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I Did Not Claim Tdiu But They Say I Did

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Stu Pidasso

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I started my new claim September 14 2010. I had all my C&P exams completed as of March 21st 2011. My claim has been waiting to be rated by the Winston Salem Regional Office since the 28th of March2011. Since then my house has been in foreclosure and I have recieved numerous letters saying it will be auctioned. My car was repossesed. I requested to expedite my claim due to financial hardship. I sent in copies of my foreclosure notices and a statement of why I feel I deserve to have my claim expedited. 3 days after I faxed in the afore mentioned information I got an envelope in the mail with a vcaa and an explanation of what the VA has recieved and what they are requesting. Evidently they want to have me do another exam because of a claim of Individual Unemployability. I did not request this and do not know why it is on there. I want to know if I send in the VCAA and say that I have nothing more to add for evidence and do not want them to wait 30 days, will they go ahead and rate my claim for will I have to wait for the next exam? I had a request for IU sent with the other information and VCAA in this envelope. I am thinking I will just send in the VCAA and a statement saying that I do not want to claim IU and I would appreciate if they would just rate my claim based on the information given to them at this time.

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What probably happened when you sent in your new claim for compensation, somewhere in your statement you either said something about presently not working (or not being able to work) or VA read your statement and inferred from your hardship that you were not working and "inferred" a claim for IU. As a former VSR, I was told to look for this because I would have an error called on me if it slipped by. A majority of the time, veterans are not really claiming "IU" per say; however, VA does this to catch the small percentage of veterans that do not know about this benefit. As far as IU goes, all you really have to do is call the 1-800 number, or use IRIS at iris.va.gov (and click on ask a question), or even your POA (however, I believe the first two options are a little quicker in my opinion), and state that you are not filing a claim for Individual Unplayability, if that is what you choose to do. Please keep in mind that I don't know your specific situation, so I do not know if you would qualify for IU, but every time a claim for VA benefits is received after a claim is initially filed, that just pushes you back that much further because the VCAA time requirements start over for that specific claim. Additioanlly, you can waive your 30 day VCAA requirement (through the three options mentioned earlier) to help speed up the time it takes to make a decision on your claim, but make dang sure that you have turned in all evidence (via certified mail in this case) in support of your claim, and please ask your VSO if there is anything in your VCAA letter that you don't understand before you do this. Hope this helps. Good luck with your claim!

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What probably happened when you sent in your new claim for compensation, somewhere in your statement you either said something about presently not working (or not being able to work) or VA read your statement and inferred from your hardship that you were not working and "inferred" a claim for IU. As a former VSR, I was told to look for this because I would have an error called on me if it slipped by. A majority of the time, veterans are not really claiming "IU" per say; however, VA does this to catch the small percentage of veterans that do not know about this benefit. As far as IU goes, all you really have to do is call the 1-800 number, or use IRIS at iris.va.gov (and click on ask a question), or even your POA (however, I believe the first two options are a little quicker in my opinion), and state that you are not filing a claim for Individual Unplayability, if that is what you choose to do. Please keep in mind that I don't know your specific situation, so I do not know if you would qualify for IU, but every time a claim for VA benefits is received after a claim is initially filed, that just pushes you back that much further because the VCAA time requirements start over for that specific claim. Additioanlly, you can waive your 30 day VCAA requirement (through the three options mentioned earlier) to help speed up the time it takes to make a decision on your claim, but make dang sure that you have turned in all evidence (via certified mail in this case) in support of your claim, and please ask your VSO if there is anything in your VCAA letter that you don't understand before you do this. Hope this helps. Good luck with your claim!

I went ahead and wrote a statement saying that I was not interested in filing for unemployability and stressed that time was of the essence due to my hardship. The date on my VCAA that came was for 6-Sep-2011 it says on there that I requested IU on the 9th of December. Also in that envelope was a release of information or POA for my county's VSO to be authorised access to my information. The date that I saw my VSO was 6-Dec-2010 the date that I was said to have claimed IU was 9-December-2010. What I think happened was that he requested it and sent that in to my regional office. The day that I saw him I turned in some additional paperwork to him that I was going to mail to VA. I believe that when he mailed in my stuff he also sent in the request. What blows my mind is that all of my other C&P exams and all of my information was said to be complete and was in the hands of my regional office as of the 28-Mar-2011. I called several times and was told that all the information that they needed and the appointments that were requested were complete. Nobody ever mentioned IU or needing another exam for it. So I eventually had to put in a hardship request and when I did 3 days letter I get an envelope in the mail saying that the hold up is my request for IU and that I requested in way back in December of last year. I would understand if just recently that had been put in my file and that was causing a hold up. In my opinion my stuff has been sitting and nothing has been done with it in quite some time and when finally it was looked in too the IU request was found. Today another envelope came in the mail telling me that I had an appointment scheduled and where I need to go to get my exam done. I called the infamous 1-800 number and asked the lady why I was getting this now when I was just told Monday that so long as I sent in a written and signed request to not evaluate for IU that I would be good to go. I already did all of my C&P exams and everything. I have been waiting since the 28th of March. I know that people wait a long time for these things. She said typically the short part is after the C&P exams but that if I was going to persue IU my wait time would expand again. I told her no I did not want it. She said that even though I faxed my vcaa in and told them I did not want to be evaluated for IU it was still too early for that to have worked through the system. I find it awful ironic that the day my appointment for my exam was mailed out happens to be Monday September 12 2011 the exact same day that I called and faxed in my request to not wait for IU to be done. I just hope that my C&P exams that were done before now do not get overlooked.

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Stu Pid,

I also suggest talking with the OIF/OEF - CLAIMS specialist at your VAMC !

That is who originally told me to submit my claim. I was already 20% when I got out of the Army in 2005. I appealed and it got smashed back at me denied. I was too busy trying to work and all that fun stuff and did nothing more to persue it. Anyway, I met him by chance and we talked, he was surprised what my rating was and asked me to come see him. I brought all the records that I have and he was amazed to see that I had all the stuff I needed to start my claim and we got to work on it. He said that mine should have been easy to do and for the most part it was. It is just somewhere along the way IU got requested on the 9th of December 2010, nobody paid any attention to it and I have been sitting around waiting on a C&P exam that I had no knowledge and seemingly the VA had no knowledge of needing to be done. I sent in a hardship request and now magically I need a C&P done. The papers I got today that stated the exam time said that I am scheduled for the 29th of September 2011. So that would atleast be soon, but the thing is I am ready to roll now and even though I would most likely qualify for IU I want to go to work.

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Well I talked to VA today. I was told I must attend the exams tomorrow. There are three scheduled, and it is very agrivating. I requested and was approved to expedite my claim based on financial hardship and now after all my exams have been completed since Mar 21st of 2011 they are sending me to a civillian doctor to get all the same exams done again. I do not understand why this is happening and I am not the least bit happy.

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they are sending me to a civillian doctor

By civilian doctor I presume your saying QTC Dr. This could be an error having you go thru it again. Have you talked with your SO about this, if you have one that is? But even if there was an error, I certainly would go anyway. Let them figure it out, if there was a mistake or not. You defiantly don.t have the time to do anything about it now. Although I still have no idea why they would schedule the same exams twice. But it doesn't matter right now. hopefully you'll get better results from the first one. If not, I would be asking Va alot of questions why they been fishing for Dr's. JMO

Coot

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they are sending me to a civillian doctor

By civilian doctor I presume your saying QTC Dr. This could be an error having you go thru it again. Have you talked with your SO about this, if you have one that is? But even if there was an error, I certainly would go anyway. Let them figure it out, if there was a mistake or not. You defiantly don.t have the time to do anything about it now. Although I still have no idea why they would schedule the same exams twice. But it doesn't matter right now. hopefully you'll get better results from the first one. If not, I would be asking Va alot of questions why they been fishing for Dr's. JMO

Coot

Well here this goes,

I was not able to get a ride to the c&p but I was able to make it to the appointment for my xrays and my hearing. As I expected I showed hearing loss in the right ear which is my shooting side. I also claimed that a rocket blast landed to the right of me and caused me to loose hearing and be knocked to the ground. So far so good. I helped QTC reschedule my exam I missed and I am going today to have it done. I told the lady on the phone that as far as I knew the second opinion c&p was to evaluate me fo IU I told her that I had written a statement saying I was not persuing IU and I was not interested in waiting to have an exam done and written up. I told her that I had already had all of my exams done and was hoping that the board would go ahead and rate due to the fact I am in a state of financial peril. I told her that a request I sent in to expedite had been accepted and I was expecting to get rated not sent in for more exams. I She said that from what she could tell the board had found evidence in my records that substantiated my disabilities that I am claiming, but wanted a second opinion before awarding IU. Also she said that since I am claiming bilateral knee condition and that it is a newer ailment they wanted to investigate that. When I got my xrays done that day they took x-rays of feet, ankles (both wait baring and non), knees, and spine. I know that my first c&p's which were done by Durham VAMC were very favorable to me and all of the conditions were supported. The other thing that the C&P at the civillian doctor today is supposed to be checking out is ADHD which I was diagnosed with in the Army and got medication for it. My mental health C&P that was done by VA supported my claim of PTSD, TBI, ADHD, and said that I was Axis one for PTSD and something else about anxiety and mood disorder my GAF score was 50 the psychiatirist said that she thought it would be difficult for me to attain education or maintain suitable employment she also said that these things were more likely than not related to military service and my deployment to Iraq. I feel like VA for some reason does not like the fact that my C&P's came out favorable to me the first time and is now trying to railroad me. Please someone tell me what they think. I am going to be going to Wilkins Family Medicine in Raleigh NC.

Edited by Stu Pidasso
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