Ask Your VA Claims Questions | Read Current Posts
Read VA Disability Claims Articles
Search | View All Forums | Donate | Blogs | New Users | Rules
brokensoldier244th
-
Posts
3,528 -
Joined
-
Days Won
121
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
VA Disability and Benefits Information
VA Benefits News
Store
Posts posted by brokensoldier244th
-
-
-
It’s the VAMCS that set the status. Call it BS all you like. It’s the way it is. You don’t get to invent facts.
-
When we request exams we are required to schedule locations based on availability and capacity. We run every exam request through a tool that checks vamcs and contractors availability. It’s built into the exam request process, it’s not an optional feature.
If a VAMC 10 min away is not doing DBQ x exams I can’t schedule you there.
-
34 minutes ago, Riplip said:
I also had many issues with LHI and they are documented and sent to my congress woman. Like I've said before it has not been an issue with the Drs. or Nurses once I got in. It was always the scheduling department and the fact that the one in NH seems to do exactly what you ask them not to do. I have 3 on record in writing that they scheduled exactly on dates I asked them not to because I was on vacation. All appts. were over an hour away in a different state. This ended up having me to go all the way back to the VA and start over. My congress woman got it fixed for me but over a month later. I can't wait until the claim I'm in now is over. The claims part of the VA take so much out of you. I hope they fix it for upcoming Vets in need.
So do I. I don’t know what the solution is. When VAMCs only did it it took a lot longer because of volume. I remember because I was there, getting exams, just like the rest of you (2002). Without a huge increase in the number of locations and providers within VHA I don’t foresee that coming back anytime soon.
-
I’ve answered that repeatedly, you just blocked me so you can’t see the response. How many times have I posted here that I’m a VSR? Several.
Some of those show up in the quoted material of other peoples posts, it’s not hard to find. I also really don’t care if i impress you or anyone else, I don’t need that to get through the day.
I didn’t disregard your legitimate concerns, just noted that you are quick to take a situational issue and blow it up to be a systemic issue. I also don’t dislike you- that’s invented. -
So your experience with one location requires a missive from you that condemns everyone in all of them nationwide? Bit much, maybe?
Report the site and drive on. Request a new exam that’s not LHI. I see, and fulfill, requests like this all the time at my lowly level-if the veteran lodges a complaint before a decision is made. What did you with that long if you had problems at the site?
-
-
-
Shhhhhh………
-
Since its a claim you do do it either way. I haven't looked at VA.gov and filing an 0995 so Im not sure what that looks like- ive not filed a claim in a long time, but
I see them come in both ways in the Cfiles Ive worked with.
-
The St. Louis intake is not made up of VSRs or raters, or anyone authorized beyond scanning in documents and sending them back out again. They could read every single thing that passed by their eyes and not do anything to act on it. They aren't in direct or even indirect communication with any of us- If they upload a scan of a CD sent to them (a literal CD- that they can't process, by the way) I can't even email them to see what it originally was, all I can do is mail/call YOU and say "Hey, whatever was on that CD you sent- none of it is in your file, because intake can't read/process CD-Rs that are sent to them". You end up with a scanned picture of a CD in your Efolder. Bit ridiculous- yes, but i'm using it as an example.
-
-
Carl- the vha medical people can only see c&ps done in a VAMC, though they have no reason to pay attention to most of it. Your rating doesn’t really matter in the context of what they do- they treat.
The va examiners input them in through the same system that holds your day to day medical stuff. I’ve seen some of my own C&ps in MyHealth vet before a rating, if they were for physical stuff. I usually waited a week or two before starting to check since they don’t all do the entry right there or immediately after your exam.
I will stress, I cannot see any of my own va stuff within the VA internal systems- I’m blocked from all of it. I can only see, of my own, the same stuff anyone else can via myhealth vet or va.gov.
-
-
V.....S.....O.....
They can see it as well. Do I think you should be able to see it too? Sure I do. Is that going to change any time soon? Not that i'm aware of. I have nothing to do with how long it takes you to get the entire copy of your Cfile. VSOs can open it up and find individual documents, and many will if you don't treat them like crap.
You can call the contractor and request it yourself, also, though its their document, they are doing the exam on behalf of someone else and they can choose to release it to you or not. It's not any different than a home appraisal- you don't get to see that before a decision is made, either.
How do you know if an error was made before the information is even decided on, unless its something egregious? Time travel?
Congress and VA say you can't just log in and see a claim unless you are a claims rep, VSO, lawyer, whatever, and go through the process of being approved for access to a government system. Probably not going to change anytime soon. By all means, start the process.
You can appoint a non-accredited person per individual claim as your POA, also. Hell, your brother Bob can be your POA- but there is still a process to follow for that. CFR 14.630 and CFR 14.632.
Not sure what else you want or expect that wouldn't result in holding up the claims process more than it already is. Just think if every veteran was suddenly granted access to the entire claim file whenever they want. You think the claims process is slow, now? Its not a perfect world, and you don't get everything you want.
-
Be done all you want. I see this stuff every day. Its in your C file. You can't make up your own facts, Cue.
- asdf and blahsaysme2u
-
1
-
1
-
They are part of your medical records, otherwise you couldn’t be rated on something. I see Vamc and vendor/contract opinions all day long, they are part of your CFile.
-
If the exams aren't adequate or filled out with the required information, yes, they are sent back to the examiner. I can't speak for the raters- im not a rater and have little to do with that other than making sure the information is in your file, the examination request is filled out with all the requested opinions, and then reviewing them when they come back to make sure the information needed is on them. If I send one to a rater and the opinion is not filled out completely with the necessary information then I take a hit on my performance- which adds up to a lousy review and/or delayed promotion. So, I have a vested interest in making sure they are correctly filled out. I don't interpret them, I make sure that the necessary information is on them. Interpretation isn't my job to do.
The "restated opinion" is the requested opinion- its on the form twice, and its created automatically when the exam request is sent. I'm talking about when the examiners screw up the forms- we don't alter or mess with the opinions at all. First of all they are PDFs, second, they are locked from editing when we get them.
-
Often examiners fill out the parts that are relevant to the claim and leave the rest. Sometimes they leave spaces blank and consolidate everything into 1 block, i.e. "Opinion" and "Rationale". Ill often find the re-stated question for the opinion (from us) on the form with the opinion and rationale all in the same block, which is confusing. OR sometimes they will not check the box for Direct or Secondary, yet if I scroll to the bottommost text block on last page the examiner will have it all in there.
It's frustrating, and sometimes ends up generating 'reworks' back to the examiner because a newer VSR looks at the relevant section of the form and sees nothing checked, or no opinion or rationale or whatever, and doesn't scroll through all the sections to find that its been put somewhere else on the form where it wouldn't normally go.
It also sucks that it took 4 months to get it from the examiner or the VA, but a VSO with 'read' access can get them quicker depending on 1. how overworked they are and if they represent you, or 2. if they have full access to VBMS, which you would think they would have since its about 90% of their job, yet, from reading on Hadit, it seems that some VSOs manage to operate without having read access to VBMS. I find that somewhat impossible to believe- not Hadit, but that a VSO could legitimately do their job without actually being able to see what is in the Cfile.
-
We check NPRC, existing VA records for STRs. Personnel we also request from NPRC (if older) or direct from service. Rsv/NG are from NPRC if older, or also direct from unit if provided with that and they are relatively recent. Occasionally we request direct from the military treatment faciliity if we have that information and if they aren't older than 7-10 yrs- at that point they have usually been sent to scanning or NPRC. What time frame are we talking, here?
-
https://doehrs-ih.csd.disa.mil/Doehrs/accounts/displayRequestAccount.do
You can try- but I googled that. We don't search DOHERS, as we have other places that usually have this information, or it is part of the electronic record upon separation.
-
51 minutes ago, Riplip said:
Brokensoldier, thank you so much. That does open up a search column. That will help a ton.
Oh believe me, I know. Its how I live and die every day when reading through all this. I have a long list of 'keywords' that usually tie into relevant conditions, and variations of those words, since corpsmen and doctors don't always use the same terminology. They all have their own 'flair' sometimes, so I search on a bunch of those based on the contentions that are on a particular claim, then I dive back in again to go through the hand written stuff by skimming through it with eyes on.
-
-
28 minutes ago, Riplip said:
Not sure how to figure that stuff out. When I put the disk in the computer it comes up through my bluebeam account. There isn't a search button that I can find. Been doing what you said. An hour or two hear and there.
Try CTRL-F on your keyboard, and then look up to the upper right. A search line might open.
Beware LHI Bold Face Lie
in VA Disability Claims Research
Posted
The point is that you think that we (VSRs) can just schedule you at the nearest VAMC.
Just because you call the VAMC and they say they are doing C&Ps doesn't mean they are that day, or for whatever condition, or that the person you talked to on the phone has any clue about scheduling.
We schedule based on what the VAMCs report as their capacity for whatever type of exam. Thats it. We don't have any control over how the VAMC schedules. WE send the request to schedule it, THEY set the time and date- IF they have the capacity or an examiner to do it.
I don't know how much more clear I can make it for you.