Requested Copy Of Medical Evidence Va Used In Claim

[Rockhound]

My SO requested a copy of the medical evidence that the VARO used in determing my claim, so we would know what they used and what a IMO Specialist would have to review and list as having reviewed the same medical records as the VARO Rater and C&P Examiner did.

Surprize, surprize, their was a lot of unrelated medical information supplied, that I can find in no way would it be necessary to the claimed problems I applied for compensation.

Also, they have, more than once added more than one copy of the same progress notes, labe results, etc. not to mention that part of the medical evidence is copied on both sides of one sheet of paper. I wouldn't mind this, except that this is where most of the duplicate information and reports are located. Now I am going to have to take the time and remove all this duplicate information and to make sure that everything is on just one side, so I can better show the continuity of treatment and make it less confusing for my IMO to understand and not have to figure out what goes with what and when things happened. Thankfully it is nothing more than a ream of paper thick, but I was able to go through everything, even the non essential stuff, in not to long of a time.

My only problem is that my printer is out of ink and I don't want to mess with this file to much, until I can have a copy of it made, which costs me money I don't have to spend at this time, I'll have to wait until my SSDI check arrives on the third Wednesday of the month coming up I believe on the 16th of this month, the date it arrives differs each month, which gripes me, since most of my bills are due on the 1st and 15th of the month.

I sure hope my IMO Specialist can help me out, my claim is not that I may or may not have had them during service, but rather that the injury and subsequant SC conditon caused either a mild form of the problems, to become worse or rather Chronic, or that they caused these associated problems to become worse that they would have normally been in the course of their disease process. All this has to be conveied tomorrow when my IMO appointment is.

I'm hoping to get all the claim information to the Specialist before they have had time to complete the IME and tests that I hope to get them to do, tests and exams that the VA C&P examiner hadn't done to prove conclusively their findings. i.e. Allergy test, indiscope of the nasal passages and sinusis, and possibly prividing a second confermation of other findings that support a chronic condition exists.

Anyway, I had hope the VA would play nice, but given the way these records are copied and presented, it's only fair to say, that nothing has changed, it appears that they still want to mess with you in any way they can and get away with it. Some of the records they added, deal with my psychiatric issues and others deal with other issues of the muscleskelatal system, including a sick call intry for ingrown toe nails, shin splints and urinary infection. Non of these have anything to do with a claim that involves a nasal fracture and deviated septom or related problems like sinusitis and rhinitis.

Can my SO in some way, complain to someone in my name, especially since psychiatric information is sinsitive in nature and totaly outside the relm of this particular claim and the other information is in no way necessary to the claim either?

Rockhound Rider B) :D

p.s. sorry for my bad spelling, seems my fingers and mind can't get together tonight.

Edited September 10, 2009 by Rockhound (see edit history)

[halos2]

Rock at least you got copies...when I requested my records 4 times, called and made appointment to get them, as I had many pages with COPY on them but no information on the paper, anyway drove down there and they told me the copy machine was broken! 4 story building and 1 copier,NOT! Went to my VSO and got the manager involved to send me all..wonder if I do have them all. BTW I did review about 1/4th of them the day I went there, and they told me they couldn't pay someone $ to sit and watch me review the folders of information I never received. I wish the govt would replace all the incompetent one's(99%) and replace them with VETS only. We would get a fair shake and the govt would get honest quality workers who would for for pay and not for bonuses screwing vets out of their claims.

My SO requested a copy of the medical evidence that the VARO used in determing my claim, so we would know what they used and what a IMO Specialist would have to review and list as having reviewed the same medical records as the VARO Rater and C&P Examiner did.

Surprize, surprize, their was a lot of unrelated medical information supplied, that I can find in no way would it be necessary to the claimed problems I applied for compensation.

Also, they have, more than once added more than one copy of the same progress notes, labe results, etc. not to mention that part of the medical evidence is copied on both sides of one sheet of paper. I wouldn't mind this, except that this is where most of the duplicate information and reports are located. Now I am going to have to take the time and remove all this duplicate information and to make sure that everything is on just one side, so I can better show the continuity of treatment and make it less confusing for my IMO to understand and not have to figure out what goes with what and when things happened. Thankfully it is nothing more than a ream of paper thick, but I was able to go through everything, even the non essential stuff, in not to long of a time.

My only problem is that my printer is out of ink and I don't want to mess with this file to much, until I can have a copy of it made, which costs me money I don't have to spend at this time, I'll have to wait until my SSDI check arrives on the third Wednesday of the month coming up I believe on the 16th of this month, the date it arrives differs each month, which gripes me, since most of my bills are due on the 1st and 15th of the month.

I sure hope my IMO Specialist can help me out, my claim is not that I may or may not have had them during service, but rather that the injury and subsequant SC conditon caused either a mild form of the problems, to become worse or rather Chronic, or that they caused these associated problems to become worse that they would have normally been in the course of their disease process. All this has to be conveied tomorrow when my IMO appointment is.

I'm hoping to get all the claim information to the Specialist before they have had time to complete the IME and tests that I hope to get them to do, tests and exams that the VA C&P examiner hadn't done to prove conclusively their findings. i.e. Allergy test, indiscope of the nasal passages and sinusis, and possibly prividing a second confermation of other findings that support a chronic condition exists.

Anyway, I had hope the VA would play nice, but given the way these records are copied and presented, it's only fair to say, that nothing has changed, it appears that they still want to mess with you in any way they can and get away with it. Some of the records they added, deal with my psychiatric issues and others deal with other issues of the muscleskelatal system, including a sick call intry for ingrown toe nails, shin splints and urinary infection. Non of these have anything to do with a claim that involves a nasal fracture and deviated septom or related problems like sinusitis and rhinitis.

Can my SO in some way, complain to someone in my name, especially since psychiatric information is sinsitive in nature and totaly outside the relm of this particular claim and the other information is in no way necessary to the claim either?

Rockhound Rider B) :P

p.s. sorry for my bad spelling, seems my fingers and mind can't get together tonight.

[magician2000]

Rock at least you got copies...when I requested my records 4 times, called and made appointment to get them, as I had many pages with COPY on them but no information on the paper, anyway drove down there and they told me the copy machine was broken! 4 story building and 1 copier,NOT! Went to my VSO and got the manager involved to send me all..wonder if I do have them all. BTW I did review about 1/4th of them the day I went there, and they told me they couldn't pay someone $ to sit and watch me review the folders of information I never received. I wish the govt would replace all the incompetent one's(99%) and replace them with VETS only. We would get a fair shake and the govt would get honest quality workers who would for for pay and not for bonuses screwing vets out of their claims.

Halos... Are you sending in your FOIA requests certified mail, return receipt requested? It took about 6 weeks, but they eventually came. The file was about 4" thick...

[JamesBreckenridge]

Welcome to *my* world. B) It's pretty routine to wind up with multiple copies of the same evidence in the file. Here's why:

Sometimes when a big group of servicemembers are being discharged, they're given copies of their service treatment records, and the originals go off to storage.

Some time later, they file a claim, and send us copies of their STRs.

We ask the service department to send us all the STR originals (because hey, maybe the vet doesn't have them, or have them from all periods of service).

Then after you file the claim, we ask you to send us whatever evidence you have to support your claim... never mind that you've already sent us some, and we've asked for more. So you helpfully send us ANOTHER set of your STRs that you have. When the dust settles, I now have three copies of the same medical information. THe manual says that duplicate evidence is supposed to be sent back to the veteran, but you would have to examine every page in each of three 100 page record sets and compare them to every page in the other two, because they might not be truly IDENTICAL. It's just not practical to do. So we leave the duplicates in the file just in case there's one page in one of those versions that's not in the other. We sure as HELL aren't going to shred or otherwise dispose of it. Nope, once it's in there, it's in there, gumming up the works.

That's just the veterans SERVICE treatment records... don't forget that there is very likely to be private treatment records from private doctors in there, and we ask them for everything they have. So even though the veteran is not and never will claim diabetes, his private treatment record with regard to diabetes are in there.

I've got to fight through all of that when I work on a simple claim for a knee condition.

I assure you, if the copies you got from the VA of your medical evidence were a "paper cabbage" as another poster called it, the poor rating specialist and the medical examiner had to deal with that same paper cabbage.

If you really want to help the doctor you're having review your records, tab up and highlight the stuff so that it's easy for him to find. Don't worry about reprinting it on single sided paper, or trying to sort it. Trust me, this is how I do it. Just go through every page, and use postits to tab the pages that he needs to see. If you've got time, you could eliminate the obvious duplicates. The doctor will probably go through all the records anyway once he's looked at the obvious ones that you've tabbed for him.

I hope that helps some.

My SO requested a copy of the medical evidence that the VARO used in determing my claim, so we would know what they used and what a IMO Specialist would have to review and list as having reviewed the same medical records as the VARO Rater and C&P Examiner did.

Surprize, surprize, their was a lot of unrelated medical information supplied, that I can find in no way would it be necessary to the claimed problems I applied for compensation.

Also, they have, more than once added more than one copy of the same progress notes, labe results, etc. not to mention that part of the medical evidence is copied on both sides of one sheet of paper. I wouldn't mind this, except that this is where most of the duplicate information and reports are located. Now I am going to have to take the time and remove all this duplicate information and to make sure that everything is on just one side, so I can better show the continuity of treatment and make it less confusing for my IMO to understand and not have to figure out what goes with what and when things happened. Thankfully it is nothing more than a ream of paper thick, but I was able to go through everything, even the non essential stuff, in not to long of a time.

My only problem is that my printer is out of ink and I don't want to mess with this file to much, until I can have a copy of it made, which costs me money I don't have to spend at this time, I'll have to wait until my SSDI check arrives on the third Wednesday of the month coming up I believe on the 16th of this month, the date it arrives differs each month, which gripes me, since most of my bills are due on the 1st and 15th of the month.

I sure hope my IMO Specialist can help me out, my claim is not that I may or may not have had them during service, but rather that the injury and subsequant SC conditon caused either a mild form of the problems, to become worse or rather Chronic, or that they caused these associated problems to become worse that they would have normally been in the course of their disease process. All this has to be conveied tomorrow when my IMO appointment is.

I'm hoping to get all the claim information to the Specialist before they have had time to complete the IME and tests that I hope to get them to do, tests and exams that the VA C&P examiner hadn't done to prove conclusively their findings. i.e. Allergy test, indiscope of the nasal passages and sinusis, and possibly prividing a second confermation of other findings that support a chronic condition exists.

Anyway, I had hope the VA would play nice, but given the way these records are copied and presented, it's only fair to say, that nothing has changed, it appears that they still want to mess with you in any way they can and get away with it. Some of the records they added, deal with my psychiatric issues and others deal with other issues of the muscleskelatal system, including a sick call intry for ingrown toe nails, shin splints and urinary infection. Non of these have anything to do with a claim that involves a nasal fracture and deviated septom or related problems like sinusitis and rhinitis.

Can my SO in some way, complain to someone in my name, especially since psychiatric information is sinsitive in nature and totaly outside the relm of this particular claim and the other information is in no way necessary to the claim either?

Rockhound Rider :P

p.s. sorry for my bad spelling, seems my fingers and mind can't get together tonight.