tinnitus New Member

[masters101]

I am currently rated at 50% with the VA. (40 % Back/10% Neck/ 0% Tinnitus/Hearing Loss/ 0% eyes)

I have asked for an increase with the help of the DAV on June 15, 2009 for the following:

1. Tinnitus- I have two doctors letters clearly establishing my extreme tinnitus and connection with my USAF active duty days. In addition the VA has issued me hearing aids.

2. Fibromyalgia: I have two separate doctors who have completed an IME and both say it is more likely than not do to my accident in the USAF. My Fibromyalgia is very painful and has made my body into a cage of pain.

3. Neck pain has increased to severe levels. The pain is constant and I cannot do many normal things. My pain and inability to move my neck has lead to being relieved from my job. My latest MRI report shows severe stenosis and several bulging disk. I have two Doctors letters clearly stating the injury was from my USAF active duty and my condition is severe.

4. Depression, my Psychologist wrote a two page IME and has diagnosed me with severe depression due to my service connected injury. In addition two of my other Doctors have concurred and I included those Doctor reports to the VA. I am highly medicated by my Doctor

5. Severe debilitating migraines: I included two separate Doctor reports which clearly show my neck and back injury are the reason for my migraine headaches.

6. Loss of feeling and numbness in my arms and legs.

7. I have applied for social security but have not heard back from them as of 21 October 2009.

8. I am unable to work with all of my medical conditions; the medicaitons i take keep me in a constant gray area. In addition i am having issues with both short and long term memory.

I would like to get some advice from my fellow Veterans. Any advice or thoughts are welcomed both positive and negative. I realize I am fighting an up-hill battle with the VA. Because I have so many issues will my file fall to the waist side? Any chance of my file being complete within 1 year? I have not been set up for any C&P exams as of today. Is it possible to have a rating completed without several C&P’s? What weight does a C&P have over two and three highly credible Doctors? I have several IME some of them are 7 to 10 pages longs.

[masters101]

If you have all your shit together, and I do believe that you do, then the fight should not be that long. Having said that, I do, sometimes, forget that we're dealing with the VA :D !

Larrry you are the best, thank you very much your advise.

I plan on following your advise and planning to go to war with the VA. My DAV rep has sent my paper work into the VA for TDIU, I told him several great veterans told me to proceed and he agreed. He said being at a satelite office was a real disadvantage, I did not understand what he was talking about.

Thank you again Larry

Masters

[LarryJ]

Larrry you are the best, thank you very much your advise.

I plan on following your advise and planning to go to war with the VA. My DAV rep has sent my paper work into the VA for TDIU, I told him several great veterans told me to proceed and he agreed. He said being at a satelite office was a real disadvantage, I did not understand what he was talking about.

Thank you again Larry

Masters

You are most welcome, that's to what I've dedicated the remaining few years of my life.

The reason that the DAV dude said what he did about being at a "satellite office" is because, if he were located at a VA Regional Office, then it would be a simple walk down the hall to turn over paperwork to the VA, or to just simply walk into the DRO's office and have a "sit down".

[Hoppy]

Larry,

Tell me more about the sit downs. I've always been convinced that my SO could walk over to the raters and tell them what was on his mind. I know for sure that he went to lunch with the raters and could have laid anything on them he wanted to over lunch. They all went to lunch in the same cafeteria in the federal building where the RO was. My SO had been a ratings specialist for the VA for 20 years prior to becoming a service officer. I know that he knew who the raters were.

It took me five years to get a doctor to look at my SMR and write a nexus letter. After I got the nexus letter they denied my claim by making a series of errors that I interpreted as gross incompetence or fraud if a claims adjuster had made the same errors in a civil case. They cited evidence against my claim that did not exist. They said there was evidence in the file that I won a permanent disability award for my claimed VA disability from workers compensation. There was a document in the file for a workers compensation disability award. However, the workers compensation award was for a condition with a different diagnosis. Also, the evidence they cited against the claim was obviously incomplete and existed of one page of a judge's determination with no reference to the medical evidence that was reviewed by the judge. The one page was not dated or signed. The page number on the one page was page 4. There were at least three missing pages. I have forgot some of the other problems with report. However, I recall there were seven different reasons that the one page report could not meet a requirement as evidence against my claim. Thus, the rater made a series of seven different errors that could be interpreted as unrelated. It was my position that a series of seven different errors would be investigated by a court as fraud if it was in a civil settlement.

One morning I woke up and I was really pissed off. So I called my service officer and I left a message on his voicemail at nine o'clock in the morning. Basically, I told him that I was tired of the BS and delays been used to deny my claim. I said that the raters statement that there was evidence in the file my condition was the result of post service employment was an outright lie. I told him to look at that one page document that was obviously incomplete, void of a diagnosis, void of any medical opinion or any doctors name associated with the medical opinion and contained no listing of the medical evidence the judge used to make the determination. As such this series of errors would be investigated as fraud in a civil court. I reminded my service officer that I attended the American Institute of Specialized Studies and that I was trained as an insurance fraud investigator. I told my service officer in this message that I was going over to my lawyer's office and get a letter from him stating that he would be seeking a fraud complaint if an insurance carrier employee had made a similar series of errors. I was going to take that letter to whoever investigates VA employees and start an investigation of my claim.

Wouldn't you know it, at 11 o'clock the same morning my service officer called me back and tells me that he just had a meeting with the DRO and that I won my claim and that I won all issues sought and my effective date was based on the time I filed the claim. The claim dragged on for 7 1/2 years. What are the odds they settled it on the same day that I went berserk on his message machine. Personally, I think he walked straight over to the DRO's office and took his message machine with him and said listen to this. Then they sat down and settle my claim.

[LarryJ]

Larry,

Tell me more about the sit downs. I've always been convinced that my SO could walk over to the raters and tell them what was on his mind. I know for sure that he went to lunch with the raters and could have laid anything on them he wanted to over lunch. They all went to lunch in the same cafeteria in the federal building where the RO was. My SO had been a ratings specialist for the VA for 20 years prior to becoming a service officer. I know that he knew who the raters were.

It took me five years to get a doctor to look at my SMR and write a nexus letter. After I got the nexus letter they denied my claim by making a series of errors that I interpreted as gross incompetence or fraud if a claims adjuster had made the same errors in a civil case. They cited evidence against my claim that did not exist. They said there was evidence in the file that I won a permanent disability award for my claimed VA disability from workers compensation. There was a document in the file for a workers compensation disability award. However, the workers compensation award was for a condition with a different diagnosis. Also, the evidence they cited against the claim was obviously incomplete and existed of one page of a judge's determination with no reference to the medical evidence that was reviewed by the judge. The one page was not dated or signed. The page number on the one page was page 4. There were at least three missing pages. I have forgot some of the other problems with report. However, I recall there were seven different reasons that the one page report could not meet a requirement as evidence against my claim. Thus, the rater made a series of seven different errors that could be interpreted as unrelated. It was my position that a series of seven different errors would be investigated by a court as fraud if it was in a civil settlement.

One morning I woke up and I was really pissed off. So I called my service officer and I left a message on his voicemail at nine o'clock in the morning. Basically, I told him that I was tired of the BS and delays been used to deny my claim. I said that the raters statement that there was evidence in the file my condition was the result of post service employment was an outright lie. I told him to look at that one page document that was obviously incomplete, void of a diagnosis, void of any medical opinion or any doctors name associated with the medical opinion and contained no listing of the medical evidence the judge used to make the determination. As such this series of errors would be investigated as fraud in a civil court. I reminded my service officer that I attended the American Institute of Specialized Studies and that I was trained as an insurance fraud investigator. I told my service officer in this message that I was going over to my lawyer's office and get a letter from him stating that he would be seeking a fraud complaint if an insurance carrier employee had made a similar series of errors. I was going to take that letter to whoever investigates VA employees and start an investigation of my claim.

Wouldn't you know it, at 11 o'clock the same morning my service officer called me back and tells me that he just had a meeting with the DRO and that I won my claim and that I won all issues sought and my effective date was based on the time I filed the claim. The claim dragged on for 7 1/2 years. What are the odds they settled it on the same day that I went berserk on his message machine. Personally, I think he walked straight over to the DRO's office and took his message machine with him and said listen to this. Then they sat down and settle my claim.

Hoppy, doesn't sound like I need to you anymore about the sit-downs. You pretty well 'splained 'em.

My claim for TDIU was decided simply because the RO scheduled my DRO hearing for 1300 hrs on a Friday. The Friday just before Labor Day weekend. Everybody, being as how it was going on to a "three day weekend" and being as how they were gubbermint employees.......well, they called earlier in the week, said "Meeester Larry, you gonna be here fer yer DRO hearing Friday AFTERNOON, sir....?" I said, "You bet yer ass I am, I've waiting for this for quite some time." To which they replied, ".....well, er, jeeeez man, that there is a scheduling faux pas." To which I replied, "Well, I guess we REALLY don't HAVE to HAVE the hearing.....provided I'm gonna WIN.....do we, hmmmmm, really?" To which they replied, "Sir, Meeester Larry, sir, you are sooooo right. We'll have your positive decision on all matters in the mail to you on Thursday...........just kinda fergit about that hearing okey-dokey.....{HEY GUYS, I TALKED THE FOOL OUTTA COMIN DOWN HERE TO WACO ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON.......BILLIE, YOU BRING THE COOLER....FRED, YOU MAKE SURE THAT BOAT IS READY.........WHHOOOOOOPEE, WE GONNA PARTY}!

Sit downs, ya, they be sit downs, and other stuff. And, if you really aren't sure you got a good case....see if you can't get 'em to schedule yer hearin for, oh, say, Friday afternoon just before Labor Day.

[Hoppy]

One of the things I just remembered is that while I was waiting for the DRO I was looking through some old papers and to my surprise I found one of the medical reports developed by a specialist that was used for the workers compensation case the VA cited as evidence against my claim. The report clearly stated a diagnosis and pattern of symptoms that was different and unrelated to the condition that I was trying to have service connected.

I had submitted this report about four months earlier with a statement supporting the claim that the VA through their gross incompetence have put me in a position that I had to prove that they're totally erroneous and fabricated evidence against my claim was in fact nonexistent. I threw in a reverse nexus issue. In addition to all the other inadequacies in the one-page document they cited as evidence against my claim the rater should have sought a nexus between the condition noted on the one-page document and the condition I was trying to have service connected. Instead I have now had to prove the conditions were different and unrelated, which I have done with the new medical report the court used when making a workers compensation award. This is why I was tired of waiting and woke up in a pissed off mood one fine morning.

[Pete53]

Although I am on record saying that you should have a VSO at the VARO and I think that they basically do not read your file or do anything till the 30 minutes before the meeting.I also think that most of these yo yo's think that they work for the VA and not the Veteran.Also you hearing is based on their schedule, training and vacation time.

In 1992 my DAV Rep transferred to Houston and my file and many others remained on his desk collecting dust till a friend went to the Waco Office and made them cough up the file.My friend apologized to me but the DAV never did.

I can tell you one thing the VA will continue to send out notices to you every coupe of months and if you keep getting a notice every couple of months for something you think has been handled it probably means that it has not.