The "dirty Dozen"

[broncovet]

The VA has at least a dozen UNDERHANDED ways they deny claims, please add yours to the list:

1. The Veteran never applies..they make it hard for the Veteran to even know he is eligible for benefits.

2. Shredding the Veterans claim or evidence is effective at denying.

3. Ignore the claim, or parts of the claim and secretly deny it. (We dont have record of your claim for.......)

4. Delay the claim indefinately until you die or give up.

5. "Award" you zero %, which is just a back door denial.

6. "Horn swaggle you" by asking for multiple C&P exams to doc shop and deny you by finding one doc in a dozen who will give them the opinion they want, and cite that opinion in their denial. Or, they can just send you for a C&P with a doc that they know will give them evidence to deny.

7. Issue you a letter of denial..even if you have good evidence.

8. They can deny you, then when you appeal, they can deny your appeal by "interpreting" your NOD as something else, like a claim for benefits.

9. "Farm out" your denial by sending your claim to multiple Regional offices until it gets lost. Then they can blame other RO's for loosing your claim file.

10. Even if your appeal makes it through the system, the RO has to implement the BVA or CVAC decision and they Fail to implement the appeal

11. "low balling" your claim, and then use the "fuzzy math" to pay you even less.

12. "Fake dates," for example, by saying you appealed past the one year period when you sent the NOD in and they shredded it.

Please add your methods of how the VA denied you.

Edited March 6, 2009 by broncovet

[SouthernBelle]

I didn't see "Stupidity" on there. That's how they denied the hubby's claim.

[hurryupnwait]

AMC ignored evidence and that evidence was in the BVA remand letter. They know what evidence to ignore.

[livingrock21]

How about this one, as it pertains to my appeal.

Misinterpretation of a condition. When the VA misinterprets a condition, they give you a C&P exam for a condition in which you do not have. They then base their decision completely off of this incorrect C&P exam. Even if you can get them to change the condition to the correct one, on subsequent appeals they still base their decision off of a C&P exam for the other condition that they had you rated under.

I don't know how many other people this has happened to, but one is enough.

[Pete53]

Waiting the Veteran out.

The Veteran dies or the Veteran gives up and walks away

[Jayg]

Rewording your claim so it doesn't reflect anything you actually injured!

My SoC said "you claim service connection for the left knee and claim your right knee as secondary condition to your claimed Left knee" (near enough a quote)

L knee Denied. There is no record of injury to the left knee.

R Knee denied.

Of course there was no record of injury to my knee. I never hurt it in service. That's why I claimed both knees as secondary to an ankle and feet problems!

So then I had to file an NOD and go back into the shuffle. Since 2004 I've been shuffling. But I have 2, count 'em, 2, kick butt IMOs and I have a hearing in 2 weeks. I truly believe the lions share of my shuffling is about to come to an end.

[tssnave]

AFTER denying service connection by ignoring treatment reports in the SMRs - AS WELL AS - ignoring letters from TWO shrinks who treated the vet while on active duty -

then, on appeal, grant the vet a C&P exam where the examiner writes a very clear nexus for SC as well as states in writing, in the C&P report that veteran is "100% disabled due to sx of sc disability which is severe and chronic since first treatment received while on active duty" and LOWBALL the rating to 50%

Finally, many thousands of dollars for an IMO and untold anxiety over many years later - finally grant vet 100% P&T.

So, my top three are:

1. Ignore in service treatment reports from SMRs as well as letters from the active duty docs that treat the vet - hey, what does a full bird colonel who's still in the Army know that a VA rater can't ignore?

2. Ignore your own C&P examiner who states vet is 100% disabled and lowball the rating 50% by stating disability doesn't affect your ability function independently (though the C&P exam stated it did and for that matter, even if it didn't, there's case law w/ Mauher that you don't have to have all the sx in a rating band to be awarded that rating not to mention that little book, the M21-1MR that says a rater can't use their own opinion to contradict a valid medical opinion).

3. Finally do the right thing after putting vet and vet's family through the wringer emotionally and financially by not following the regulations outlined in M21-1MR or the case law that governs claims all the while telling the public that the VA claims process is not an advesarial process. Right. And a live fire exercise is not dangerous, either.

ARRRRGGGGGGG!!

I think sometimes with pysch cases it is not so much that they are waiting for you to die but that they understand you don't cope well and certainly not with deadlines so if they simply wait you out, if you don't have a strong family member who can help manage your claim (and your emotional fallout from fighting the VA) then the VA wins by default of the very disability the veteran is trying to get help for.

I have always said the worst part of having a VA claim for disability is that you are disabled in the first place and very often that precludes you from having the wherewithall to manage your claim effectively. I think the VA counts on that. If they were truly nonadvesarial they would be helpful, not doing all the things that are listed in this thread.

Did I already say ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!

Ok, will stop but Broncovet - you gotta make it the "Dirty Dozen Dozen" at least until we hit 144 ways the VA prevents the proper and timely completion of claims, then we'll just call your thread the "Dirty Dozen Cubed" (until we get past 1,728 ways they mess things up, then we'll rename it..............)

Thanks,

TS Snave

Edited March 6, 2009 by tssnave