Ssdi And Va All Over With, Finally

[VetsLady]

Borrowing our young grandson's favorite word:

" AWESOME " !!!!!!!!!

[scraperhand]

Congratulations, to you im am glad that you kept fighting. A SLOW AND STURDY STREAM OF WATER WILL SOON ERODE THE HARDEST ROCK.

[deltaj]

MANY here can relate to what you posted.

You did a lot of leg work to track down that doctor and "submitted every shred of medical document I could get as further proof."

Good for you.

It took me many months to track down a former VA neuro- to see if he somehow could help me regarding an entry he had made in the med recs.

I found him in private practice and he responded and asked for copies of the Med recs with his entry and the blood work.

The blood work chart was very hard to read and VA had cut it off on the copy to leave out some of the test initials. It took me many more months to get VA to send me a better copy.

Finally he responded again with a 2 sentence email.By then I had contacted an IMO doc who was thrilled with this email and ad the Neuro put it onto his letterhead.

I had 2 IMos and the very brief neuro email and the BVA gave all of them equal weight.

In the almost 7 years that claim took, not a week went by when I didn't look for more evidence and often ended up sending them more.

"I had so many VSOs tell me that I'd never get this claim approved"

Me too and after they dropped my POA and I got the award I called them all up and told them they got no credit for having no faith in what ended up being a little lower than a 6 figure award.

My I

I am the wife of a totally disabled service connected veteran. Your story reminded me a lot of the experience of my husband and I had with V.A. My husband got to 70% and we went to see the office of DAV in Oakland about his appeal. I wanted the decision appealed and I was quite vocal about it. The service officer looked me in the eye and the presence of my husband said to me, "You know if you keep appealing this, V.A. may end up reducing his rating." I kept up the battle and along the way learned at the law library that V.A. had to consider medical records showing my husband was receiving Social Security Disability for his service connected mental disability so I had my husband sign a form at Social Security requesting copies of his medical records be sent to V.A. in support of his pending claim for TDIU. We ultimately won that battle and in two subsequent decisions earlier effective dates of his 100% rating were granted for clear and unmistakable error under 38 CFR 3.156 and 38 CFR 3.400 (q). Several years before this when my husband's rating reached 50% one of his friends advised him to appeal the decision. (My husband had few friends because of his service connected mental disability and led a pretty isolated existence at times.) That friend told my husband to always keep his claim in continuous prosecution and to submit new and material evidence during appeal periods. He said to submit the new and material evidence along with each notice of disagreement. That was sound advice under 38 CFR 3.156 and 38 CFR 3.400 (q) and that is what allowed us to win.