Who requests secondary claims?

[Vync]

My fuzzy memory recalls something about the VA being required to develop claims to maximize benefits (i.e. explore potential secondary claims).

My recent claim was for "Heart condition due to medications for TMJ, upper and lower spine". Is the VA required to fully explore side effects of medications to treat all SC disabilities or just the specific scope requested?

I ask because I found many medications used to treat other SC disabilities may cause risk factors  (i.e. hypertension, weight gain, high cholesterol). I'm hoping to be able to tie these in as secondary conditions which contributed to my heart attack.

 

[brokensoldier244th]

Or, just file a secondary claim. They can't  infer side effects from medication because the list of side effects are only potential ones, not everyone has every side effect of a med, and some don't have any of them. VA is not going to infer a secondary claim for every side effect for every med out there if that was the case we'd all be getting 100% for no reason. 

[Oceanbound]

You have to explain everything--like making a batch of cookies. 

Everyone here has the right answers. They can't infer if you didn't draw the picture and do your concise report.  For instance I had to look/read through miles of medical journals and printed nearly a dozen medical journals articles explaining from the start of the secondary injury to the end result due to original. Not sure what that ended up will be because I didn't type it out, just highlighted and underlined the main points/sentences for the IMO physician. But the first one I did ended up being 19 pages which included 3 pages of citations.