Berta, Vicki , Morgan Please Your Further Advice

[jlshand]

Hi Berta, Vicki, Morgan

I'd like to ask your opinion about the following. In my ever growing more detailed supplemental which I have described earlier, I've included three citations from the BVA to try and help establish a relationship between DM!! CAD And AFIB.

Vicki was kind enuf to publish the VA's guideline on evaluating claims and it ,as you undoubtedly know, doesn't give credence to BVA citations as precedent setting tools.

Should I in your opinion delete these from my write up as being immaterial and possibly getting in the way of some rater reading thru the rest of the letter?They come pretty early in the write up.

You know, as in " this guy is using references to stuff I don't have to use to evaluate so he must be full of S&*T and I dont have to bother with the rest of this report"

Guess I'm getting gunshy but would like your opinion.

Thanks

[Guest Morgan]

jlshand,

I agree that BVA cases could be helpful; that is if they decide to read. I would attach the full cases, highlighted for relevancy, after all of the "competent medical evidence" is concisely presented. Do it on the format: Benefit Claimed, then Bases of Claim, then Legal Right to Benefit (relevant law and regs). Short and sweet at first. Hit them hard with concise excerpts from medical statements, lab results, diagnostic test reports, etc., then add rationale.

I say this because of my experience with my husband's last claims. I attached evidence, claim by claim (eight of them), including full BVA cases, private IMOs, regs, and my rationale, which sometimes placed several pages between claims that were related. I now know they didn't even read through the first claim. All eight were denied. My theory was keep the facts together and they couldn't miss the preponderance of evidence. They didn't simply miss it, they ignored most of it. On the other hand, I sent a "brief claim first" twice last year and both were granted in a matter of weeks. Maybe it had nothing to do with how I presented the claims, but with the last eight claims, I think I overwhelmed them with details that they were unwilling to read.

If I could do it over, I would present the eight claims as I did with the two separate ones that were approved. I am doing that in the NOD I'm working on now.

In short, I advise you to assume everyone touching your claim has attention deficit disorder and ritalin is on recall.