ptsd Deceased Veteran Widows Pay

[banchie]

Hi Brothers & Sisters. My life has improved so much thanks to all of you! A slight tear there, sorry.

;)

One of my brother veterans died with his power of attorney assigned to his wife. He was wounded in Nam in the leg and received disability benefits for leg wounds & PTSD. He died of cancer before I could get him A/O connected (was filing the paperwork on presumption). His rate for leg wounds never increased over his lifetime.

The VA has since cut his wife off from any VA benefits. Is this correct? Here is a women who endured a PTSD veteran, and cared for him dying of cancer in her home. Is she entitled to anything? Pension or VA compensation coupled to power of attorney?

Thanks for your help in advance. Banchie VN 67-68'

[Judy]

Yes Berta they have it in the file now and acknowledge that they do.

I finally got addresses for five people who I am sending my letter to simultaneously. All of them will receive it certified with return receipts requested as well.

Houston VARO to a specific department/person recommended by the rep I spoke to who looked at the file; Houston VARO Director Ursula Henderson; Houston VARO VSCM Paul Black; DSO Houston American Legion (whom is the alleged rep I have); American Legion National Commander Martin Conatser.

The letters go out tomorrow morning with Dr. Bash's IMO attached to each one.

Thanks again to everyone for their continued help and support. Without hadit I would never have gotten this far as I had given up long ago.

Judy

[Judy]

I have been unable to login to hadit for 3 days due to some glitch with it not recognizing my user login and password.

Just wanted to say that I sent 5 letters to all the people I mentioned in my previous post and after some thought I decided NOT to include the IMO from Bash. I DO KNOW that it is in the file (now) and I remember someone saying that if you give them all of your "ammunition" too early, they will go to work getting opinions etc etc to refute your IMO or info so that by the time you get the "reconsideration" or DRO hearing, they have already deicded against your claim with their "new evidence" against your new evidence.

I hope I made the right decision in doing that. Anyway, I requested a RECONSIDERATION of the claim since the new and material evidence IMO was (according to them) not in the file at the time of the decision in March 2008. I wrote that my additional evidence should have been considered and it was not.

Hoping for the best,

Judy

[Judy]

Berta, do you think it was a mistake that I did not include the IMO with these letters I sent?

I have now received ALL 5 of the delivery confirmations.

Judy

[Berta]

I have sent the VARO my IMOs many times-

after I got a fast remand in 2006 (which of course I made sure the BVA had the IMOs from me and they were remanded with the C file)- for some reason a few months later I decided to Iris VA to see if they were still in the C file.

The response I got from the RO was that the IMOs had NEVER been received.

A recent response I got from the VA indicates the IMOs were used regarding a different claim -a CUE claim that they have nothing whatsoever to do with.They were listed as evidence but still had nothing to do with the CUE claim.

I await a response from the VSM as to why the VA is still not addressing these IMOs properly.

I sent them to Deputy Sec Mansfield whose office in turn sent them to the RO in support of my Agent Orange claim last month-

If you have a supporting IMO- it might take numerous submissions of it to get the VA to acknowledge it.

I disagree with this:

"I remember someone saying that if you give them all of your "ammunition" too early, they will go to work getting opinions etc etc to refute your IMO or info so that by the time you get the "reconsideration" or DRO hearing, they have already deicded against your claim with their "new evidence" against your new evidence."

The VA will ussually attempt to refute an IMO anyhow-

and will ignore much of the evidence -if they can.

I see no reason to hold back any evidence whatsoever.

This way -if you have submitted it yet the VA did not address it- you have one more way to disagree with any denial.

Edited July 19, 2008 by Berta

[Judy]

Berta,

I decided to re-send the letter to all 5 parties (previously named here) and INCLUDE the IMO from Bash with treatsie. I did so and now have 4 of the return receipts "in hand", dated and signed.

Interesting though, I am not impressed with American Legion Martin Conatser as he "refused" my letter and it was returned to me marked clearly "refused". Hmmmm. He accepted my original letter but of course it did not include the IMO and he had no way of knowing what was in this second letter. Sounds to me like he didn't want to know and didn't care.

I just Iris'd the VA to inquire if they acknowledge receipt of this letter and the IMO attached to it.

So now I wait for the reply. I am also asking if they are going to grant me a "reconsideration under normal procedures" (I think that was the phraseology).

Judy

[judy1]

I have never been so frustrated in my entire life.

Does this mean that they are STILL considering this claim "not pending" as they indicated earlier? I did respond with NOD and TIMELY.... I'm extremely discouraged right now.

I received a reply to my latest IRIS and here is what the VA said:

Discussion Thread Response (Department of Veterans Affairs)08/21/2008 12:32 PM Dear Ms. B:

We are sending your request to have your claim reopened to the proper department for this request. We are asking them to look for the Independent Medical Opinion you sent in. We are asking them to let you know if they cannot find this medical opinion.

Thank you for contacting us. If you have questions or need additional help with the information in our reply, please respond to this message. If at some future time we can help you on a different subject, you may submit a new inquiry at https://iris.va.gov, call us toll free at 1-800-827-1000, or visit our web site at www.va.gov.

Sincerely,

T CLARK

Chief, Veteran Service Center

1218

cc: AL

***This was my IRIS, as follows:*** Veteran/Inquirer08/14/2008 09:17 PM I am inquiring to find out if VARO Houston has received the Independent Medical Opinion (which they claimed to not previously ad in their possession although sent multiple times)

AND also,

If VARO is acknowledging my request for "reconsideration under normal procedure" in this claim.

Thank you,

(sig)