GeekySquid

start a new thread with your question. this is a kind of old thread that may not be being watched anymore

I fought that for almost 30 years.

not an assumption I would make, particularly in relation to a C&P exam qualification. Merely being an NP does not mean you are qualified to take ROM measurements per the specification in the Law. Picture the NP that works and has always worked in the Natal Units... while babies are cute and you play with their feet and hands, that does not mean you are qualified to measure ROM as laid out in the law. I do see you have been reading Chris Attig....good for you

but only in an area they are qualified in and have the training to perform C&P's in. A Nurse Practitioner's Opinion verses a MD in the specialty loses every time if the VA follows it's own rules.

rating percentages must be based on the evidence in your file AND the C&P exam. If the C&P exam is faulty it has to be corrected and can only be corrected by a QUALIFIED C&P EXAMINER.

yeah that is not legal

If the va did not request she make an opinion, why was she reviewing your file in the first place?

by some chance do you have an attorney doing work for you? AFD can stand for Attorney Fee Decision.

I agree with part of what Bronco says, the VA looks to be trying to develop to deny. Before you file anything, take the Advice of Chris Attig on Veterans Law Blog, and write in your NOD, APPEAL or what ever a direct challenge to the qualifications of the person who gave you the negative opinion. Demand a full CV, History of Peer Reviewed Papers she has authored, Her list of special certifications that qualifier her to do your exam, Her years of Experience doing C&P exams, and all notes she took during the exam. It is part of a legal strategy. The CAVC will NOT accept a claim against her qualifications if you do NOT raise it at the first opportunity. That would be your NOD, and then further in your Appeal. Keep it up with every round this goes through. The good news if you do this, the VA raters/reviewers should immediately catch that this claim is not going away and that there is a claim for Developing to Deny on the horizon. If you do this challenge right, when you have to get a lawyer they have more ammunition. as background what your are actually challenging is the Presumption that the VA's chosen c&P examiners are competent in their field per 38 USC. I have to look up the actual law, better yet, you can as it is your claim. The courts cannot ignore or white wash a direct attack on a Presumption set into Law. If you are willing to experiment, the GB's suggestion would be interesting to see how well the HLR worked in your case. this wording could be very important. If you will, get the DBQ and redact it. Then post. There may be other options buried in it that you don't recognize.

GB is right.... find a hobby besides obsessing out an Ebennies Status message. that said this is an new one on me.

I wish this thread was locked so this argument does not keep coming back. Read Tbirds link. Nothing in the law says "if you are 100% schedular for PTSD/MH you cannot work" period. full stop. that is a vastly different conversation than saying would an employer want you to be at the job if you have psychotic episodes. Buck is right on this point. Further, VA compensation is based on the paradigm of 'the average person's ability to earn income" it is not disability in the was SSDI is. we are not collecting disability payment but compensation for the harm done to our ability to earn what the hypothetical "average person" can earn. When he says VA might send you for a new C&P, that is true, but it is always true MH or Physical. If what Whoop relies on was correct 100% MH vets would automatically get SMC(s) because they can not function outside the home socially. and if Congress wanted 100% PTSD/MH vets to NOT be able to work they would have directly said so, like they do with TDIU. They chose not to. I would love to see this false myth die a fast death, but it won't. sadly it just won't die.

You will need to find the PDR at that time and look at that drug for dosing instructions at that time. If I read you right, he got inhalers in service. His STRs should say the name of the drug he got. If the records don't state a frequency of use, then look to the drugs history of dosing and the manufacturers recommendations in effect at that time. I think you will find a lot of those medications were "as needed" not to exceed xxx times a day. An MD may be needed to opine that way back then the standard was blah blah blah. Is that section of 4.97 you posted the current one or from when he was rated? I know you know this, but you need to use the one from when he was rated. If you can show that above info then a 4.6 claim is probably warranted.

welcome paul...we could all use an extra 330K lol

good luck. I hope it works out 330K is a nice college fund.

Duty to Assist is a really complicated thing. the VA has worked diligently to reduce what it has to do in terms of Duty to Assist, Notify and a couple of others. Look at the full claim packet, rating decision and award letter. Did you specifically raise, or reasonably raise, the need for IU? In the packet in the evidence did they include a form for TDIU? Did the letter say "we need more evidence of IU". In your c-file is there a request and response from Social Security for you work history? This is where you start. If you can redact those things of Personal information and then post them, it would help people here from offering opinions. You don't need to include all the forms they included, just the full letter and full decision which have the evidence listed

https://cck-law.com/blog/news-what-is-process-at-board-under-new-va-appeals-system/ i think that may answer your question...it depends on what path you took to some extent.

this sounds like what used to be called Aid to Dependent Children. It was a separate benefit a retired parent could apply for. It used to have a strong means test. The reason I know this is that my stepfather, who was not my legal guardian, applied for ADC under my mothers name without anyone knowing. He falsified her application by omitting himself from the income equation. He collected that money for years. When I got out of boot camp and went to A school a check showed up from Social Security. I didn't know what it was for so went to base legal who got me an appointment with SS. The lawyer said to get anything they told me in writing. get a copy of the rule or law that authorized it, because I was in the military at 17 I was a legal and independent adult and should not qualify for the ADC. SS said I was and gave me a stack of regs and laws. I gave them to base legal so they could keep copies and put them in my service jacket. I kept getting that check until my 23rd birthday. That check showed up in a very fat envelope saying that I had never been eligible for ADC and that I owed the government 66K for the wrongly paid ADC to my sister and myself. You can bet I was shocked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Turns out SS had dunned my stepfather for it, and he claimed poverty. Then they contacted my sister about her over payment and she claimed poverty. Neither of them thought to tell me about this; go figure I don't have good feelings about them. SS then decided that they would try and get it all from me. I went to base legal, they pulled those records out of my file. They contacted SS in Crystal City and smacked them around. I got a letter from SS saying "oops, our bad" and that attempt to dun me for it was revoked. If it had not been that base Jag telling me to get copies, and the SS administrator giving them to me, I would have been screwed blue.

the date you see on ebenefits is the date of the change or increase. If they did not change or increase that particular rating, then yes challenge it as it affects your protection for a specific rating. For example if you have 40% for 5 years it gains a level of protection against reduction. If at 6 years you get bumped to 50% for that rating the 40% has a protection from being in effect for 5 years, but the additional 10% does not. When you have been at that 50% for 5 years, that additional 10 percent has a 5 year protection and the 40 will have a ten year protection. there are various levels of protection from being reduced, including being 55, P&T, along with the protections from 5 years etc up to 20 with a rating when they would have to prove you committed fraud in getting the rating to reduce it.

i am being nosy, 330k from what?

just remember that SSDI works the same as TDIU in that it is means tested. I don't know the details, but I think you said you are retired from service, will retire from the government and getting va comp. I don't know how SSDI will fit into that equation. Just be sure your other income doesn't reduce SSDI while saddling you with an annual means test. I doubt you want to work again, but if you decide to, it may not be in your best interests to have that SSDI payment unless it is really substantial.

do you really care if his feelings are hurt? you will learn....they don't know a quarter of what they are supposed too... or at least many don't, I don't want to insult all VSO's....some are good people who know a lot and help a lot.

imagine if it was not rare? the backlog is stupid to begin with.... with an estimated 25 million vets out there, and a significant number eligible for compensation, the VA would never get to new claims if they came after every vet who was 100% P&T. i would like to see the stats of us who are 55 Plus, at 100%, and had ratings for 5, 10, 15, and 20 years. The 55 is a biggie. Generally we are considered too old to be retrained in a new career, so taking away compensation, no matter the percentage, could lead to making even more vets impoverished, homeless or marginally housed. Only TDIU vets are means tested on a regular basis. If vet is homeless or asking to be housed in a veterans home for old vets, they also get means tested but those are relatively few and are "one off" requests. The rest of us can earn incomes as we see fit with no effect on our compensation. We all forget that 100% is not the same for VA standards as it is for SSDI standards. Under the Schedule, it is a rating of impairment to earning an income based on an "average person" paradigm created in the 40's. It really does not contemplate all the white collar jobs that our economy has shifted too since then. If it is ever updated to reflect that type of work more accurately many veterans would not be rated as high as they are now

https://www.va.gov/disability/add-remove-dependent/\ Who does VA consider a dependent? A dependent is: A spouse (Note: we recognize same-sex and common-law marriages) A parent, if you’re directly caring for them and their income and net worth are below a certain amount An unmarried child (including an adopted child or stepchild) who meets one of the eligibility requirements listed below To be considered a dependent, one of these must be true of an unmarried child. They: Are under 18 years old, or Are between the ages of 18 and 23 years old and enrolled in school full time, or Became permanently disabled before they turned 18

If I were you I would be emailing the head of my local Regional Office. The standard VA email pattern is firstname.lastname@va.gov.....make sure you put the DOT between first and last names. you can find them on the local VA's website under the leadership team. I would copy everyone on the leadership team list, just in case one of them has an odd name and end up with bob34.smith9@blah blah I would also copy that email to both my senators and state representative in washington. I would copy the state governor and everyone at the state level I would tell them point blank, the VA is dragging its feet, i am on the verge of being kicked out and if I don't get some help me an my kids will be planted on the sidewalk in front to the VA Regional Office in a tent and I will call a press conference. Put them on BLAST We just had another mother of 2 do this and went from dawdling to getting her award in like 5 days, the head of the VA jumping when she snaps her fingers and a direct conduit to one of her Senators. The others are correct. Do call the Power company etc and negotiate with them for a little more time. For Proof of the money, go to Ebenefits or VA.gov and log in. Go look at your letters. Generate your Letters. Also go to the Payment History link and screen cap that page. If you have a laptop take that with you to you landlords office and show them in the actual webpage that your claims are real and it is just a snafu being straightened out. good luck, let us know what happens.

that's a relief Buck, I was a little worried you were losing your mind You now how that the conspiracy nuts just make me sad and worried for America. I just never understand how otherwise sane people are so willing to create conspiracies out of whole cloth ....and then believe their own creations. it always irks the crud out of me to pay to get my own money. I remember when ATM cards were a novelty and having my bank beg me to get one. Promising that there would NEVER be a fee or cost me anything. Flyer after flyer filled my mail box. Every trip to the bank was met by at least 2 bank employees begging me to fill out a card request. That lie didn't last a year. Fees popped up all over the place, even at my banks ATM. ON THE BASE no less. The bank even got a license to put an ATM in the E-Club, Nineteenth Hole, and the Chiefs Club; they charged even HIGHER fees than at the ATM attached to the bank building. Banks are not bad, but they are greedy. They don't rule the world and are not a secret cabal run by jewish people. They do have an outsized influence on daily life. this is always such variable "benefit" based on the bank and the choice they make in that moment. Congress in fact back in 2013 or 14 took all of them to task for making 'over draft protection' a billion dollar profit center. I am glad yours works out for you, but for many people it was a screw job from jump street. I consulted with major banks on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, and I have to tell you some of the stuff that banks write down as their plans for these banking products makes your gonads draw back into your body out of the shear fear that they might implement the greedy product. I believe in capitalism, I don't believe in unfettered greed at any expense to the customer.