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White House Hotline question

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Navyguy2013

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I am thinking about calling the White House Hotline to see about several NOD's that are well over 900 days old.

I am second guessing myself as I do not want the VA to retaliate against my claims because I am rocking the boat.

The RO keeps telling me there are about 700 claims in front of me. That has not changed in over 6 months. I know

many NOD's are older than mine. It would be nice to have some forward movement in my place in line. 

Has anyone heard that the VA retaliates against veterans for calling the White House Hot Line?  Does calling the hotline

yield any positive results?

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I found an older 2016 post and attachments you had made in my profile----

 Your husband posted this at hadit  this past July:

“ DBQ's should I get given Dr Ellis is already on board with Nexus for HTN as cause for the brain bleed, caused by exposures due to herbicides and insecticides used, and the COPD due to Diesel exhaust/CO2 levels/Benzene in the exhaust of track vehicles I worked on. Suggestions please.”

 

https://community.hadit.com/topic/70148-waiting-and-waiting-for-dro-review/?tab=comments#comment-432707&gsc.tab=0

The IMO from Dr. Ellis will not help your husband at all, unless he has since done a better one…I am looking at the one that appears to have been posted in my profile and I hardly ever even notice profile questions.

I assume that the claim is for the conditions above in the July hadit post.

“HTN as cause for the brain bleed,”

If your husband has atherosclerotic heart disease or diabetes, that can cause atherosclerosis, that could have caused the brain bleed.

 Or somehow it was

 “caused by exposures due to herbicides and insecticides used,” and you would need a very strong medical opinion that fully complies with the IMO criteria here,

(1)    that not only identifies the exact chemical or environmental exposures (with proof that he was exposed to them in service)and

(2)    the IMO would also have to rule out any other etiology but for his inservice exposures, and then

(3)    include a full medical rationale ( supported by abstracts or treatises, or other medical literature, and the opining doctor should attach a Curriculum Vitae that proves his expertise.

 “and the COPD due to Diesel exhaust/CO2 levels/Benzene in the exhaust of track vehicles I worked on.”

This too would require the same medical rationale etc as above.

Dr Ellis ( this is the second time I have seen a poor opinion from him regarding another vet member with COPD. I am shocked at how poorly your opinion was done as well.

But no doctor doing IMOs for VA claims without a basic knowledge of 

the IMO criteria here, can possibly prepare a valid IMO, :

(1)    that not only identifies the exact chemical or environmental exposures (with proof that he was exposed to them in service)and

(2)    the IMO would also have to rule out any other etiology but for his inservice exposures, and then

(3)    include a full medical rationale ( supported by abstracts or treatises, or other medical literature, and the opining doctor should attach a Curriculum Vitae that proves his expertise.

 “and the COPD due to Diesel exhaust/CO2 levels/Benzene in the exhaust of track vehicles I worked on.”

This too would require the same medical rationale etc as above. How the exposure to chemical X or fuel exhaust Y or Benzene, with n9oo other possible etiology, has caused the current disability(ies)

Dr Ellis ( this is the second time I have seen a poor opinion from him regarding another vet member with COPD. I am shocked at how poorly your opinion was done as well.

But no doctor doing IMOs for VA claims without a basic knowledge of the IMO criteria could possibly prepare a substantial opinion.

“ not sure about going but decided my Nexus doc's curriculum vitae is very extensive and at best I think the VA docs may be MDs but with far less experience.”

If you mean Dr Ellis, his CV might well be extensive, but the opinion from him that you posted in my profile is terrible.I only saw one page there...is there more to it?

“Like I said I think I have  given them ample evidence of the events with spraying not to mention the other pollutants and toxics he was around including Diesel exhausts. I hand carried it in to RO yesterday, and pending the info being reviewed we will see if this triggers anything. Hopefully they will move on it. I will see what the DBQ says in a couple of days I guess,” 

Perhaps the additional evidence will help support the claim……..

That would be great. But I do not see any medical evidence or medial opinion that directly connects any of his exposures to any of his disabilities.

Has the VA already rejected Dr Ellis’s opinion?

If so have you asked him to bolster the opinion by preparing it ,again, to follow the IMO criteria here at hadit?

 

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to add. it would help if you post in your past threads....best actually just to stay in the original thread.

I don't have the time to read them all and we forget the substance of them when one posts into a different thread.

Was he exposed to asbestos in service? Asbestos can cause a form of COPD.

I have older posts here on asbestos and service connection.

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NavyGuy 2013 asked:

"Has anyone heard that the VA retaliates against veterans for calling the White House Hot Line?  "

Not that I know of.

When a NOD is filed it  usually means something has been denied or lowballed...and maybe the claim was valid in the first place---yet now set for the long appeals process.

To me ,every time the VA makes  incompetent errors,to a claimant's detriment, they have already chosen to retaliate against that veteran. C & P exams usually cause the denial, making it even easier for the VA to deny the claim as they are not going to question a negative C & P exam. They are not paid to do that, if there is no IMO or private DBQ to level the playing field (Benefit of Doubt)

I cannot comprehend how veterans have allowed the deficient and incompetent C & P exam system to go on as long as it has, forcing some vets to just give up and others to pay out lots of cash for IMOs. I think 2 or 3 threads today involved C & P examiners putting down things in the exam that the veteran didnt even say.

VA pays for C & Ps whether done at a VA or via a farm out contract. The examiners know that the VA does not want or expect a favorable C & P. And the farmed out C & P exams are not available to the veteran until the claim has been decided.....as far as I know that has not changed and that alone is one more right the VA has taken away from veterans. If the C & P is so bad it warrants an IMO, a vet usually does not have the cash or the time left to get an IMO and stave off the long appeals process.

I also cannot believe how afraid of the VA veterans are......and believe me they are counting on all of us to be fearful of them.

For the first time in the 34 years I have been involved with VA,I believe  we have a chance to change the VA with our input and how the BVA web site itself is proof of the systemic incompetence of  many (maybe all) regional offices, whose work is easy if they can deny the claim and get it off their desk. knowing many vets might not live long enough to see a proper resolve.

I got a horrific posthumous C & P exam (manipulated in a SOC long ago, as I learned from the doctor who wrote the posthumous exam) that made me wish I was dead when I read that SOC. 1997.

I was angry that my most probative evidence had been kept from the C & P doctor- and he was very angry too when he realized what the RO had done. The dead veteran was my husband, who no longer could speak for himself-so I turned my anger into a very aggressive attack with more evidence on the VA.The denial turned into an award within about 6 months.

I have never been afraid of the bastards.

And that SOC is going to bite them in the Ass, in my next complaint to the VA...I will be using the email addy I gave here the other day for the new VA Accountability office, because that exam and SOC  might be 20 years old but the VA has not changed their C & P MOS one bit , as we can see here by the week or day, on these posts.

I have a more recent issue as well.....I dont think the exam for my last claim was even done by a real doctor.

It didnt matter, that claim was awarded within days of a CUE I filed against the decision. Then again ,it would matter if that quack was handling similar C & P exams. It was absurd, medically.

But if vets want to continue to fear the VA, it will never change and if they don't complain the Secretary will never know what we all put up with. 

I do agree that veterans need protection from retaliation just like the Whistleblowers do and I told the Hot Line that. But maybe I am the only person that even raised that issue. I referred them to my H VAC testimony and letters to the Chairman of H VAC on that. Has anyone else complained about potential retaliation as a claimant here?

So be it.

I have my own hyperspace "Article 99" to pull on them and that will take me away from hadit for a while.

My neighbor can use my access here on my PC nerxt week  if I forget to sign out  but he is not allowed to post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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