brokensoldier244th

They would figure the 10% for hypertension from 2018 and any yearly adjustments to that. The rest of your ratings would not change, they are already calculated.

? What do you mean?

I agree, that sucks. I usually free text something in the letter that goes out to the veteran under "What we have done...." to the effect of "We have requested records from X,Y,Z but our request does not compel them or require them to release those records to us, or to respond. If you have any of the evidence listed on your submitted 21-4142/4142a please send it. Some providers respond faster to a direct request from the patient than they do for VA."

Yes- He listed it on the request, so we sent for the requested records. Unless he said something to the effect of "this provider is no longer practicing"/ closed, whatever then we wouldn't know if they were closed or not. Veteran sends, we request. If its on the 4142/4142a we have to develop for it. Our PMR requestor would call/fax the request, get no answer, or get an answer of "take a hike, Im drinking mimosas on the beach...." and then would inform us that the provider is no longer practicing or "no response received from PHP".

The 4142/4142a comes to us (the auth to retrieve private records) and we send it to a centralized group that does the requests. DTA says 2 attempts in 30 days. If they get a response then the records are uploaded to VBMS. If they get a rejection (illegible 41421, unsigned, inaccurate contact info, whatever) then they upload the reason for the rejection and depending on what it is we are supposed to contact the veteran and let them know what to correct. Sometimes providers just ignore us (PHP Non-Response), or charge for records retrieval. The VA doesn't pay for records retrieval so I send a letter to the veteran letting them know so they can do whatever they need to do on their end to get the records to send to us. If it is a non-response I usually send them a letter saying "hey, your provider didn't respond, or responded with "no record of the patient...." or "discrepancy with dates of treatment......" so they can contact the provider, or upload corrected 21-4142s with a more accurate date range or contact information.

Correct, and, while it sounds kinda stuffy, those wordings are from the CFR so there isn't much in the way of misinterpreting them that can happen, no ambiguity.

General Schedule for Rating Mental Disorders, 38CFR 4.130 General Schedule for Rating for Cardiovascular 38CFR 4.104 Both mention "continuous medication " at their 0$ and 10% ratings tier. CAS

Change in regulations regarding which topic? So far we've discussed proposed changes to MH, Sleep Apnea and some other things listed in the Federal Register, the application of Extra Sched IU, and "old school RO's" when they used to have a VSO and a Doc on site for quick medical opinions that didn't require a full exam.

Yeah, I remember in 2002 when I discharged and filed my local RO had a doc and VSO in the office to talk directly to the raters and stuff.

I don't want to wade too far into this because ultimately it's the Rater that would assign it, so most of it is not my monkeys other than pointing out instances in the record(s) where the veteran is unemployed and has been consistently due to medical reasons. That said, I work claims every day with 21-8940s for unemployability that have ratings lower than the statutory amount, which would be, by definition, extra scheduler. I've worked on a claim, then eventually saw the claimant again for a different issue, where they had been rated X% at the time, their grant for disabilities added 20%, and they also got IU added to it based on their medical notes, pvt notes, and present employment situation. This is for claims where the veteran is asking for IU consideration. If the bulk of the prior post(s) has to do with inferring at the rater level then Ill take my two steps back in formation and continue listening with my eyes closed. Have a good day, all. I'm in sessions for most of the day *ugh*

They haveHeber banking?

You need to ask your other bank how they handle incoming ACH direct deposits- do they memo post or do they do it on the day of. Not all banks pre-deposit incoming money transfers, most do it on the day the transfer arrives, some even wait a day before actually applying it to your balance. You can change your direct deposit directly on VA.gov- you don't have to send in anything. Do it near the beginning of a month instead of at the middle or at the end like a bunch of people do for some reason and you should be fine. I've changed my bank 3 times in the years I have received DD from the VA and none of them had any issues so long as I either mailed it in (old school pre-ebenefits/va.gov) at the beginning of the month or changed it online near the beginning of the month. VA payment batches are huge, they start batching them up at least a week before the end of a month and start sending them to the Fed.

Priority? Doubtful. If a veteran wants to claim under the new guidelines they will have to file a claim. There isn't going to be a 're-review' of claims just because of the regulation change. There wasn't under PACT, either- if a veteran wants to claim or appeal under PACT they have to file for it.

SM is service member (thanks Pacmanx1). It appears throughout the Federal Review link you posted up above.

I'm a personal fan of this one. It should seek to help SM's with bad paper discharged or that got drummed out under DADT under a myriad of reasons, sometimes listed under misconduct and other things. When you piece the whole claim together, though, it becomes pretty clear the likely reason they were really let go. This one just took effect last month.