How To Open A Closed Claim

[mountain tyme]

Good Morning,

I have a question...what is needed to open up a claim once the time has run out to send in evidence. As some of you guys know the town I live in we have had a heck of a time with keeping a VSO at our local office...so I Have been handing out Hadit.com cards to the vets I run into in the hallway of the building...well last tuesday I went down there to drop off some paperwork and forgot the NEW Vso is not at our office that day...and while I was there I met this vet that needed help...he is not computer savvy...

So here is the question...Danny is a retired Vet did his 20+ years active duty...during his time in service he has extensive medical history of Headaches going back to the 70's, in two of the records it is stated that he normally woke up with headaches with pains in the back of his neck head regin also he had a weight problem and was on the weight reduction program think they called tha the fat boy program back then...but anyways in regards the the H/a .the doctor wrote possible tension stress H/A. To make a long story short over a year ago he filed a claim with the VA for sleep apnea because he felt the H/A were caused from the sleep apnea because his doctor told him that. He showed me his denial letter from the VA which stated that noting in his MSR indicated that he had sleep apena so his claim is denied. Since then He had went ahead and obtained buddy statements that all indicated that he snored very loudly...in one of the buddy statement the guy who wrote it indicated his snoring was so intense that he could hear him in his room which was next door and had to move his bed across the room. Also in this guys medical records he had broke his nose while playing football for his squadon and had to have surgery. He told me that he told the military doctor about the sorning and he was told by the doctor it was due to having the surgery on his nose. So he never thought anything else about it. So can he re-open that claim with the buddy statements or will he need to go to a doctor to have them say the snoring and the Headaches were most likely an indicator he had sleep apena during his military service.

Thank You and Danny thanks you as well...

MT

[Vike17]

Mountain Tyme,

Is this veteran's headaches service-connected? If they are, he should submit a nexus statement from his doctor stating that his Sleep Apnea is "at least as likely as not" the result of his headaches. Make sure the doctor explains his rational as to why he came to such a conclusion.

If those headaches aren't service-connected, his best bet would to be to file a new claim for residuals of a broken nose and obsrtuctive Sleep Apnea as secondary to the broken nose. I'm not sure if both would warrant seperate ratings because they both are respitory condition, but I would let VA sort that out. If he either re-opens his previuosly denied claim with "new and material" evidence, or he files a new claim as stated above, the effective date is the same. To re-open a previuosly denied claim, one must submit "new and material" evidence. This means evidence that VA has not seen before and evidence that bears directly on the fact of why the claim was previuosly denied.

6502 Septum, nasal, deviation of:

Traumatic only, with 50-percent obstruction of the nasal passage on both sides or complete obstruction on one side................................................................ 10%

6847 Sleep Apnea Syndromes (Obstructive, Central, Mixed)

Chronic respiratory failure with carbon dioxide retention or cor pulmonale, or; requires tracheostomy.................................................................. 100 %

Requires use of breathing assistance device such as continuous airway pressure (CPAP) machine.........................................................................

. 50%

Persistent day-time hypersomnolence ......................................................................... 30

Asymptomatic but with documented sleep disorder breathing......................................... 0

I hope this helps!

Vike 17

[Berta]

Vike stated:

"If he either re-opens his previuosly denied claim with "new and material" evidence, or he files a new claim as stated above, the effective date is the same."

EED-Meaning the date of the new claim if the other decision is final and not appealable anymore.

If I were this vet I would attach copies f whatever he already has to support the claim- the buddy statements and any medical statements that help the nexus and the current condition.

Is he aware of the concurrent receipt laws? I see he is 20 years retired.

A service connection compensation payment would be affected by those regs in many cases.

These are exlained at Military.Com

under CRDP and CRSC.

http://www.military.com/benefits/military-...aring-crsc-crdp

Edited February 9, 2007 by Berta

[mountain tyme]

Thank You Vike17,

When Danny showed me his paperwork from the VA when he was seperated in the Early 90 he is SC for headaches but it has a zero rating, it was on a yellow color form with a list of item he was serviced connected for and some of the conditions had zero and some had %, his back had 20% for ddd, and he had a % of 20 for dermititis to his hands he worked with alot of solvants...he also showed me some of his Medical Records from Pease AFB where they did surgery for his nose but it was not mentioned on his VA paperwork when they origianly listed his condition...also in his military medical records it has acid reflux listed twice Danny said about 2 years before he retired he had alot of acid indigestion and in his records it mentions he was taking tum's the doctor noted probabal GER and in another appointment another doctor said probablal reflux. So I think he is being medicated for GERD and has a diagonis for it from his cilvian doctor since he got out of the military...the poor soul is a walking pharmacy...so I will help him put a claim in for that as well...o ya he is on a c-pap machine..

will update later I told him I would meet up with him with any information I can find...

this is really good therapy for me...

Take Care

God Speed

MT

[Philip Rogers]

These are just my thoughts but I prefer to review the complete c-file looking for errors and then if none found will re-open w/new and material evidence. Prior to the inernet a great deal of errors were made that vets never knew about. They still routinely err.

pr

[john999]

Philip

Have you ever done anything with a discharge review? You talk about riding a sawhorse. The Board for Correction of Military records is a mess. They lose all evidence and their is no number to call to find out what is going on. They are far worse than the VA. They lost the brief I sent them and that is pissing me off the more I think about it. I would have lost anyway because I don't think you can win after a few years regardless of your evidence.

[LarryJ]

If I may, I might add something here.

Awaking with a headache, sometimes very severe in nature, often times results FROM sleep apnea. Something about the lack of breathing properly causing a lowering of the amount of air taken into the lungs, causing a decrease in the amount of oxygen in the blood, thereby starving the brain of oxygen...............

Kinda like, if you are in an area of increased carbon monoxide and decreased oxygen, say from a heater that is using up all the oxygen in a room, sometimes the ONLY clue that you are about getting ready to die, is A TERRIBLE HEADACHE.

So, if he is service connected due to the broken nose, and this broken nose causes sleep apnea, then it only stands to reason that the severe headaches...............

There is Med Lit on this series of symptoms. Google it.