interconnected but claimed separately because they are rated separately in the schedule.  Problem is we, as non-professionals, see them as one when asking for compensation because they go together.  Depends on whether the doctor tells us which is the problem.  The Navy told me I had a hearing problem.  They wrote in the consult that I had tinnitus to the degree I could not operate a forklift.
I claimed a hearing problem.  I complained to the audiologist that I could not hear all of the beeps because of ringing in my ears.  But the RO had excluded tinnitus from the examination because I only claimed hearing problem.
There is a CAVC Decision that goes against the RO limitation of examinations. 
When the VA does an examination it must do a complete examination whether it is required to do so by law or not. 
The decision is cited in my 2017 BVA Decision and the examinations were remanded because they were not complete.  They still have not been done as remanded and I am back at the BVA because the DRO did not read the remands citation in the Facts laid out by the BVA Judge.

The VA Secretary has subpoena powers as do all Department Secretaries through their DOJ sections known as "General Counsel."
The VA Secretary's subpoena power is delegated to VARO directors which delegate, according to the VA research specialist I spoke to, to the local VA Office General Counsel.  38 CFR 2.2.  My request for a subpoena from the Director VARO Los Angeles is waiting to find the Office of General Council address for that VARO.
The hard copy "Medical Division medical files" are maintained in the Medical Division Archives who knows where?  In order for me to find my hard copy Medical Division file to replace items that were taken out during RO assessments and never returned to file or placed in someone else's file in error or even shredded to catch up work under pressure, I have to find the Facility that last had my hard copy medical file.  The VAMC at San Diego, Los Angeles, would probably have gone to San Bernadino.  VAMC in DC and Baltimore would probably go to the DC National Archives.  Wyoming to either Denver or Billings depending on whether it was Cheyenne or Sheridan that archived it. 
I was traveling homeless between those VAMCs during the transition from hard copy to data.  Not all of them had the same digital systems and they could not see records from one VAMC to the other at that time.  And some were still maintaining hard copy files.  The last time I saw a VA physician have my hard copy medical file was in DC shortly before I went to San Diego and requested my medical file to be transferred there.  I was there about one year being seen every two weeks and never saw a physician with anything but a laptop.  I was also seen in LA and LA may have requested my file from DC because I told them that was the last place that I saw it.
National Archives is scanning archived material into data files.  
There is a VA OIG report of a 5.25-mile-high stack of VA files that have not yet been scanned.
The above is my best guess on what is happening haven gotten 1988 files from the San Bernadino National Archives and that we do not get VA files from the military National Military Personnel Center Archives in St. Louis.
I will let everyone know once I get a copy of my hard copy medical file where it came from by return address.  The VA has active copies of all documents in the VA Compensation and Pension Files which include all of your data VA medical files. 
When I requested a copy of the VA Medical Division archived "hard copy" of my medical file what I received was a partial copy of the over 10,000 pages with copious duplicates that I received when my C&P file was belatedly released from Pittsburg sensitivity seven division in 2015 and scanned by Cheyenne Division of Denver VARO in Denver by a contractor. 
The 2 boxes I received were 18 " tall with 2 stacks of 2 sided documents in each.  4 x 18" = 64" or over 5-foot-tall stack of two sided documents to wade through for my 2016 BVA hearing.  I believe the contractor padded their bill by running stacks of documents through more than once because the back side of PROGRESS NOTES did not match the dates of the front sides and many had other documents as the back side consecutively in the stacks.
While I was a MATcat in the Navy the hospitals stored IPTR 5 years after the last entry before sending them to ST. Louis.  Civilian hospitals also had the same time period before archiving.  X-ray films were sent for silver recovery after 5 years after the last X-ray was taken on an individual.
I mention the above to show I have some experience to try to connect the dots and find my records that are missing from my C&P file.  I have had no luck with FOIA requests since 1998.  The files I had became paper machete in a flood.

Those that work in the VA prefer the VSOs because they are easier to get to in the office.  Going outside the VSOs is best because buddy relationships are avoided in getting a clear view of your case after the first try.
Both VSO Reps and ROs look at previous workups and if there were errors in those workups you have to go outside or do it yourself throwing everything at the wall to get previous errors corrected.  Even attorneys did not work well for me at the BVA level, and I could not get one to go to the CAVC.  Understanding the reason is helpful.  You cannot appeal a factual report without evidence it was "arbitrary and capricious" which means very obviously erroneous.
I am trying a statement of facts to the BVA for the follow up of my 2017 BVA decision with remands.  The examinations had limitations and did not include the remanded instructions.  Therefore, proof of "arbitrary and capricious" DRO exam orders. 
Will let everyone know how it works out.  I believe the BVA Judge will have to address each fact specifically that I have stated and provided evidence of record to back up.  For example, the confirmation of my temporal lobe epilepsy that was them mistreated with Tegretol making my mental condition worse as predicted in the precautions on page 983 of the 1990 Edition and current Edition of the PDR and the refusal to change medications until I weaned off and quit causing the Seizure Clinic to quit seeing me.
I am not surprised an RO or DRO would want everyone to go to a VSO.  Their work goes on overload answering congressional correspondence and it increases their backlog.
So, make sure in congressional correspondence you complain about the backlog.  Especially the backlog caused by COVID and people working at home, AKA sometimes working between kids or beers.  Because the computer was logged on for 8 hours does not mean 8 hours of work was being done.
That was and is universal.  I experienced it trying to refinance during COVID.  Luckly the delay let me get the lowest rate and closing costs at PenFed after trying SunWest, Quicken Loans and some others.  The extra cost of the 4% credit line for 3 extra months is quickly made up by betting down from 3.25% to 2.25%.  Now the rates are back up as people are back to the office and underwriters can place their money without so much competition.

When I joined in 1961, there was a strong prejudice against pre-existing conditions.  It appears to remain in the VA legal circles. 
After reading the Syllabus, I understood the prejudice that came from authors near my age against pre-existing conditions and short terms of service.  And I think there was the additional prejudice of creating a new line of entitlements from being of political age during the Reagan administration.
I served until 1974.  The draft had just ended before I got out.  That changed a lot of things.
I think I will have better luck with CUE.  I ask the BVA to re-open my previous BVA hearings and adjudications under 38 CFR 20.1000 which allows the BVA to reopen cases on request or on the BVA's own volition with some limitations. 
I think the BVA is taking time to investigate my allegations of fact because I received a call from a BVA staff member about what she interpreted as an FOIA request.  I was asking for an order to obtain items that had been denied to me and had not been provided to the Benefits Division on their requests.  Since they were not in my C&P file as I had noted, she said she would have to deny the FOIA request.
To make the request clearer, I ask the BVA to request a subpoena to the Medical Facility involved from the local VARO under 38 CFR 2.2.  
And I ask for a VA Central Office subpoena to the Medical Division who has the custody of my hard copy medical file that has not been scanned into the data base because my FOIA request on obtained additional copies of my C&P file on CD.

The St Louis fire did not destroy any IPTR.  OPTR (outpatient treatment records) and personnel files were either damaged or destroyed in the fire.  I helped a Vet with cerebral malaria history and grand mall seizure epilepsy subsequently get his records from the fire.  They were partially burned and severely water damaged.  The page 13 was readable and we were able to get his IPTR for his acute treatment contradicting the mildness of the Hospital Summary for his malaria treatment which only covered the dates of his 2 week rehabilitation camp following the acute IPTR period.

Thanks.  Was aware of that but did not state it.  No leak so we do not know where it is in the initial vote.

There is Constitutional support in Section 4 of the 14th Amendment on the costs.

My pending BVA Appeal has a lot of the same issues raised Constitutionally.  You can read my last post with the BVA Brief and motions by clicking on the "L" to the left.  Hope he wins because it will make a win for me at the BVA. I will bring it up at the hearing.

I would claim the PTSD is the nexus for the TBI even if the TBI event is not recorded in your military health record because of the circumstances of the incident.  If you have a 70% PTSD rating, it should mean you have a combat nexus.  Speaking as a former Navy Hospital Corpsman, I know that field tags were often lost or the period of unconsciousness that occurred before transport was not recorded because the patient regained consciousness or appeared to regain full consciousness before being transported.  Patients often woke up in field hospitals asking, "where am I" more than 24 hours after being transported indicating amnesia and extended the period of related unconsciousness.  
I am still fighting for veterans I know experienced brain damage from cerebral malaria who showed up in the PTSD groups that I attended with my TBI symptoms.  Their acute phase of hospitalization was not recorded in their health record, just the rehab portion.  Thus, the symptoms indicating brain damage are not found in their military health record unless they obtained the acute care inpatient treatment record, (IPTR).
TBI hospital summaries were, in the same way, deliberately minimized.  Often, a patient was admitted unconscious and treated on the ward of their most serious condition.  Later less serious injuries were treated and became the major focus in the Hospitalization Summary with the unconsciousness noted only in passing without the severity or omitted completely.
The difference between PTSD victims and non-PTSD victims, I believe, is a fully function brain.  There are many studies that show that the damaged brain is much more susceptible to stress supporting that PTSD recovery is limited in the TBI.
I would argue that, and I am arguing that I never had a complete required by 38 CFR 4.42 examination and that my effective date should be the date of my first claim for injury.
I have been fighting my claims for a very long time since first diagnosed with a TBI and denied PTSD.  I am waiting for my BVA hearing and am attaching my brief to the BVA and motions filed along with my 10182, (redacted) for anyones review that might find them helpful in filing their claims or appeals.  On request I will also redact and provide my previous BVA Decisions.  This hearing will include the 05/17/2017 BVA remands that were not completed.  Specifically, the remands for "complete" examinations as required by a referenced court precedence.
The motions are numbered with the number of the related issue.
I have an attorney lined up to take it after the BVA Decision.  My brief and motions follow my experience with inadequate representation and 10-year study of the CAVC cases and CAFC cases particularly related to their jurisdiction.  The BVA is the only fact finder.  The only way you can appeal a "factual finding" by the BVA is to prove it is "arbitrary and capricious." 
I was taken advantage of an attorney who refused to do the Appeals Court representation and essentially waited for an $80,000.00 fee from the remand.  I am determined not to let that happen to me again.
20210131 Lem to BVA 10182 signed_Redacted.pdf 20220418 Finale brief to BVA.pdf 20220412 Motion 10 to BVA .pdf 20220307 Motion 1 to BVA .pdf 20220307 Motion 1b to BVA .pdf 20220307 Motion 2 to BVA.pdf 20220307 Motion 3 to BVA.pdf 20220307 Motion 4 to BVA .pdf 20220307 Motion 4b to BVA.pdf 20220307 Motion 6 to BVA.pdf 20220307 Motion 9 to BVA to vacate .pdf

Read thru the whole thing.  No clue on how they will decide.  Hope the go for George because it will make CUE better defined when it comes to regulations and statutes.  And both ultimately must fall under Constitutional authority as the "higher authority."  I think then "Fifth Amendment, denial of due process" will become a CUE.  
Still waiting for my BVA hearing.

My BVA Judge's de novo review found the attached previously unprocessed "request consideration for additional compensation" got me an EED for TDIU from 2009 back to 1985 based upon my record.
If your record supports it, you should put in the special request.  There are numerous references in 38 CFR for submission of a requesting consideration for additional compensation, including being poverty stricken even, to the Director Compensation Services.  I am also attaching a redacted copy of the Director's letter that got the DRO to make the EED TDIU award.
It appears to me this is the best way to address EED issues.  The director can specify the date the records show the disability.  That would include family, employers' or teachers' statements about your addiction.  It took 8 days from the Director's opinion to the DRO Decision.  Another 3 months to payment because it entailed going back to schedules that were no longer online in the accounting department.
Note:  The date went back 2 years before the claim and therefore I presume an EED is established by the Director according to the record.  A Central Office DRO has to do due diligence in sending the file up to the Director's office.  No mistake will be made because the decision is appealable, and the Director does not like to lose appeals.
3711 19870624 TDIU claim_Redacted.pdf 20200408 - TDIU Review - Admin Opinion_Redacted.pdf

My BVA Judge's de novo review found the attached previously unprocessed "request consideration for additional compensation" got me an EED for TDIU from 2009 back to 1985 based upon my record.
If your record supports it, you should put in the special request.  There are numerous references in 38 CFR for submission of a requesting consideration for additional compensation, including being poverty stricken even, to the Director Compensation Services.  I am also attaching a redacted copy of the Director's letter that got the DRO to make the EED TDIU award.
It appears to me this is the best way to address EED issues.  The director can specify the date the records show the disability.  That would include family, employers' or teachers' statements about your addiction.  It took 8 days from the Director's opinion to the DRO Decision.  Another 3 months to payment because it entailed going back to schedules that were no longer online in the accounting department.
Note:  The date went back 2 years before the claim and therefore I presume an EED is established by the Director according to the record.  A Central Office DRO has to do due diligence in sending the file up to the Director's office.  No mistake will be made because the decision is appealable, and the Director does not like to lose appeals.
3711 19870624 TDIU claim_Redacted.pdf 20200408 - TDIU Review - Admin Opinion_Redacted.pdf

I have a hearing coming up on re-opening my PTSD claim in 1984.  The 1985 C&P examiner diagnosed PTSD.  The Chief of Psychiatry wrote a note on the exam, "not PTSD, no numbing" though the symptoms of numbing are listed in the C&P but not the specific listing of them as numbing.  Seems some of the VA medical personnel diminish as much as possible the disabling affects.  I am going to prove that by comparing an MRI read by the Radiology Department of the University of Colorado Medical School to one only a month later by the VA Radiology Group.  Guess which one was very benign.  The problem is the reports are considered to be accurate, so one must have an opposing vies by a higher medical authority.
Employment history is a good rebuttal.  Get your Social Security CAVES Report if it will help and statements from employers about time off for medical care of these issues.  My CAVES Report and my VA clinical appoints give evidence to the degree PTSD was affecting my life.

The CAVC recognized Constitutional 5th Amendment due process in Noah v McDonough attached to my earlier post.
What is needed is to get the Congress's limitation of compensation when it recognizes new disabilities (TBI 2008) and these new presumptive service connections under the Fourteenth Amendment Section (4), guaranteeing U S Debt especially and specifically to veterans.  I will give it a try if the BVA does not recognize it when I bring it up at my hearing, to get it to the CAVC.  I have TBI and other conditions that apply under the general 38 CFR Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 statements of intent and how to SC and rate conditions not in the Disability Compensation (DC) tables.
Really need a Constitutional Attorney for this but since none will take it, will have to go it alone like Noah did.

Forgot to add, Parkinsons came on the presumptive list after IHD did, so I assume you are an incountry Vietnam veteran, and not a Blue Water Navy veteran.
In any event, you have AO presumptives and the VA is doing a review of them to make sure they give you the proper EED. (Earliest Effective date).
NVLSP will review their decision , via contact from you with a copy of the decision, to make sure the VA has given you proper EEDS and retro amount.
NVLSP won Nehmer. Their review is free.
I am an AO widow and have contact info for them when you need it.
It should also be here as well in the AO forum.
This is good news but with the 100% now ( I assume not for any of those disabilities they reopened ???) it should put you into a SMC S rating. I hope!
If I were you I would not worry about a reduction, and you probably will get the best info you need here at hadit but maybe you should keep the POA you have.
 
 

Subscribed a couple of months ago.  Annual subscription.

Bronco is always on target.

Also, the VA, under 4.42 is require to do a full review of the record and (another section I do not have memorized) make an application for a correction of military records on anything missed on your behalf.

38 CFR 4.2. 
It is probably quoted under due process.  I''ll post when I find it.  Probably in my BVA decision. Memory is not so good anymore.  Need to get my feet up awhile.