Rivet62

UPDATE ON THIS TOPIC: For anyone out there seeking definitive information on VBA's access to your past federal employment records, short of having to do a records request from the National Personnel Records Center or Office of Personnel Management (which could take months in the current conditions of Covid-19), the following is an official web publication by the Department of Veterans Affairs which details the CAPRI system that VBA uses to see your records. CAPRI is short for Compensation and Pension Record Interchange (CAPRI) System. I have been told by a VARO rep that the VBA can see personnel records, including employee health records, for the processing of claims. Below is a link to the Administration and Technical Guide for CAPRI. https://www.va.gov/vdl/documents/Financial_Admin/CAPRI/DVBA_27_224_Sys_Adm.pdf October 2020 https://www.va.gov/vdl/documents/Financial_Admin/CAPRI/dvba_2_7_tm.pdf January 2022. Be sure to look for the most recent revision concerning CAPRI, as it may become obsolete in the future. Not leaving anything to chance, I compiled my own records and uploaded it into VA.gov for my TDIU claim.

I found something of interest. Rather, I found it again. This is a video of a specialist demonstrating altered gaits, which could help in filing claims for pelvic, other musculoskeletal conditions, or nerve conditions, or disease process. https://stanfordmedicine25.stanford.edu/the25/gait.html

Thank you for this. I am on a journey.

What about ratings increases? Do you think new increases would fall under these changes? I've read somewhere, elsewhere on Hadit, that increases would fall under new changes. It had to do with 'grandfathering' somehow.

You don't need to.

What does this mean? How do you interpret this part?

It sounds like some parts will cause lower ratings for future claims, like "the underlying disease causing tinnitus instead of a stand-alone disability".

To... OMG

I spoke to the VARO rep, by phone and he confirmed a few things for me. First, he said that the Evidence Intake Center just processes the VA Form 21-4192. That's all they do. The most important thing he said is that the VBA can see patient records at the VA, and they can see employee health records and personnel records in the "CAPRIS" and that requires what he called the "Special 7" access, which VBA has in the processing of my claim. Even so, I am uploading my PDF package into "Other" in the VA.gov upload title for my TDIU claim.

There's a VARO rep that comes to my area twice a week on appointment only. I think I'll make an appointment with him on this.

No. I used MyHealth eVet messaging and it became part of my medical record.

What a timely post. I've been contemplating this.

That's happened to me (for something else) but the first time I noticed it was in the SOC I received. VA rated you on the Chronic Sinusitis and acknowledged service-connect for Allergic Rhinitis but perhaps your symptoms for it weren't high enough (yet) to rate it above 0%.

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I could prove the positions I had to assume (the twisting, bending, and exerting in those positions) in the duties of my occupation as a "Structural Airframe Repair Specialist" by the mere height of the aircraft and also from a layman's statement by a crew chief who worked right alongside me. Fortunately, I had stayed in touch with that person over the following 35 years. It was the height of the aircraft that caused the most problem. One of the things I had looked for was a schematic of the aircraft showing the height of it when it was parked. I never could find it, so I had to rely more on the buddy statement. I had to make statements that, as 5'9" person I would have to bend and twist and exert upward to work under the 4'+ - height of the belly of the aircraft. It just so happens that all my recent doctors put into my records that I should avoid twisting and bending, the very things I had to do in service on the flightline. I used to be able to find line drawings of aircraft online showing dimensions, etc, usually uploaded by aircraft enthusiasts, and sometimes by the manufacturers themselves, but not one of them showed the height of the aircraft from the belly to the ground.

I worked as a civilian federal employee at a VAMC. I thought that my employment records would be a breeze for HR, to fill out the VA Form 21-4192 (REQUEST FOR EMPLOYMENT INFORMATION IN CONNECTION WITH CLAIM FOR DISABILITY BENEFITS)...for my TDIU claim. And besides, the VHA is under the VA and the VBA is under the VA. Right? I could just lean back with my arms crossed and my feet propped up and let the records play out on their own. Easy. Oh no it isn't easy.. The most important positions I have held, and most recent positions I have held, that support my TDIU claim are with this VAMC where I worked. My employment records are no longer STORED at the VAMC where I worked. In fact, the VAMC where I was employed cannot even verify that I worked there. Why? Because upon employee separation they send all the records up to the National Personnel Records Center and it gets stored at the Office of Personnel Management in my Official Personnel Folder. On top of that, the old VISTA computer program has been replaced and whatever they could have retrieved is no longer accessible, this according to Payroll. In other words, there is no one to fill out the VA Form 21-4192, and all that can be had is a big thick folder of scans maybe. And we see how long it's taking to get our military records because of Covid... It would take months and months if ever. So, I had an idea. I could fill the form out myself, unsigned. I could scan all of my leave and earnings statements, provide a summary of the totals that the Evidence Intake Center is looking for, along with the supporting documents (the leave and earnings statements, the personnel records I have on hand, my employee health records, and my patient records at the VAMC at the time. I would fill out VA Form 4192, to organize the information that the Evidence Intake Center is looking for, and include the supporting documents... all of it inside one PDF, and upload that as VA Form 21-4192. My Question is, will a worker at the Evidence Intake Center discard the supporting documents inside the PDF and just process the VA Form 21-4192? Or are they apt to discard the whole thing? In other words, are the tasks so segmented that they have a person just process VA Form 21-4192s all day long and just that? I remember when I applied for a position processing medical records requests all day long at the VAMC and that's all they did, scanning one request after another all day long. I want to upload the mock VA Form 21-4192, stating the type of upload as VA Form 21-4192, so I can fulfill the documents Request on VA.gov for the last employer I worked at. To complicate matters, I worked at 3 different consecutive positions at the VAMC, but the document request I see for VA Form 21-4192 appears just once. for the last employer I worked at. So I thought to add 3 of these mock VA Forms 21-4192,, all of the same employer but different positions, and the supporting documents in sequential order, all inside one PDF. I guess the better way to ask the question is, has anyone included additional documentation along with a VA Form 21-4192 in the upload for VA Form 21-4192? Maybe I could upload a statement in the upload for VA Form 21-4192, showing that the PDF is uploaded in "Other". Maybe that's the best way. Maybe the best way to do this is to mail the whole thing to the Evidence Intake Center and pray that the individual documents do not get misplaced and lost? Ha! I wonder if I can make an appointment with my nearest VARO to deal with this, to get a contact name and number for someone with authority at the Evidence Intake Center?

I think they stopped the questionnaire, and now they rely on the reports they get from SSA. Someone jump in if I'm wrong about that.

I was watching one of those YouTube videos about C&Ps for back issues and there is an additional difference in a 'flare-up" that can interfere with a C&P for a service-connected back problem. Like, arthritis is a good example of how an arthritic flare-up can interfere with painful range of motion evaluations concerning service-connected Disc Degenerative Disease (DDD).

Mobile gets hit again and again. When weather comes it usually hits there and goes northeast. It took me awhile to just look at the shape of the coast line along the gulf, and how water (and wind).. storm surge has penetrated areas over time. You can see it. Elevation and topography have a lot to do with how much... I think housing in Mobile is more expensive than other areas of Alabama. You can check realtor.com and compare. But if you are leaving a more expensive home and buying elsewhere then you'll have an advantage. I judged the differences on purchase price vs quality of neighborhood. In some cities in the US you could spend $500k and be in a slum area. Standard of living is subjective, so I can't say. But, I do know that areas in close proximity to a military base often have a large vets population and there are resources for vets that come with that. Like finding realtors and mortgage brokers that are familiar with VA home loans...big plus. There's also more veteran's discounts generally. And for me, I really wanted to partake of the MWR benefits on a sufficiently sized military base, like boating and stables for your horse, golf, fishing... the kind of amenities you can only get in an exclusive gated community...more like country club amenities. Savings at the commissary (tax free)... that sort of thing. I think the population of a city kind of dictates the scope of medical services you can receive, the more specialized doctors and well equpped hospitals are in the bigger cities like the medical university in Montgomery, AL often works together with the Montgomery VAMC. In my area, I have a VA CBOC and more specialized care is had at a city about 25 miles away. I can get specialty care at my local public hospital for a lot of things but not all. So for me, I wanted certain things and I wanted a quiet existence, not so much the nightlife or things to do and buy, or how many festivals a city has. Although that's not far from me. I didn't want a lot of traffic congestion with impatient drivers and road rage. For me, I guess the difference is restaurants.

I think he's talking about 100% P&T and in addition getting SMCs (Special Monetary Compensation). There are categories of SMCs. https://www.va.gov/disability/compensation-rates/special-monthly-compensation-rates/ He's saying that if you are 100% P&T AND getting SMCs??!! Yeah, you're slam dunk for getting SSDI no problem.

SSA will not consider CWT at a VA as taxable income for the purpose of SSDI, because it's therapy. SSA will if your application is about SSI. In addition, at the state and local county level they will consider it as a resource, and it will lower food stamps to probably zero. SSA will consider sheltered employment income as a disqualifier for SSI and it will disqualify you for SSDI. It's important for an SSA applicant to know the difference between CWT or a like-kind program and "sheltered employment" under VA's definition. For SSA, you're either employed or not, sheltered or not. The only way to get out of that hard and fast rule is to be in a CWT-like program. Even so, CWT will impact SSI but not SSDI. And a vet has to be careful with a CWT program because it has an ongoing aspect of evaluation that could land a veteran into a status of being employable, but on the outside that may not be the case over time. In other words, CWT could complicate your SSA application or add years to proving that you are not employable even though CWT says you are. SSI is like welfare. It is needs based. SSDI is what you have earned in your work history out of every paycheck when you had SS and Medicare withheld from your social security wages (as it's called on your W2). You have to have a record of having paid into the system sufficiently enough for SSDI. Otherwise, you fall into the SSI category and then your assets and other resources come into play like any other welfare program. For me, I had just $16 over the SSI monthly payment. I had just enough work credits to fall into the SSDI category, and because it was SSDI I could get my SSA back pay. If you fall into the SSI category, then you will not get SSA back pay (and I don't know how an attorney gets paid from a successful SSI case, --I don't think they do-- My attorney wanted to see if I had enough work credits to qualify for SSDI, otherwise she wouldn't have taken my case. SSI doesn't require sufficient work credits). If you are a veteran receiving vets disability, then your vets disability income affects SSI qualification, but it will not affect SSDI because (like insurance) you have been paying premiums into it. And as we all know, there is no offset in receiving SSDI and vets disability together. But there is an offset if it's about SSI.

Ultimately, if you're not already in a VAMC, then I think it depends on what state you're in, and what access to Medicaid or other access to healthcare you have. Each state administers Medicaid, like gatekeepers to this federal funding. Some states qualify you on just income. Other states, like my ex-state, will deny deny deny Medicaid. You have to be disabled to get Medicaid in my ex-state, but you can't get your disability because you can't get Medicaid to get the diagnosis for disability. You can get Medicaid in a snap if you have children in the home, so for me, in my experience, in some ways yes it's easier to get SSI or SSDI with an MH condition, and in other ways no it's not easier because like you said they can't see the disability with an x-ray and MH itself is debilitating making it harder to follow through. it's harder. I had to develop the documentation to win my SSA case at the appeal level. I finally had the MH diagnosis, after 35 years of little to no healthcare. After I got into the VAMC, 35 years post discharge, then I was 70% service-connected for it straight away. I had records of it in service. Even so, I had 35+ years of a work history, post discharge, with just an average annual income of just $4,600 over 35 years in my SSA earnings record. and my highest ever earning was $17k (you would think that alone should be enough, but no it wasn't). I couldn't win an SSA claim on my records as is. I managed to scrape together recent work credits, but still it wasn't enough. Even after a solid diagnosis at the VAMC it still wasn't enough. What I didn't have was documentation of how MH interfered with work. When I had problems with work I just wouldn't go back, or I had frequent unexplained absences (unexcused absences, meaning no doctor's note, because no health insurance and no healthcare). I would begin to falter at work, and then I couldn't cover it up, and the humiliation was too much, then I just wouldn't go back. I would hear the alarm clock in the morning and freeze and I was filled with unbearable dread. I couldn't even get out the door. Then I couldn't pay the rent, then I couldn't keep car insurance, a steady history of pulling myself up and repeatedly spiraling down. That was my life. The performance reports I needed to show the SSA were never there because I would do well, but then I would just leave. A good DX will help, yes. But if you can't get the DX, like me, because your state would rather sit on Medicaid rather than help you then you're in a catch-22 of needing to prove MH problems or physical problems with no medical records and/or no work documentation. Truly, had it not been for my access to healthcare at the VA I could never have won SSDI. The funny thing about VA healthcare is that veterans could go decades, like me, not realizing their eligibility to apply. If you're a vet who got out of the service decades ago, like me, then you didn't have the benefit of a VHA rep enrolling you into the VHA as you out-processed your discharge. You had no one encouraging you to file claims for service-connect. No one told me I could use the VHA. I thought it was for retirees or combat wounded. No one told me. I went to a VARO about 7 years after I discharged to get an idea of what benefits I had, and healthcare was not among them because the VA doesn't consider healthcare a benefit, like they do the home loan or the education benefits. So, I never knew. But I do know this, if I owed the IRS money then they could notify me in a heartbeat as soon as I connected their dots through a new employer's tax paperwork. But VA healthcare? Nah. I connected with VA healthcare when there was the public push to get veterans off the street. Remember that? All kinds of outreach programs came into existence, and for me it was a homeless shelter that received federal grant money to help vets. That's how I finally connected with VA healthcare. So. one may ask, geez how did you survive? Marriages, and state and federal student aid. I was a professional student off and on. Student aid doesn't count as income, so there were many benefits out of that (but not healthcare). Thanks for bearing with me in this long winded post, but I think I'm just thinking out loud in preparation for an MH C&P exam coming up because I applied for TDIU.

What was your rating when you applied for TDIU? You may have said somewhere but I can't recall.

I made a list of things that were important to me. I started with needs and worked down more and more to things I wanted.

So is Alabama. I get property tax exemption from having SSDI. I'm just 80% service connect, so I couldn't use that, but Alabama will exempt for 100% service connect.