Question Raised Ro's Browsing This Site For Recent Claims

[mountain tyme]

This question was raised to me and I never thought about it.

Ok I am helping a vet with his claim and since he is not computer savey I told him that I go to hadit and post questions to gain information to help not only my own claim but others as well to get though the VA maze...

he told me that when he was up at the VARO office a few months ago he overheard a conversation between staff members in regards to a site that they went to for veterans and that one of the staff memebers said we have been tracking one topic...he can't remember everything that was said because he was sitting outside the office waiting but the gist of the conversation was that the staff member eluded that the topic he was following was in regards to a claim that came though his office. so that got me to thinking it would not be that hard for a VARO staff member to do that...we put in a question ( I am very guilty of this) and go into good detail including posting the decision and date....so it would not be hard for a VARO staff person to link me to that question perhaps this is my paranoide trait coming out but how much of a concern should this be?

MT

[Josephine]

HEY I KNOW THAT BIG GUY. He was the DRO that held my hearing. Jez no wonder its been two years since my hearing and I ain't heard anything. I bet he was working on my appeal and they have not replaced his computer yet

I know now why the VA would never consider me for employment. I have too much patience to be a DRO.

Betty

[Tbird]

I posted my photo, wearing my headgear, but because I'm stealth, when wearing it, you couldn't see me. The knitting needles really improve its stealthiness. ;-)

pr

[sixthscents]

Unfortunatly (to me anyway) it seems we are in an ever increasing antagonistic relationship with the VA. Not this site per se, but veterans as a whole. To a certain extent I am sure that VA employees DO look at this site and others, but to be honest to pick one claim out of the hundreds of thousands would be an even more daunting task than actually just doing a rating.

Honestly? Who cares if they look? Seriously, we are NOT advocating any kind of abuse of the system - we are simply advocating HOW the system works in relation to specific claims and situations. Any veteran can get the exact same information by going to CFR 38, and M21-1MR as well as Vaca case law and studying. Personally I found HADIT after the majority of my primary claim was done, and proved my case by doing exactly that.

I think that the increasingly adversarial positions are really to blame here. While an individual rater or DRO may be great, the system is obviously flawed. Increasingly I have come to believe that it is INTENTIONALLY flawed... again not at the DRO level but at the policy level in Washington. There is some hope on the horizon though, and as things change they SEEM to be for the better. So, I think the answer is, has been, and will be for us veterans to be a voice among the policy setters. To be willing to spend the time writing our representatives, contacting our congressmen and women.... thats the long term answer. But - and this stinks but its true- it is truely LONG term. Also while the VA is flawed, the services themselves are just as bad or worse. Incorrect DD214s are a good example. These are not filled out by the VA but by the service members branch... and getting one fixed takes forever. Further their past record to severance veterans rather than retire them is CLEARLY nothing more than a money saving dishonest effort.

So, while the VA is bad it is a SERIES of flawed and intentionally minimized decisions that hamper veterans from getting the proper compensation. All we do here... all we CAN do is to try and help veterans thru this maze of legalality that has been intentionally put into place. Not by our local DRO's, but by our POLICY makers. Personally, as I work on this stuff and watch it over the years - in instance after instance - all I want to do is vomit. I have seen so MANY of you being put over by the system, and it started the day you raised your hands... and I raised mine. Our country, our nation, our NEIGHBORS - are failing us every day that THEY are not screaming on CNN about it.

BUT... slowly it is getting "better" at least at the VA level, and I have seen some real legislation passed that will make a difference. However, be careful what you demand of our government.... I like to point out the "Bonus Army". Do an internet search and see what happened to them, after camping on the mall. Done to them by other soldiers of our great nation... It is ever "soldiers and dog keep off the grass", until they NEED us. Kipling, a soldiers poet if their ever was one says it much better in "Tommy" than I can.

IN any case... dont worry about the DRO looking here. Yet, I do believe that the internet has put a MAJOR crank in the VA's, and the military's cogs... and it isn't going away. It's getting bigger, just look at how Hadit has grown over the last 3 or 4 years.

(sorry for the rant - I think I have got it out of my system for now)....

[Hoppy]

There was a time when I thought either someone from a senator’s office or someone from an RO was reading this site and specifically my posts. I was putting up posts about the lunacy of the system. Every time I got the run around from the VA and explained how screwed up the VA system was compared to my workers comp. experience the VA would change the laws.

My first complaint was that my claim was denied without the benefit of a C&P. I had both an in-service diagnosis and a post service diagnosis and the RO denied me without a C&P. Then, I complained that doctors at the VA would not write a nexus letter for me. Then, all of a sudden the VA issues a directive telling primary doctors to write nexus letters. Then I complained that the RO denied my claim because the primary doctor did not know how to write the nexus report and forgot to list the medical reports he reviewed. Then, all of a sudden the congress says the VA has to schedule a C&P when there is both an in service diagnosis and a post service diagnosis to answer the nexus issue. The VA developed better forms for the nexus exams so that the doctors would not forget to list the reports they read. Then, again I could just have delusions of grandeur.

[sixthscents]

Well, to be honest, the idea that congress would activly change a law against one vet is a bit odd. I personally think it was more likely a just bad luck.

[Hoppy]

They did not change the law against me. The changes would have favored my claim. I am not paranoid. I just have delusions of grandeur. When dealing with the VA “luck” is no more than the residue of design. It took a lot more than luck for me to win a slam dunk claim that was awarded on the first and only doctors report that the VA refused to get for over five years.

We testifying in front of congress prior to the VCAA, Mr. Thompson stated that his raters were good enough to figure out that a claim was not valid from the seat of their pants and that claims were only reversed less than 1% of the time after the veteran got a medical report when the claim was initially denied without a C&P. Mr. Thompson argued that requiring C&P’s would be too expensive.

I saw no complaints, on the internet, other than mine here on hadit, so graphically illuminating the VA’s and Mr. Thompson’s idiocy when he argued for a policy that allowed a rater with no significant experience in immunology to deny a claim for a complex immune system disease that was known to exist both in service and post service without a C&P.