Va Shrink Screwing Up My Claim

[labonte1000]

hi, I think the va shrink is trying to screw up my claim. I'm 10% for anxiety and, I recently got a copy of my medical recored, and she says that I always had this since childhood and that I was a fussy and fitful child. which is all totally wrong, I wrote her an email telling to change this because I never said that, I said when I was young, I was sometime a little on the she side, but never had anxeity when I was young, Do the VA shrink try to do this to screw up claims or what. This is BS! What can I do, My VA primary care told me to file for an increase, which I already did, but when they find this i'm going to lose the 10% i already had because of some dumb shrink. please help what can I do to get rid of this or change this.

[labonte1000]

thanks josephine :)

[Josephine]

thanks josephine :)

You are certainly welcome!

Betty

[free_spirit_etc]

Yeah! And keep your eye on the PRIZE - the INCREASED rating!

And keep focused on evidence that your condition is WORSE! more than when it started...

Yes. They CAN take benefits away - but not that easily. They would have to show fraud or error or something.

One note in a doctors report shouldn't be able to do it. If they could show that you were in constant treatment preservice - or on medicine for anxiety.

You are PRESUMED sound unless they can SHOW BY EVIDENCE that you were not.

And you already have your SC - so they can't just take it away because of one ignorant remark.

I am amazed and appalled at my husband's medical records. Heck! They kept writing the wrong lung down for the cancer. Several of his reports talk about cancer in his RIGHT lung - and it was his LEFT.

Actually when he was first diagnosed the base doctors told him it was SMALL CELL - so they told him it grows rapidsly and could have started post service.

A YEAR later - they looked at the LAB REPORT and said - Oh..no.. it isn't small cell - it is NONsmall cell - that grows very slowly (adenocarcinoma) It probably started in the middle of your military career. (But for them to put it in writing --OH NO... )

The doctor writes - Records wrong and Pt misinformed of diagnosis. NOT small cell. Is Adenocarcinoma. Important Differences explained to patient.

But most of his other reports from the base kept saying NONsmall cell.

People just write whatever and act like it doesn;t affect people's lives..

But keep on keeping on - and keep your eye on the prize. If they can get you to keep arguing a side issue -- then even if you win - it doesn't matter. They'll just say "You're right. Your anxiety didn't start in childhood. But your condition isn't worse."

Not to say you don't want to ammend the record. Though doing so might also call attention to it.

I think you actually have the right to have attachments put in medical records. Or governmental records. I know you can with Social Security.

Kind of like you can with credit reports. If they WON'T change it. You can have your disagreement filed. And then every time they send the record with the statement you disagree with - they have to also send YOUR explaination.

You might want to try that - if they won't change it. Write a small statement - Something like "I disagree with Dr. ___'s report that my anxiety has been present since childhood. I admitted to him, within what I thought was a trusting therapuetic professional relationship that I had been somewhat SHY as a child. However, this has nothing to do with the type of anxiety I have experienced since being in the military. I am adding this statement because I do not want doctor __'s statement to be misconstrued. I was somewhat shy as a child. However, I never experienced ant type of clinical anxiety, nor was I diagnosed with any type of anxiety, nor was I treated for any anxiety until ____."

You might want to ask the pt advocate if you can add a statement.

Again - you will have to weigh whether that will make things better (by explaning things) or worse (by calling attention to something that might be overlooked anyway).

And yes - I would ask for a doctor I could trust.

ANd maybe the DOCTOR would change the statement to one that couldn't be misconstrued so easily. Pt. reported some shyness as a child. However pt.'s anxiety did not begin until....

But VA-wise - I don;t think they can hold it against you - because there is no proof to back it up even if they wanted to.

Free

Free is absolutely correct. You are already S.C at 10% and now taking

medication for your anxiety.

Don't worry about that expensive IME at this time, for your claim is never so involved as mine. ( my discharge was in 1964 with my " psychiatric records" in the archives for the last 40 years and never ask for by the VA.

You should be smooth sailing.

Wish you the best on your C&P and keep us posted.

Always,

Betty

[robert51]

Sorry Josaphine this wasn't a C and P exam, this is my VA primary care shrink. I will make a appointment with a patients advocate tomorrow to try and change this. I have my C and P exam next week for my ED claim, we'll see how that goes. Does anyone know how much a IMO would cost me, without insurance. My laywer said it would be a good idea to get a IMO also, because its outside the VA. I didn't look into it yet, but if anyone knows the price roughly please let me know, without insurance paying cash? thanks everyone for all the help and support and all the best to each of you! :)

i paid only 970 dollars and it included a few written test and report look for the small office a imo is a imo ...

[Josephine]

i paid only 970 dollars and it included a few written test and report look for the small office a imo is a imo ...

robert51,

You are correct, an IMO is an IMO.

I had an Independent Medical Evaluation. I went to see one of the top 20 experts in the United States. I spent three hours in his office reviewing hundreds of records dating from 1964 - 2007.

Quite a lot of treatment records and military records.

Had I not acquired, Both "New and Material Evidence" re-opening all my previously denied claims back 30 years and placing the illness at the time of discharge, Anyone psychiatrist would be been sufficient.

If I had not had a first C&P with a " More Likely than Not" decision and then 5 months later go before a lying quack of a lady doctor.

This step would not have been necessary for me.

I had to locate a doctor to go back to 1964 and rid the " Personality Disorder", this quack placed on me.

I was treated for anxiety in service and have been treated for the same every day of my life since then.

The R. O didn't want the truth, would cost them too much money, so they set me up with a lying quack -O!

For the average person, the IMO or the IME would have been much cheaper.

Mine was a very unique claim.

Thanks,

Betty

[labonte1000]

Hi everyone, I talked to the VA patient advocate and he emailed my VA mental health provider and this is what she wrote to him and me.

Hi—Listen, I just got done clarifying some things with your agent—a Mr. someone from Boston ???

Anyway, he shared your email to him with me, and I feel like crap that I may have misstated anything you told me… I hope you’ll call/come in Wed., so I can apologize, AND correct whatever I had written that wasn’t accurate—same goes for a brief note of Donna Scavones’ that I think was put into my note, or the other way around—and then was sort of up to be taken out of context…

I meant for nothing to be said in your notes other than I gether this from your words, other stuff from your presentatiojn/dialogue with me, etc.

I think the old medical adage—where my girl friend’s chest x-rays

s were interpreted as “not impressive” by a surgeon DIDN’T mean she didn’t have an awesome chest—she just didn’t need anything—like a tumor—surgically removed!!!

Soplease forgive me if I mistyped anything—I know I mixed a female relative up with your grandmother—anyway—I think things were very poorl y interpreted//or communicated BY ME, and I wrote the man back and told him so.

Please let me correct whatever is OFF… I’ll wait to hear from you—This is clearly MY ERROR—but I don’t think I fouled you up, if my corrections to him make sense to him. Thanks, Mary ellen

So I think the patient Advocate seemed to work, thanks for the help, will keep you posted, I got my ED c/p exam next week, does anyone know what that entails?