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Reminder that your exam starts in the waiting room lobby

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lotzaspotz

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I was reviewing 2015 BVA decisions regarding the New Orleans RO, and came across the following.  I'm on a tablet and can't cut and paste the section, but scroll down to the second paragraph above the "Order" section.  You'll find that this veteran's carriage and demeanor when she was called from the waiting room found its way into her C & P exam report and then into the BVA decision.

http://www.va.gov/vetapp15/Files2/1512277.txt

Always remember, your exam starts the moment you enter the exam facility.  If you're there for a spine exam, your posture in the chair you're seated in, in the lobby, may very well be noted.  There's plenty of literature on exams here at hadit, but I thought it would be useful to remind everyone that the exam begins upon entering the facility, not when entering the examination room.

Edited by lotzaspotz
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  • Moderator

Lotza...

   These are Some very good points.  While I dont like the Docs watching us on camera without our knowledge and consider it a privacy violation, I do agree there are fakes out there and I dont want to see fakes get away with it.  I think the fakes are rare for multiple reasons.  

I estimate that I have been to a VA doc more than 100 times.  I counted 5 doctors who essentially gave favorable evidence.  VA denied it anyway.  In my recent I9, I cited each of these 5 doc's statements, the docs name and the date he said it, as well as what page the medical exam was on the Record Before Agency.  It looked like this:

On 12/1 2002, VA doctor Smith, opined, "Veteran stated he was not employed since 11/2001". (page 232 RBA)

On 3/18/2005,  Dr. Johnson noted, "The Veteran is unemployed and near homeless". (RBA page 104) 

On 3/2/2006, The C and P examiner, Dr. P, opined, "The Veterans unemployability is at least as likely as not due to xx while in military service".  (RBA page 899)

On 9/14/2008, At the VAMC in Chilocothe, The doctor said, "The VEteran is frustrated as he can not support his family".   (RBA page 1210) 

etc, etc...

 

I made it easy for the decision maker to find my evidence and award. 

 


 

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  • HadIt.com Elder

Main thing in my opinion is  if/will they read your evidence you submit?

 

.................Buck

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  • HadIt.com Elder

We are always under the watchful eye of the old VA, remember you are not a deserving Veteran in their eyes, You are just another dysfunctional system playing dirt-bag trying to get something. Now how to reverse that negative mindset in a supposedly non-advesarial  environment would be a brilliant thing that will only take the privatization of the VA to change.  

Let them watch. If we vets are as disabled as we say we are, then we have nothing to hide.  

By the way, Believe it when other folks are watching you. Social Security and workers comp are experts at surveillance

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I have to say that I wholeheartedly DISAGREE with the sentiment that I perceive in some of the replies.  I did my 20, I am no 'drug lord' or 'terrorist'.  They should spend some sleuth resources on those types, they have no business spying on me, or you.  We have already bartered away more personal freedoms in my adult life then ever in the history of our country, we can't afford to invite them to take them away.

  As was stated above, I don't want the 'fakers' getting benefits they don't deserve, it honestly disgusts me and makes this whole process longer and much more painful, but I would rather a hundred losers like that receive benefits they don't deserve than one vet who does deserve them to be denied and suffer.  I guess it is perspective, but I don't like seeing some punished for the incongruity of others.  I am pretty confident that we are all vets here, not AD, and at some point you have to stop eating your own and turn that angst on those more deserving, like the ones making and enforcing the rules instead of someone else struggling to understand them.  Just my 2 cents.

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I deal with what is most of the time, not what should be.  My husband did his 20 and went out on a medical retirement.  Those guys are few and far between among the disabled vet population.  We've now been going toe to toe with the VA for longer than the length of my husband's enlistment.  VA employees, many who are veterans themselves, are often victims of group think.  It's easier for them to make these self-serving assumptions about disabled vets, especially when they work with like-minded allies, "them vs. us," dealing with disabled vets involves suffocating workloads, endless reams of paper files, and then the coupe de grace, throwing productivity bonus plans into the picture.  Unfortunately, when they have a financially motivated pre-determined goal in mind, the thumb is going to be on the scale.  Going back to my original point, this atmosphere of distrust and antagonism encourages a "means justifies the ends" evaluation process that can begin with the veteran being observed under video surveillance while waiting to be seen or evaluated merely going to the examination room.  

VA employees may think the money vets seek is undeserved, but they're all too accepting and ready with their hands out to get their bonuses.  We were told by one retired family medicine practitioner (conducting a lumbar spine exam, which should have gone to a specialist as it was on BVA appeal) in his mid 70's that the only reason he was working at the VA part-time was because he made bad investments,  He needed the bucks, so I doubt he was going to bite the hand that fed him at that point in his life.  There will be no fundamental change in this posture anytime in the near future, so I'm just picking up information along the way that helps us navigate the best we can through this cesspool of a "non-adversarial process."  

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In a similar vein, if you ARE using a cane or any other apparatus when you show up for your C&P exam, it better have been prescribed for you or suggested in writing somewhere by a doctor.  If it's not, the examiner will probably assume it's a dramatic prop used to exaggerate your condition and will likely note the discrepancy in the report.  

i am wheel chair bound and my power chairs have been provided by the va. but i get asked that all the time. i tell them to look at my medical record.

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