Seeing Is Believing!

[Bigred122]

Why does the VA even have a disability program if they aren't going to play fair? I learned early that the VA played the game of LIFE by their own rules.And if they didn't have a rule for it, they made one up just for us and it would only be used once so that it wouldn't be considered the rule of Law.Last weekend, I received my medical records for my first 2 years in the sevice from the NPRC. Being in sports all my life, I was a suck up the pain kinda guy, so I didn't go a medical facility unless it was emergency in nature. So my records were a whole 12 pages long.(I create more nowadays in just one day) And to make me feel like one of the gang, two pages were missing.Would you believe those two pages just happen to be very important to my claim?(Silly me, you all have been at this for years and have heard this story a thousand times.) I know we have people from the VA who come here. Can someone explain to me why these records disappear. Are they paid to process claims or are they paid to sabotage claims. It happens so regularly, it just can't be fate.It has to be on purpose.The odds at them losing 2 pages out of 14 and those 2 pages being key to me getting disability must be HUGE. They did screwup and leave 1 page that may help me on my AO claim from FT Gordon .I don't remember my visit to the hospital there, but it occurred after 2 weekends of guard duty at one of the AO dump sites.It showed a strange rash, dizzyness, diarreaha, and a strange weakness. It was on a important medical document from Basic trainning.One of the page/pages missing was a 4 day stay at the base clinic/make do hospital for unknown reasons. This was key evidence again to my exposure to AO. The other document was a visit to mental health DR. In the letter they sent with my records, they said to call and give them special permission to send other misc records. Of course when I called them today, they had no clue to what the record clerk was talking about. So I told them what was missing and they said they would check again. (Some things have to be authorized twice by me makes no sense)I told them I was up against a 4/29 deadline, so hopefully they will be found.lol I can't believe that there isn't some hidden rule that says to deny deny deny! Lets keep the playing field fair and just decide things on the evidence. It's too late for me now, but I suggest if your thinking about filing a claim, get ALL your records first. Then file your your claim. By filing first they know what records to make disappear. They are the dealer in this card game and they decide what cards we get or don't get.Thanks for giving me a place to vent.Deadline date is approaching in 2 weeks so the end might be near for dealing with this silly game. Get my approval/denial and then to decide what to do. A hundred trees gave their life, just to save a few more government jobs.Was it worth it? We will see!! Mike

[WAC-Vet75]

I do remember reading a case (I believe BVA) where the issue of the gun spreading Hep C was brought up, and awarded. I know for a fact that the guns weren't always sanitized between shots. The young lady, right before me, moved during her shot, and her arm started bleeding. The gun was NOT cleaned before I received my shot. They "shot" us as soon as we fully entered the doorway. I kept stepping back out of the doorway and had to be ordered to attention (I was needle shy, then seeing that girl get cut by the gun) for them to "shoot" me. I didn't see the gun cleaned before any of us were injected. The only thing I saw, was them "reloading" with new vials. They didn't even use alcohol to wipe our arms prior to the shots.

[retiredat44]

I do remember reading a case (I believe BVA) where the issue of the gun spreading Hep C was brought up, and awarded. I know for a fact that the guns weren't always sanitized between shots. The young lady, right before me, moved during her shot, and her arm started bleeding. The gun was NOT cleaned before I received my shot. They "shot" us as soon as we fully entered the doorway. I kept stepping back out of the doorway and had to be ordered to attention (I was needle shy, then seeing that girl get cut by the gun) for them to "shoot" me. I didn't see the gun cleaned before any of us were injected. The only thing I saw, was them "reloading" with new vials. They didn't even use alcohol to wipe our arms prior to the shots.

we all had the hypo spray in line in basic.... thy probably shot hundreds of us every hour..... you think maybe the body fluids were just blasted into the air from person to person?

[Berta]

This is from a post I mad at hadit in 2006:

"Dont forget the Airgun win was from the VVA-

and I still have the treatise that Monte Wilson used for that award.

VVA was concerned because the vet had one of the two prime reasons VA denied these type of claims-

If the vet had history of IV drug use and/or had tattooes-they would say this caused the hep and deny the claim.

This vet had no drug history but did have 2 tattoes yet the VA granted hep c on the airgun because the study from England was consistent with a finding that air guns could carry Hepatitus C."

I contacted the VVA when I learned of this award.This was a study from England on Air Guns and Hepatitis.

That was probably 2 PCS ago for me but I got link from Monte and it was googlable.

BVA decisions do not tell us all of the evidence they used. There could have been more evidence for this award than we know of.

I am still disappointed the BVA never mentioned most of my evidence and they focused mainly on my IMOs.

The evidence I had that helped make those IMOs valid might have helped someone else.

[Hoppy]

"If the vet had history of IV drug use and/or had tattooes-they would say this caused the hep and deny the claim."

Berta and others,

On my original post I stated that they view each case on an individual basis. I did not go into detail. The IV and tattoo issue is what I was talking about. Additionally, when weighing the evidence for and against the claim, they will use a lifestyle of multiple sex partners and employment in the medical field that would expose an individual to the posibility of HEP-C as evidence against a claim.

[john999]

Red

I spoke about Dr. Bash because he knows exactly what the VA is looking for in a medical report to establish a nexus. You can bargain with him about the cost. Maybe if you find a lawyer he will know some doctor who can do the same thing. I would bet that most vets who has PTSD symptoms before it was an official DX were discharged as personality disorders. There was a scandal about it in the last few years where the army was still doing it to soldiers home from Iraq or Afghanistan. The military simply believed they had found a cost free method of getting rid of sick soldiers. I knew soldiers who were frog walked out of the army right from army mental hospitals because the army decided their symptoms (self-medication via drugs and alcohol) were misconduct. Any vet who is claiming AO exposure and is not "boots on the ground" in Vietnam has a fight on their hands. I bet that ten years from now when Iraq and Afghanistan vets start to have mysterious symptoms we will go through the same decade of denials from the military and VA. It may be come chemical or disease that is unknown today, but the government will fight it, and those who claim it will be called frauds. Many will have to get sick and die before presumption for this chemical or disease exposure is admitted.

[Bigred122]

Glad you liked the picture. I got a bigger laugh seeing it as your avatar than when I drew it. It is obvious you have put a lot of effort into understanding the events in your life. You have a lot of perspective. People who have never been through these types of battles have no clue as to how complex they make your life. It would take me another hour to type up my experience with angioedema and the military and VA. To make a long story short. The condition was called angioneurotic edema and was considered a mental condition when I was in the military (1970). They tried to cure me by sending me to mess duty (KP). They kicked me out tof the service and told me it was not service connectable. Later the doctor changed there mind and decide it was a vascular disease and they dropped it from the psych manuals. They changed the name to angioedema. Nobody told me this. The attorney who got me into PI school and was going to employ me found out the angioedema was stage five and would not hire me. He got me a social security lawyer. I was awarded SSI. The SSI was lost we I got a non service connected pension. About this time which was 26 years after my discharge I got a computer and went on line. I found hadit in 1996. I learned about my disease and found out doctors who were in the militray were being service connected. After an eight year battle and two denials for a slam dunk claim I got lots of good advice I got from the late Alex Humphries and other hadit members and I was service connected. During the 8 year period I was living on $700.00 a month from a non service connected pension.

"Today I did a follow up on some records from NPRC.When I called them last week they said they would send them. Today they say that I must have them sent to a Dr so that they can be explained to me properly. How do they know or don't know what I can understand or not. I know the records are mental records that show that the Dr recommended me for early discharge out of the service. It did piss me off 40 years ago when I found out but I have gotten over it by now.lol When I asked my CO why he didn't release me he said I wasn't bad enough to let go. Well 6 months later I had reached that level"

I would find out if you only have one shot at them sending the reports. If they will only send them to one doctor then it would be best to prescreen the doctor and be confident that this is a doctor who will be on your side and willing to hear arguments related to any potential dispute that may arise from these reports. As you will learn later in this post a doctor who has the time and desire to get involved could be a necessity in reports that are being used for a VA claim. If you do not have the money, have them sent to your primary doctor. I have succeeded in battling the VA doctors for the purpose of getting an adequate review of old records. It is not always easy.

I have worked with veterans who were refused access to the record by VA shrinks. The veterans submitted a request for a review by another doctor and the reports were released. We filed the request with the patient advocate office with a letter explaining that the reports are being used by the VA for rating purposes and we need to access them to check them for accuracy.

It sounds to me like we could just be getting started if they deny the PTSD claim. I will try and make this part short until you get more feedback on what the reports say. It is entirely possible that your diagnosis which the doctor used to recommend your discharge was for a personality disorder. If they deny the PTSD you might be able to advance an anxiety disorder or mood disorder claim based on the in service diagnosis of a personality disorder. It depends on the amount of evidence in the military records, your post service history and your current diagnosis.

Not only do the raters not know anything about the old diagnoses used the new doctor you get could also be lost. I actually have specialized in researching and obtaining reports re-diagnosing old DSM I and II diagnoses. I have a complete paper trail from prior veterans I have helped showing that the RO raters take old obsolete DSM diagnoses at face value.

I have been trying to pressure the VA into establishing policy that they should be required to send all reports containing DSM I and II diagnoses to an examiner for the purpose of establishing a current DSM IV diagnosis. The VA has refused to listen to me. This caused me to find psychologists who were willing to make a re-diagnosis based on the old reports of symptoms. Personality disorder diagnoses need to be re-diagnosed due to the fact that the VA will not service connect most personality disorders. Some VA doctors told veterans I was helping this cannot be done.

I had to get really involved in these cases. I found other VA doctors or private doctors who disagreed and said that a re-diagnosis was possible. It depends on how detailed the in service reports and post service reports are. In one case that was denied four times based on three medical reports the VA got, I found a VA psychologist who wrote a report that totally established the re-diagnosis and was awarded by a DRO as having "full supporting logic".

It will be very nice if the VA awards your PTSD claim. If not and you enter into this type of dispute to get a re-diagnosis it could easily prolong the battle, frustration etc. There are many veterans here on hadit who have been through this. John made a comment that he thought about half the hadit elders have been through this dispute.

The biggest mistake the VA has been making is giving me time to really go over everything on the net.I have been going around and around with NPRC this week.The VA is retiring and transfering every DR who ever had contact with me. They now have transfered me to a clinic that is half the distance the hospital was. So I decided to have my records NPRC is jerking me around on faxed to them.So new Dr will contact me when they get them. I asked NPRC to send me a copy of the rules/laws that prevent them from sending those records to me directly. They really pissed them off. My 2nd set of records I requested weren't anything special and they told me originaaly I would have them in 10 days. After all of this , got email yesterday that I won't get them now till the end of May.lol Many rules have changed in the last couple of years in our favor but I found out the government offices fight their own changes. It's no wonder things are so screwed up. The VA system has been put thru complete policy changes every 2 years. Programs dropped/ started or redesigned. I've spent the last week going over all of these changes/ reports that not only pertain to my local hospital but to the whole system. Because of all the changes designed to correct problems, they have created larger problems. The C&P program is a good example of one of those problems. It has been moved around the system on average every 2 years. Which has made the Drs in the program only about 66% qualify by their own standards.My own hospital last Dec had 34% of the C&P Drs not pass the qualifications to be in the program. They have so many programs that have been developed to make us Vets get better medical care that are not being followed by alot of Medical Centers. Mine has been majorly quility of not notifying patients that they have many remedys when they have received sub standard or mal practice care. They are suppose to have you sign a paper stating that they have told you about your rights to file tort claims, get temporary disability remedies in payment or care. This one thing alone should open alot of avenues for me, due to no notification as well as being lied to about these policies/procedures.I have looked over every report that has been done on my Hospital as well as every annual and semi annual report to Congress from the VA OIG(Office of Inspector General) for the last 20 years.Why and Whos crazy idea it is to reform by deleteing and recreating new depts to handle the same problems every 2 years on average just asks for problems.The safe guards are there, it is no one is following those policies and most important the followup is not consistent on who is suppose to do it. I was amazed how out dated everything was until 2000 when their lack of followup snowballed on them and they have been scrabling ever since. Most corrective programs are less than 5 years old.When they finally established the VHA things begin to start making headway. If they don't start rearranging depts again, I personally feel we will see some drastic changes for the good within the next 2 years. Until then it is still catch up.In the past, it depended on what RO you got whether your claim was processed quickly, properly and consistant with the policies. If your claim was processed out of the New Mexico office, you received higher ratings, more money due to associated medical problems.Your wait times were small and per centage of approvals was higher.While the East coast offices were tight fisted, took cases more personal, as if money came from them.so more denials,left in files longer, less average pay outs.There was no consistency thru out the system.It looks as tho it is finally being done properly because they stopped changing things so much and people are finally getting the trainning necessary to become efficent. But this has only been taking place within the last 5 years.

Well saturdays seem to be the day that my RO updates their files on ebennifits. Since all my S-dates were yesterday, I will see tomorrow what might be new on there. I have provided them with lots of information on the jet guns and the studies with their association with Hep C.There are cases out there that have been won on them, but most have the Hep C showing up shortly after their contamination.Not 25 years later like mine would have too for it to be the cause of infection. There is studies that say that it can lie dorminant for years, but there is no exact proof on that study.But since mine showed up approxiamately 6 mos later after transfusion,it leads me to still believe that bad blood was the infection starting point. Blood records still show that the my local hospital was still getting blood from the local prison inmates to which it has been shown that during that time period (mid to late 90's) more than 30% of the inmates were infected with some type of infectious disease. My local hospital stop getting blood from them in 1999.But I have been unable to find out it the specific blood I got came from Red Cross or the local Prison.Red Cross at the time also received some of their supply from the prison also. National records show that their testing measures were sub standard during that time period and around 15% of the blood was still getting into the system that had infectious bacteria.So that is where my money is placed. I'm giving the VA all the evidence to choose which one they want to attribute the Hep C from.

Either way, they have given me several reason to be able get a denial turned around if that is the route they choose.My Primary failed to notify me of my options after botched surgery.They have no signed document from me that I was notified. That is policy. Second reason, My C&P dr more likely than not has not been recertified as a C&P dr.His methods as well as his answers on the C&P paperwork show that he is not consistent with VA policy.Unfortunately, I kinda of sent things helter skelter to my RO office. Now I have things organized on CDs and separated by groupings medical evidence,media evidence,case studies and detailed letters putting all proof together.So the longer they keep the case open, the more info I can gather to razzle dazzle them. Thanks everyone for chiming in!! Looks like the internet is entertained, I keep finding some of my post on there.lol I found number 2 the other day.Now to check to see if I missed one of your questions. Mike