How Do You Know Your Medical Evidence Is Adaquate?

[Hoppy]

In the most recent case, my focus on the vague comment "recent months" and the failure of the examiner to address the issue that there were known episodes of PAT triggered by exercise is no accident. I have previously made comparisons between the way claims are adjudicated under workman's compensation and the VA. What I learned when working workman's comp and civil cases is that when a doctor uses vague terminology or fails to address an issue it is no accident. Doctors are very capable of focusing on the issues and using clear descriptive terminology. Vague comments and avoiding issues are the way a defense report buries the truth. The doctors in the workers comp system become specialist in writing defense reports. A competent attorney does not seek reports from doctors who jump sides. The doctors who work labor law cases know that their reports will be reviewed by a doctor hired by the plaintiff's attorney. They are very careful not to make statements that are easily rebutted. They are masters at using words to disguise the truth. There are no laws preventing the VA from hiring examiners who previously specialized in writing defense reports for workman's comp.

Every case ever rated in the entire history of the VA should be mandatorily reviewed to re-evaluate the quality of medical exams used for rating purposes. The VA is a second class system by design. The biggest flaw in the VA system is that cases are adjudicated by doctors chosen at random by the VA. No worker's comp attorney would allow a claim to go to court with a lone vague and weak report written by the employer's doctor or a doctor chosen at random. Veterans file claims and when they are denied they usually want to get on with their life rather than fight a bureaucracy they do not understand. It is not that they do not have a case. The problem is that they were given a second class system when the congress decided to set up a non adversarial system and rely on the opinions of doctors who they presumed would be fair and impartial to veterans.

Unfortunately, my knowledge base is limited to psychology, back injuries and skin conditions. I will offer my opinion on the medical merits of these types of claims no matter how unqualified other posters might think I am. I have had way too many successful results to be intimidated by some of the raters and SO's who have posted to this board. 71M10 I am not talking about you. Our little misunderstanding was nothing compared to other posters. I am talking about a retired rating specialist from Chicago who argued with me, the late Alex Humphries and Clark Evens that the medical evidence in my angioedema claim "was a loser". There was another rating specialist and service officer who thought that I did not know anything about the medical issues in several claims that were eventually awarded.

Edited December 12, 2011 by Hoppy

[Bigred122]

Hoppy, I'd take your advice over most professionals all the time. I just got off the phone with a rep from a law firm that didn't think your avatar you made me didn't qualify as evidence.lol I don't know who or what to believe anymore. I've been turned down now by all the best lawyers. There is so many disabled vets that most law firms can pick and choose which cases to take. Why tackle the hard cases when you can juggle 30 easy ones. The service orgs only want specialized claims now. The paralized groups only want the spinal injuries.The others have gotten so much flack about their success rates being so low that they are only taking the easy ones to increase their winning numbers.If your medical evidence isn't full proof , they will ignore the truth and chase the impossible. Sometimes the only obsolute is known by GOD, and I wonder if they could meet the VAs muster. They want you to provide medical records of a disease that wasn't even acknowledged till 10 years after you were out of the service.Such as sleep apnea.Mine is obstructive sleep apnea, so no snoring, brain just forgets to tell body to breathe.Agent Orange signs no where to be found.Your records show you were there. Pictures show you were where it happened. Units you have your picture with are on the list. Duty roster says yes you were suppose to be there. Service manager memorandum of March 2003 says that they aren't going to add anymore units to list, but if you were a support unit to one on the list your are to be treated the same.They are suppose to prove you weren't there. Yet,they want more. I swear if a veteran nowadays files a claim that they lost both arms and legs in Iraq, the VA would come back at them with" You didn't lose them in Iraq, you just misplaced them".Everyone expects you to be rich and you should pay these thousands of dollars for nexus letters. Another one of those takes money to make money kinda of deals. Bunches of websites like this and all show all the tricks the VA pulls to screws us out of what is earned. Yet, Congress critters takes their word over ours. The lawyers don't believe that there is a us vs them mentality out there.The VSOs are suppose to be on our side,REALLY?I come home from overseas, get treated like a trained baby killer,Bosses are scared to hire me because I might flip out and hurt someone. So I go to local VA hospital only to wait for 12 hours and get the take a number please and come back when we care.(still waiting for that). I say to hell with them, I don't need their BS too. So only go to Drs when company I work for has insurance. By that time I have a family. If your any kind of man you put their needs first. Kids need dentist, get hurt playing sports and of course all the childhood diseases that they spread umongst each other. You pop a couple of more aspirins and deal with it. By now, kids are grown, and aspirin no longer kills the pain. Only for the VA to tell you that since you didn't come in to see them once a month for the last 40 years, you must be making up the whole disability thing.If you just happen to have something the VA has screwed up on and left it in your records and it's now 40 years later and you want that proof that was there tuesday and it would give you benefits owed for 40 years, it has disappeared on wednesday.You tell this rep and that rep and they all say the VA doesn't do stuff like that. All those sites like Hadit just invent those veteran problems. If it is all invented then why does 71% of the first time claims get denied.yet if vet or the claim makes it to the BVA level the majority get granted.I'm not looking to get rich, I just want enough to be able to afford civilian drs for a change.I miss those days when you got sick/hurt took a pill, got a shot and a week later your all better.My local VAMC has no Cardiologist on staff, no one to treat my diabetes,my Hep C or anything else I have.Yet I will spend all day tomorrow taking tests and a week later I will call them back and ask what were the results and no one knows. Maybe a month later someone might tell me the test are now out dated and they need new ones.

Hoppy, I thought of you when the lawyers aide said I needed a picture of me standing in a drum of AO.Well the internet was a giveth day today.Lately we all have experienced the coming and going of info on the internet.I have learned to make copies of important data. Links,especially Government links come and go all the time. Last year, I looked high and low for special meanings of article 212 special SPN codes.Last year nothing. Today 3 very important information sources that may tie into a payday.It will be Hoppy speciality cases. Mental disorders vs Personality disorders. If I remember right mental =good, personality=bad. I just need a good lawyer to get me one document that was there tuesday, somewhere else wednesday. Just need copy of medical discharge order or denial of mental disorder claim which was never filed for in the first place and just maybe will have the SC they can't hide, the continual within 1 year of discharge, 40 years of on/off treatments by the VA and just maybe in 10 years a BVA judge will say hay stopping screwing with this dude and just "SHOW HIM THE MONEY".

You are much appreciated Hoppy and I'm just now entering the Request for a DRO review, so soon I'll be needing your help on how to phrase my BVA appeals.Thanks to you I learned how to find cases.Too bad they mean nothing to the raters/lawyers/so called VSOs.When I win the lotto, I'll get one of those $5000 nexus letters to say that I am pregnant from the VA and see if they actually read them or not. I think the whole thing is just a scam like with SSD. Your denied until you get a lawyer. Same evidence, just approved when you hire a lawyer. I think it is the same with the VA.Can't find one now, but have two that will represent me when it get to the CAVC level.lol Doesn't that speak loudly!!. To answer your question Hoppy, Even a Buddy statement from God isn't good enough for the Red , White and Blue!! Mike ( I love my Hoppy!!)

Edited December 13, 2011 by Bigred122

[bm6546]

Hoppy, I'd take your advice over most professionals all the time. I just got off the phone with a rep from a law firm that didn't think your avatar you made me didn't qualify as evidence.lol I don't know who or what to believe anymore. I've been turned down now by all the best lawyers. There is so many disabled vets that most law firms can pick and choose which cases to take. Why tackle the hard cases when you can juggle 30 easy ones. The service orgs only want specialized claims now. The paralized groups only want the spinal injuries.The others have gotten so much flack about their success rates being so low that they are only taking the easy ones to increase their winning numbers.If your medical evidence isn't full proof , they will ignore the truth and chase the impossible. Sometimes the only obsolute is known by GOD, and I wonder if they could meet the VAs muster. They want you to provide medical records of a disease that wasn't even acknowledged till 10 years after you were out of the service.Such as sleep apnea.Mine is obstructive sleep apnea, so no snoring, brain just forgets to tell body to breathe.Agent Orange signs no where to be found.Your records show you were there. Pictures show you were where it happened. Units you have your picture with are on the list. Duty roster says yes you were suppose to be there. Service manager memorandum of March 2003 says that they aren't going to add anymore units to list, but if you were a support unit to one on the list your are to be treated the same.They are suppose to prove you weren't there. Yet,they want more. I swear if a veteran nowadays files a claim that they lost both arms and legs in Iraq, the VA would come back at them with" You didn't lose them in Iraq, you just misplaced them".Everyone expects you to be rich and you should pay these thousands of dollars for nexus letters. Another one of those takes money to make money kinda of deals. Bunches of websites like this and all show all the tricks the VA pulls to screws us out of what is earned. Yet, Congress critters takes their word over ours. The lawyers don't believe that there is a us vs them mentality out there.The VSOs are suppose to be on our side,REALLY?I come home from overseas, get treated like a trained baby killer,Bosses are scared to hire me because I might flip out and hurt someone. So I go to local VA hospital only to wait for 12 hours and get the take a number please and come back when we care.(still waiting for that). I say to hell with them, I don't need their BS too. So only go to Drs when company I work for has insurance. By that time I have a family. If your any kind of man you put their needs first. Kids need dentist, get hurt playing sports and of course all the childhood diseases that they spread umongst each other. You pop a couple of more aspirins and deal with it. By now, kids are grown, and aspirin no longer kills the pain. Only for the VA to tell you that since you didn't come in to see them once a month for the last 40 years, you must be making up the whole disability thing.If you just happen to have something the VA has screwed up on and left it in your records and it's now 40 years later and you want that proof that was there tuesday and it would give you benefits owed for 40 years, it has disappeared on wednesday.You tell this rep and that rep and they all say the VA doesn't do stuff like that. All those sites like Hadit just invent those veteran problems. If it is all invented then why does only 71% of the first time claims get approved. Yet if the veteran or the claim makes it to the BVA level the majority get granted.I'm not looking to get rich, I just want enough to be able to afford civilian drs for a change.I miss those days when you got sick/hurt took a pill, got a shot and a week later your all better.My local VAMC has no Cardiologist on staff, no one to treat my diabetes,my Hep C or anything else I have.Yet I will spend all day tomorrow taking tests and a week later I will call them back and ask what were the results and no one knows. Maybe a month later someone might tell me the test are now out dated and they need new ones.

Hoppy, I thought of you when the lawyers aide said I needed a picture of me standing in a drum of AO.Well the internet was a giveth day today.Lately we all have experienced the coming and going of info on the internet.I have learned to make copies of important data. Links,especially Government links come and go all the time. Last year, I looked high and low for special meanings of article 212 special SPN codes.Last year nothing. Today 3 very important information sources that may tie into a payday.It will be Hoppy speciality cases. Mental disorders vs Personality disorders. If I remember right mental =good, personality=bad. I just need a good lawyer to get me one document that was there tuesday, somewhere else wednesday. Just need copy of medical discharge order or denial of mental disorder claim which was never filed for in the first place and just maybe will have the SC they can't hide, the continual within 1 year of discharge, 40 years of on/off treatments by the VA and just maybe in 10 years a BVA judge will say hay stopping screwing with this dude and just "SHOW HIM THE MONEY".

You are much appreciated Hoppy and I'm just now entering the Request for a DRO review, so soon I'll be needing your help on how to phrase my BVA appeals.Thanks to you I learned how to find cases.Too bad they mean nothing to the raters/lawyers/so called VSOs.When I win the lotto, I'll get one of those $5000 nexus letters to say that I am pregnant from the VA and see if they actually read them or not. I think the whole thing is just a scam like with SSD. Your denied until you get a lawyer. Same evidence, just approved when you hire a lawyer. I think it is the same with the VA.Can't find one now, but have two that will represent me when it get to the CAVC level.lol Doesn't that speak loudly!!. To answer your question Hoppy, Even a Buddy statement from God isn't good enough for the Red , White and Blue!! Mike ( I love my Hoppy!!)

Bigred,

I can relate with a lot of what you are saying. I need an expensive IMO to help with my case. At least that is what everyone is telling me. The only problem, like me, most other veterans don't have an extra $2000 or $3000 or even $5000 laying around to send to a doctor and then not even knowing if their IMO will be in your favor or even if it will help make the VA decide in your favor. Guess its a gamble you take or a roll of the dice. Like you said, it takes money to make money. I was one of the lucky ones, I guess, because it only took me 6 months to get my SSDI because the SS shrink said I was no longer able to work because of my depresion and anxiety after my heart attack. The VA doesn't quite see it that way though. I have been fighting them, to no avail, for over 40 years.

It is only because of the very knowledgable people here on Hadit that are helping me with my claim, that I am continuing to fight my claim with the VA. Such people as Hoppy and many more that have encouraged me and help me, that I feel that I have a chance, sometimes I feel a small chance, to prevail with the VA. Sometime s I wonder if it is worth it to keep spending all this time and effort to fight with my claim. Then I read of a success story where the veteran was fighting for many years and finally won with their claim. Evenif it is just a small win, it doesn't matter, its still a win. I will keep on fighting the VA because I feel they have 2 agendas that they are famous for.

They either want you to give up or die trying. Well, I'm not giving up and if I die before I win, at least I can say I died trying.

Good luck with your claim.

Brian

[retiredat44]

I was stupid and thought that if you were injured on active duty and were treated by military doctors, and have records to show all... and further I continued getting sick and continued treatment when I left the military. Also, the only reason why I left the military is because I lost 2 jobs due to illness.. on active duty,,

was enough to show why I am entitled to the disability benefits.... apparently, you have to force feed the info to the morons who can't read at the VA... it appears they purposely setup a charade to make people give up or die in the last 20 years or so, because before then, they didn't deny, deny, until you die...

my father, was in the USN, during Korea, he never saw a doctor in his life, as a civilian, yet when he applied, he got his benefits with only one c&p and no appeals...

he died of copd many years ago..

Edited December 12, 2011 by retiredat44

[bm6546]

In the most recent case, my focus on the vague comment "recent months" and the failure of the examiner to address the issue that there were known episodes of PAT triggered by exercise is no accident. I have previously made comparisons between the way claims are adjudicated under workman's compensation and the VA. What I learned when working workman's comp and civil cases is that when a doctor uses vague terminology or fails to address an issue it is no accident. Doctors are very capable of focusing on the issues and using clear descriptive terminology. Vague comments and avoiding issues are the way a defense report buries the truth. The doctors in the workers comp system become specialist in writing defense reports. A competent attorney does not seek reports from doctors who jump sides. The doctors who work labor law cases know that their reports will be reviewed by a doctor hired by the plaintiff's attorney. They are very careful not to make statements that are easily rebutted. They are masters at using words to disguise the truth. There are no laws preventing the VA from hiring examiners who previously specialized in writing defense reports for workman's comp.

Every case ever rated in the entire history of the VA should be mandatorily reviewed to re-evaluate the quality of medical exams used for rating purposes. The VA is a second class system by design. The biggest flaw in the VA system is that cases are adjudicated by doctors chosen at random by the VA. No worker's comp attorney would allow a claim to go to court with a lone vague and weak report written by the employer's doctor or a doctor chosen at random. Veterans file claims and when they are denied they usually want to get on with their life rather than fight a bureaucracy they do not understand. It is not that they do not have a case. The problem is that they were given a second class system when the congress decided to set up a non adversarial system and rely on the opinions of doctors who they presumed would be fair and impartial to veterans.

Unfortunately, my knowledge base is limited to psychology, back injuries and skin conditions. I will offer my opinion on the medical merits of these types of claims no matter how unqualified other posters might think I am. I have had way too many successful results to be intimidated by some of the raters and SO's who have posted to this board. 71M10 I am not talking about you. Our little misunderstanding was nothing compared to other posters. I am talking about a retired rating specialist from Chicago who argued with me, the late Alex Humphries and Clark Evens that the medical evidence in my angioedema claim "was a loser". There was another rating specialist and service officer who thought that I did not know anything about the medical issues in several claims that were eventually awarded.

Hoppy, I agree with you that the VA appears to be a "second class system". The doctors they hire, at least the Cardiologists that I have seen at the VA hospital, either don't speak English very well, or at the best, seem to last a very short time within the VA medical system. In the last 6 years, I have been to the VA hospital in Reno at least 6 times, and every time I see a dfferent Cardiologist and it seems he has no idea about my file and it takes him or her about 20 minutes just to review my file and then doesn't seem to say a whole lot after reading it. Im not trying to be prejusticed about any doctor that doesn't speak english very well, its just frustrating, at least to me, that I don't understand a lot of the things that they are telling me.

I'm just ranting a little here and blowing off a little steam.

Keep up the good work...it is very well appreciated by me and I'm sure, many others.

Brian

[Wings]

x

x

x

Hoppy, I support you, You are being our "point man". I do NOT understand how a (grossly) inadaquate C&P can not be CUE. Even in recent months, I have heard veterans say thier C&P lasted all of 10 minutes! How can the examiner justify his pay check for a less full and complete exam, or an exam full of errors, omissions or downright lies? Over and over, the BVA justifies the examiner's neglegent behavior. There should be a new LAW, that a negligent medcial examination should be a clear and unmistakable error. ~Wings

[Notorious Kelly]

Hoppy,

Based solely on your posts on this forum, I have great respect and appreciation for you.

I hope any shallow or callous remarks from the ignorant will roll off of you like water off a duck's back.

To all veterans fighting The System: raise whatever hell you feel is warranted!