-Mods, I'm not sure of the best place to put this question. I apologize in advance. Please feel free to locate it wherever is most appropriate.-
BLUF: I may have Cancer and multiple people (VA and Contractors,) knew about it for the last 10 months but never notified me.
I'm going to try and keep this as short as possible. As usual there there is disagreement with a VA decision. This resulted in a C/P exam late July 2018. As part of this exam there were X-Rays taken of my left shoulder. Because the C/P exam was done by a contractor (QTC,) it's very difficult to get access to the exam report and DBQ.
I immediately submitted a FOIA request for the information...nothing. A few months later submitted another....nothing. Finally, in January 2019 I submitted a third FOIA request and got notification that my request was received and I'd have the information in 3-6 weeks. Records arrived in the mail on May 21st (18 weeks later.)
During my review of the information there was a note from a radiologist describing a lesion on a bone in my left arm. Separately, on the DBQ Section XVI (Remarks,) the examiner wrote (quoting here,):
"Critical Findings: There is a need for the claimant to follow up with their primary care provider regarding a life threatening finding in this examination. However, the claimant has NOT been notified to do so. The findings were described as: + lesion , unknown etiology, left humerus, clinical correlation recommend with PCP."
I was never notified by the examiner or by anyone at the VA about a "life threatening finding." Obviously this is somewhat concerning to me because medical professionals usually hedge their bets when it comes to the language they are using. She didn't do so. Which means that I could have some sort of bone cancer that was identified almost a year ago and only yesterday did I found out about it and only because I submitted a FOIA for my records.
This also means that one of a couple things happened: 1. Someone(or multiple people) at the VA knew about this but didn't follow through with any sort of notification. 2. There is no process for notification when this type of thing occurs. 3. Nobody read the DBQ (either fully or partially,) so didn't have this information and simply denied my claim.
I have two questions I am hoping to have some answers or perspective on. First, does anyone know of a notification process that is in place for this sort of thing? (i.e. Who has a duty to inform? Contractor, VA, both?) Second, where do I go from here so that we can try and fix this so that it never happens to anyone else. It's likely that there are others who are dead or are going to die because notification wasn't given to them about an unexpected finding. Potentially these are preventable deaths. I may be one of them. Depending on the type of Cancer (or even if it is Cancer,) 10 months is a long time. If I didn't FOIA for my records I may never have found this information out. This is somewhat disturbing to me.
**Also, for those who may wonder: I'm already trying to get in with my regular Dr. to see what exactly is meant by a "life threatening finding." I'm not afraid of Cancer. I'm either going to grab it by the throat and kick it in the balls continuously until it decides to leave or it's already spread to the point where it's fatal and I'm going to die from it. Either way, there's nothing to worry about.**