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Received my VA letter, it says they're planning to reduce, letter contains no useful information. What now?
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dsteele713
First things first: It wasn't a large yellow packet, it was a normal-sized white envelope with 4 pages inside, only 1 of which was actually correspondence. Is this normal for a denial/reduction? Or should I be expecting another envelope?
So I posted a week back (post is here). I filed for an increase, but I got a letter from the DAV that the VA plans to reduce two of the ratings I applied for an increase on. I finally got a letter from the VA this morning.
1. Reactive Arthritis - 60% to 10%
2. Facial scar - 10% to 0%
Except the letter contains no details whatsoever. The entire relevant portion is "We have reviewed medical records concerning your service-connected conditions and noted some improvement in your Systemic lupus erythematosus and Scars, head, face, or neck. Based on this evidence, we are proposing to reduce your prior evaluation of it's overall disabling effect"
Then they list the percentage proposals, what the new combined rating would be (40%, xxxx that noise), what my new payment would be, and then they let me know I have 30 days to request a hearing and submit evidence. It also says "We have enclosed a copy of a rating decision for your review", but that's it. The closest thing to a rating decision is what was stated above.
So how do they expect anyone to be able to respond to this? They don't actually tell you what the basis for their decision is. This experience is exactly the opposite of my first claim. VA took forever, and not only denied the increased but proposed a reduction but didn't explain why. Also, they continue to refer to it as lupus even though my claim was for reactive arthritis, my diagnosis is for reactive arthritis, etc. And looking through other cases I know it should be rated under 5009 (arthritis, other, rated as by analogy to 5002, Rheumatoid arthritis)
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