De Novo And Dro Review

[ATVer]

What is the difference between the two?

[carlie]

I have sent in all the evidence i have, from doctors letters to meds that i'm on and how they affect my day to day life, plus everything in between.

ATVer,

If you are sending in information about your meds and how they affect your daily life

as a claim for secondary conditions due to an already SC'd disability - - -

Your doctors will need to provide support in writing - that you are actually having

these side affects from the meds.

JMHO

[ATVer]

ATVer,

If you are sending in information about your meds and how they affect your daily life

as a claim for secondary conditions due to an already SC'd disability - - -

Your doctors will need to provide support in writing - that you are actually having

these side affects from the meds.

JMHO

No, it's not for a secondary claim.

[broncovet]

Well, I have not seen a BVA or CAVC decision where someone filed a "Cue" based on the same person rating the claim was the same one who did the DRO review, but yours could be the first. That would be "gross procedural error" IMHO. Altho it is not easy when you have to cut your own path (its much easier when someone else cut the path before you), in a legal sense, but I am thankful for Vets who DID persue those "odd ball" claims upon appeal, because many of us enjoy benefits because someone challenged the VA and won. Someone has to be the first to challenge the VA, or it never gets done, and they keep getting away with it.

As Carlie pointed out, CUE only applies to final unappealed decisions, so you would be much better off to simply file a NOD and cite that as evidence, rather than waiting until the year passed and trying to squeeze out a CUE. JMHO

Edited December 23, 2010 by broncovet

[john999]

Berta

I think the fact that the VA does not list or consider all the evidence is not considered a CUE in and of itself by the VA. In my BVA decision the BVA freely admitted that my doctor's report was excluded from a rating decision. However, they went on to say that I could not prove that my doctor's evidence would have undebatably changed the outcome of the rating. They said anything the VA said made the rating debatable.

Now this is not what I believe or what my lawyer believes. The VA did not do any sort of evaluation of me that addressed any questions relating to my degree of disability. My doctor's report addressed all these questions. The BVA, however, chose to give credance to a few notes made by a VA psychiatrist when I was an in-patient rather than a medical report made on a VA form that my doctor completed. The BVA even changed my DX to reflect what my doctor diagnosed instead of the VA's DX. The BVA seemed to say they could not reweigh the evidence, but they reweighed it and gave me a new DX which was much more unfavorable than the one the VA gave me. The VA said me and my lawyer were just complaining that the decision was not fair and that was not a CUE. I think because my CUE means 30 years of potential retro they just denied it.