Medical Issue Noted During C&p But Not Included In Rating Decision

[Raybob]

I filed my 21-526 last Dec which was 6 months before I retired. My C&P exams were all in Feb. In Jan, after filing, I was diagnosed with a torn medial meniscus via an MRI and went through physical therapy. Since this was after I filed, I was going to wait to file it as a new claim after I retired.

During my C&P I discussed it with the VA doc and she included all the info in my C&P Progress Notes (she also was able to pull up the military's MRI report and look at it on her computer) and she added the diagnosis as "internal derangement of right knee with degenerative changes and tear of medial meniscus." However, when I received my rating, no mention or rating was included for this.

There was another thing that VA found that I did not claim on my 21-526, but they DID include that in the rating section as service connected (at a 0 rating).

I do have all the new SMRs from 1 Dec through 31 May that were not sent into the VA with the original claim.

1. Do I send this in as a reconsideration since it was included in the initial C&P exam notes? or as a NOD?

2. Should I just file a new claim for it to have it added?

Thanks for any advice, Cheers,

Ray

[john999]

To protect the earliest effective date you want to have the claim reconsidered with your new evidence, or if that fails file the NOD within one year of your decision. Your effective date should go back to the day after discharge on this original claim for skull loss. The first year after discharge is very important. You want to get all your claims in during that year. I filed a claim during first year after discharge. It took 2 more years to get the decision but it went back to the day after discharge for compensation purpose. Even if you end up in appeals when you win it goes back to day after discharge.