georgiapapa

You can get your co-pay money back to the effective date of your claim. Just call your VAMC pharmacy and tell them about your award and ask them to do an audit so you can get a refund. They handled everything by phone for me and I got a check about 5 or 6 weeks later. They should be able to pull up the info on their system showing your rating percentage and the effective date of your award. Again, good luck to you.

vet201060, Mike is correct. The county VSO does not work for the VA. If you use a VSO, please do not think you can just turn everything over to them and little or no effort will be required on your part. A lot of VSOs stay very busy and may not have the time available to do a good job on your claim. You are your own best advocate so educate yourself on the VA disability claims process so you can make sure everything possible is being done for your claim to have a successful outcome. Do not let your VSO drop the ball. If they miss a deadline or fail to submit everything required you will be the one to suffer the consequences. Good luck to you.

Do you have direct deposit? If you do, check your direct deposit account. Your retro pay may already be in your account. My retro money was deposited in my account before I received official VA notification.

EED (Earlier Effective Date)

Congratulations and good luck.

Congratulations. Your back pay should go back to the day the VA received your claim

Pete, I just checked the VA Champva website. According to the info on the website, my wife must sign up for medicare part B when she turns 65 in order to maintain her eligibility for Champva.

In my opinion, this should work in his favor. If the examining doctor has any additional questions or needs further clarification after the C & P exam, they could probably confer with his regular clinical doctor. Unless the clinical doctor thinks he is faking his PTSD symptoms, he should be alright. Just my opinion.

I went from 300mg up to 800mg three times a day. It works for awhile and then it seems to stop.

Pete, It is my understanding that Champva now requires spouses to sign up for medicare part B when they turn 65 if they want to keep their Champva coverage. My wife does not want to lose her Champva coverage because it is the best insurance available.

Jim, I am a war veteran but I have to agree with you. If you have a disability as a result of your military service, it should not matter whether you served in a war or did not serve in a war.

Thanks again.

Congratulations and good luck to you Mike.

That is unreal. I wish all the other states would follow Virginia's lead.

vet201060 Thanks for your input. I do not need anything to make me irritable and angry. The VA already does that without medication.

My wife's primary insurance is BCBS federal and her secondary insurance is Champva. When she turns 65 next year she is required by Champva to sign up for Medicare part B. This seems crazy to me but we will do what we have to do. She is not going to cancel her BCBS coverage because she can not get it back once she cancels. You never know what the government may do n the future regarding Champva or Medicare.

After taking them for awhile they just don't work as well for me even with increased strength and dosage. I still get a lot of sharp pain and burning in my lower extremities. I am thinking about having my private doctor prescribe Lyrica for me.

I would also print the schedule page from ebenefits showing the appointment and the notation that you kept the appointment. The VA may delete the notation or change it to cover their rear end. Good to have a copy of anything the VA puts in writing in case it is needed for future reference.

Passing the hearing test during your exit exam will not necessarily kill your claim. When I was discharged in 1970, I was only given the "whispered voice" test. Since then, the VA has determined the "whispered voice" test is not a reliable indicator of high frequency or noise induced hearing loss. I applied for hearing loss and tinnitus in 2010, 40 years after I was discharged from the USMC. I wasn't sure if I would succeed with my claim or not because I had worked in civilian (federal and local) law enforcement for almost 30 years. I filed and received 10% for hearing loss and 10% for tinnitus. The evidence I submitted included the following: IME/IMO from my private audiologist who had been giving me hearing tests since the mid 1970s, reports from my audiologist, spousal statement, my statement in support of claim, photos of me firing 105 howitzers in Vietnam without hearing protection, DD214 showing MOS as Field Artillery Batteryman, etc., 1986 receipt of purchase of "white noise" machine used to mask tinnitus, photo of white noise machine, etc. I wish you luck with your claim.

Barbamatt, Glad things worked out for you. Hopefully they got their act together and this will not happen to you again. However, for your sake, I would keep checking the online appointments schedule.

I hope everything works out and you get what you deserve without having to go through the appeals process.

Sounds good. Glad you finally figured out what was going on. Good luck to you.

Don't get me wrong, the doctor checking the total occupational and social impairment helps your claim but the RO has to consider all of the relevant evidence submitted.

The RO has to consider all of the evidence not just one response on a DBQ or a C & P exam report.

My understanding is the block with the highest number represents the normal range of motion. If the higher number is 70 and the examiner checked the block with the number 60 next to it, the examiner believes you have a loss in range of motion of 10 degrees. I am not an expert in rating disabilities and I may be wrong.