Rating

[68chstiger]

If you have multiple claims, will the VA rate one if they have all the needed info or will they wait until all claims have all information sent in?

[JayBrown1]

I was told that when you have multiple claims submitted, they will lump them all together and when a decision is made on all of them they will send you their decision.

[Berta]

Often VA will rate one or two conditions and defer ratings on the rest of them.

If the disabilities begin to add up to 70% SC the VA will consider TDIU and send the TDIU form to the claimant.

Multiple issues can be problematic-

I think it is a good idea to suggest more than one way the VA could SC a disability-and certainly any condition that could be secondary to a service connected condition should be supported in that regard.

However- I feel multiple conditions should be claimed with the strongest ones with SC potential first, then put down the rest.

Often disabilities are not at a ratable level whether they are SC or NSC.

It is best to focus on what you have the best evidence of SC for.

I am not suggesting you would do this but I read a few BVA decisions over the years that contained over 20 listed disabilties.

None of the cases I read were awarded.

The BVA had to address each issue but there was no medical evidence at all for some of them and nothing to support service connection in the rest.

These ROs are reading our claims so fast that I dont think they are willing to go beyond page one of any statement of disability.

Multiple issues can often be claimed as secondary conditions- and they should be

clarified in that way in the claim.

For example a veteran could have diabetes and then have 4 or 5 other documented disabilities directly secondary to the diabetes-if the veteran does not make the point that these are secondary cpnditions, and then bolster that statement with some medical evidence-the VA could easily fail to SC the secondary ones.

I know a vet with diabetes who the VA SCed at 40%.He depended on the VA to consider his severe heart disease, skin rashes, and atherosclerosis and cataracts and (loss of vision in one eye) all attributed to -by his private doctor- to his SC diabetes.

His claim took so long that he never told VA of these additional conditions to include heart surgery -as the claim progressed and luckily when I got involved with this claim- we still had NOD time and fully claimed the secondaries and sent them the VA training letter.

The VA often knows what is potentially secondary and what isnt-on some disabilities.

If they are not claimed -the VA will often rate them as NSC.Even though the VA is supposed to acknowledge and rate all disabilties under SC or NSC.

Multiple-if this involves a long list-should focus on the prime disabilities that have potential for evidence of service connection.