brokensoldier244th

https://www.microhealthllc.com/veterans-central/bilateral-va-disability-rating-compensation-calculator/ what are all your ratings? your list is confusing- is 40x3 including your legs, for example? You can use the calculator, or you can download the combined disability chart that is used by the raters. You’re still at 100. Without an SMC which would usually take a major rating - unless you have ED- which is a fixed amount of around 110.00- you seem to be where you are supposed to be.

Not trying to take away from your frustration, just trying to separate blame into buckets.

This is a congressional thing, not a VA thing. Congress sets the budge. VA can't pay if there is no money.

He's right- this is a VERY important thing to be aware of, especially for CUE. CUE have to be very specifically crafted and worded. You have to put exactly what you think is wrong about the decision, and cite exactly what error you think was violated. Since so many VA regulations sound similar to each other, citing one that sounds almost like what the correct one is will not work. There is no room for inference on a CUE, and no 'interpretation' of what we think the veteran is claiming. CUE is a legal standard that must be asked for, and specifically cited- to the reg- and supported with WHY it was violated, and what evidence was missed, mis-applied, ignored, whatever. Asking for a QUE- well, that isn't a CUE, and federal laws support that it must be asked for in the right way, in the right format, with the right supporting evidence, otherwise it doesn't count. There are some things that we have wiggle room on, or can justify. Claim a contention as Direct when it really turns out to be Secondary? Well, a good VSR should catch that, and, if supported, can send for both types of opinions, anyway (as they should). It's not on YOU to know if its primary or secondary. The wording you send in helps us get an idea of where your mind is with what you are claiming, and what direction to go for looking at the type of evidence in the record, but at the end of the day it comes back to "all theories being considered that are plausible". CUE doesn't have that wiggle room.

So, there conceded that it’s military but not what you claimed. You could cite the c&p and claim it less specifically, too. General is better, let the doc( or in this case the examiner) do the work, which they did. The issue was likely more claiming it specifically to pes, through the rather should have caught that under “maximize benefit”. I’m not a rater, though. Almost was, then turned it down. I’d rather work the claims to the Nth degree so they are as bullet proof as they can be with what I have to work with.

Other than having access to research journals through EBSCO or your public library, or using PubMed and filtering by number of years, typing in your search query, and organizing the results by Most Recent, none that I know of other than google. I search for journals a lot for class and I usually put the word 'peer researched' in my search query somewhere, that helps sometimes.

Secure messages are part of your VHA medical- which is all pulled into your Cfile when someone works your claim, and repeatedly while your claim is pending, and again before sending the claim to rating. They aren't ported over in real time, but if a VSR or Rater does not do a final check of Capri (VHA) before sending to rate, or rating it, its a quality error and we get penalized for it.

If you got out and had no hearing deficiency listed, and then 20 yrs later you claim hearing loss, how do you think any competent audiologist is going to be able to derive a nexus from that? You're right, the criteria don't same "time out of service" but common sense would indicate that if you hadn't' complained about it in X yrs after, that other factors can cause hearing loss.

Worst case, if its in your notes, even without a letter, especially if you discuss it multiple times (like, appt followups for the same thing if you are trying to narrow it down) it is considered a ''nexus". A misunderstanding sometimes found on the internet in general is that you specifically need a 'nexus' letter, like, special separate thing for the doctor to write. Some doctors do, some don't- not all of them want to get involved in disability he said/she said (between doctors), and some people have stripped the header and footer off such letters and applied them to other letters typed by who knows who- which is actually pretty easy to see if the notes say X and the letter suddenly says Y. So, you don't specifically need a letter/memo to support these things, but it does need to be broached to your doctor, a doctor, whomever you go to see. Some doctors will charge for the extra time as a visit, especially if you are not a long time current patient- or they won't write one at all- because they have little care history with you. If you approach it as a conversation rather than "please write me a letter..." which they hear a lot from any disability seeker- then at least it gets entered into the notes as a patient concern that they have to address, and not like a "im only seeing you because.....". If you are approaching a doctor specifically for an IMO/IME, be up front about it, and possibly pay a doctor visit fee or 2 for the time, but just be prepared that some might say no. I like letters, on one hand- they are easy to find, easy to read, get right to the point, and save me several hundreds of pages of reading sometimes. How they are received by the raters? I don't know what their opinions are on them. Probably similar to mine, as they save a lot of work in digging around for info and, if supported by the medical notes, easy to point to for justifying a rating (or granting an exam, or a rework of an exam). But, on the other, the lack of one isn't a mine crater to your claim, either. Dustoff has had a lot of success over the years with doctors opinions/thoughts being written in the notes rather than having a specific letter for a particular claim. You can search on his name and see a lot.

Check with your counsel on that. I don't know how Board appeals are affected by PACT- its kinda outside my wheelhouse. If it is remanded back to an RO for development then PACT would be considered, but I don't know what the BVA is doing procedurally with pending appeals or those that are docketed.

You have to refile unless you have a current claim pending.

Pretty much exactly that. You can’t approach any doctor with a self-diagnosis and expect them not to get a bit defensive- but you CAN word things as a question- if you do it enough it gets dictated into your notes and then you have a record of at least bringing it up. I’ve done this before, with success, by approaching it as a conversation rather than a direct question that puts them in the spot.

Any other entity world require as much as well. A lay diagnosis isn’t a medical diagnosis.

I didn’t say that it did, just that It doesnt hurt If you can find evidence of it also in your STRs somewhere then it doesn’t have to be secondary to- you can file both ways, also, as direct and secondary. They don’t have to be separate claims. They would get consolidated onto one claim anyway, if filed within a year of each other. It’s not asinine (as another poster put it) to search your STRs for it. For whatever reason your decision letter states that your hips aren’t secondary to your knees. Somwhere in the reasons and basis it says why. Secondary isn’t a slam dunk, there still has to be a w link and a diagnosis of hip isssues. You need to address the opinion that your hip engagement isn’t affected by your knee issues.

You can, you just lose the current filing date you have now. The issue isn’t VA, it’s service connection. Service connection starts in your STRS. Talking to the VA later about it just established that something is wrong with no tie back to your service period. That is the part you need to address. Also, HLR , 21-0996, just means a review of what they already have. If you want to include new evidence it needs to be on an 0995.

If you are claiming one secondary to the other than it’s possible that both will be examined. An examiner may be able to render an opinion based on what’s at hand without a physical exam but that depends on the depth of your medical notes and out strength of any imo you may have.

Or, he traded them on purpose. I worked in a prison for a few years, inmates trade all kinds of weird shot to each other.

Who’s disclosing that? The posted example is not that. It’s just a percentage.

What are you searching for? There is a lot more on here than property taxes

Being listed as disabled as a status is not a HIPAA violation. If the contentions themselves were listed, that would be a HIPAA violation.

Usually it just means that whatever is in them the phone person, or person looking, isn't cleared for it. It doesn't mean much, just that in the course of their daily job they don't need to be looking at them, so they can't.

I don't know. There are no famous people here. You'll have to ask the treasurer or assessor about what options you have under state law.

Depends on your city or state. If its public record you may not have a choice. Start with your assessor or treasurer. I used to work as a programmer for prop taxes and assessors and there were certain things the software was required to show due to State law.

It pulls data from the same place that vbms does- that being the system that holds all your claims and the one through which they are all worked. It’s not instantaneous but it does update at least once a day (va.gov, not vbms- vbms is real time)

They already are under 38 CFR 3.317 chronic unexplained illnesses