I emailed Allison Hickey yesterday regarding my claim at 12 by 330 I received a phone call from the assistant director of the Seattle VA. The email was about the denial of my claim for chronic severe hip pain secondary to my service conected knees and sciatica secondary to my lumbar strain. I talked to him for about 20 minutes and explained that in the decision reasoning they stated that there were no current and active diagnoses for my hips. I told him that I spent a month trying to get into the va ortho to get a diagnoses and I was told that I have an active diagnoses in my VA records from 2006. Again it is an ACTIVE diagnoses. So I told the assistant director that that means that the reasoning for the denial was false and needed to be corrected. I also told him that with the imo that stated that my chronic hip pain ARE caused from my service connected knee condition and the C&P exam stated that it was at least (that sucks but at least its something) as likely as not there should be enough evidence to find in my favor. I also stated that with the findings from the C&P the rating would be 20% for 1 hip and 10% for the other hip.
As for my sciatica, again the rater stated that there were no diagnoses of sciatica. I informed the assistant director that the Dr at the va showed me the diagnoses for sciatica and for lumbosacral spondylosis without myelopathy of L5 S1 and that the MRI on 12/20/14 has a 4mm bulge. And that the diagnoses show up in the myhealthyvet Blue button list. The C&P dr stated that lumbar strain cannot cause sciatica. To counter that I found 8 BVA decisions from 2014 alone that have sciatica with lumbar strain including one that specifically states “ service connection for left & right lower extremity sciatica associated with a service connected lumbar strain is granted”. I sent an email containing all the Citation NRs to the RO that has my file.
Well I hope that I did the right thing here and that it will help my claims. He stated that I will hear back from him in a weak or two after they have a chance to review the decision of the claim and whether they find that there is enough evidence to overturn the denial and grant my connection for them.
So my questions are
Did I do the right thing with this claim.
Does anyone have BVA claims for chronic hip disorders that I can use as evidence? I did not really find any and I must admit I am very new at researching the BVA decisions.
And finally. How is sciatica rated? I know the basic but what I have is pain in both butt cheeks down to mid thy and down the back of my left leg. Are they rated separately or are they rated as one? I have not been able to track this down. I have seen both legs being rated separately but I have not seen anything about the butt cheeks.
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diver
I emailed Allison Hickey yesterday regarding my claim at 12 by 330 I received a phone call from the assistant director of the Seattle VA. The email was about the denial of my claim for chronic severe hip pain secondary to my service conected knees and sciatica secondary to my lumbar strain. I talked to him for about 20 minutes and explained that in the decision reasoning they stated that there were no current and active diagnoses for my hips. I told him that I spent a month trying to get into the va ortho to get a diagnoses and I was told that I have an active diagnoses in my VA records from 2006. Again it is an ACTIVE diagnoses. So I told the assistant director that that means that the reasoning for the denial was false and needed to be corrected. I also told him that with the imo that stated that my chronic hip pain ARE caused from my service connected knee condition and the C&P exam stated that it was at least (that sucks but at least its something) as likely as not there should be enough evidence to find in my favor. I also stated that with the findings from the C&P the rating would be 20% for 1 hip and 10% for the other hip.
As for my sciatica, again the rater stated that there were no diagnoses of sciatica. I informed the assistant director that the Dr at the va showed me the diagnoses for sciatica and for lumbosacral spondylosis without myelopathy of L5 S1 and that the MRI on 12/20/14 has a 4mm bulge. And that the diagnoses show up in the myhealthyvet Blue button list. The C&P dr stated that lumbar strain cannot cause sciatica. To counter that I found 8 BVA decisions from 2014 alone that have sciatica with lumbar strain including one that specifically states “ service connection for left & right lower extremity sciatica associated with a service connected lumbar strain is granted”. I sent an email containing all the Citation NRs to the RO that has my file.
Well I hope that I did the right thing here and that it will help my claims. He stated that I will hear back from him in a weak or two after they have a chance to review the decision of the claim and whether they find that there is enough evidence to overturn the denial and grant my connection for them.
So my questions are
thank you all
diver
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broncovet
I sometimes use BVA decisions, but, instead of citing the BVA decision, I cite the precedential decision they cite. This way, I avoid all the "non precedential hocus pocus" the VA loves to throw at u
free_spirit_etc
I agree. That is where I got the "A non-precedential decision may be cited "for any persuasiveness or reasoning it contains." See Bethea v. Derwinski, 252, 254 (1992)." - from a BVA decision. And
free_spirit_etc
diver, Chris Attig has some interesting info here about Inadequate Exams http://www.attiglawfirm.com/communicate/inadequate-c-and-p-exams/ Here are a couple cases that might also help. See
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