Need advice please

[Mike Benton]

Before I knew what I needed to do to file a claim, I filed a "claim" in 2012 for sleep apnea.  It was denied and should have been, I had no diagnosis submitted, no evidence, no nexus letter...

Now though, I just submitted a fully developed claim for sleep apnea secondary to tinnitus.  I included my nexus letter/IMO letter, official diagnosis and sleep study. 

I got a letter in the mail today from VA, advising that I need to file a different form to ask for a review because I was originally denied for sleep apnea back in 2012 and have new evidence to submit.

 

Does it matter that this claim is as a secondary to a disabled condition, and not directly service connected as the original claim was?

[brokensoldier244th]

No. Any claim submitted for a condition previously denied is filed now either on a 20-0995 (new evidence/relevant evidence that may have been missed) or 20-0996 (higher level review only of evidence already of record and nothing else). Its been that way since 2017. If you filed on a 526ez that's what triggered it- one of us saw that in your file, looked at prior rated issues (shows both approved/rated and denied) and sent you an AMA (appeals modernization act/request for application) so you could file on the correct form. 

nothing out of the ordinary there. Good luck! What do you have going back to service, if anything, relating to sleep troubles, snoring, area of operations, etc? How long have you been out? Area of operations is important- if you were in SWA https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/gulfwar/military-service.asp) there are a host of things that could be conceded as service connected provided you have diagnoses for them and were active within the area specified in the link above. Read that whole left sidebar and you'll see what im talking about. 

 

[broncovet]

I agree with Broken soldier.  

Clemons vs Shinseki "nailed down" that a Veteran need not diagnose his own illnesses in order to be compensated for them.  

In a similar manner, few Veterans have a phd in VAola, such as knowing the differences between direct service connection, secondary service connection, presumptive sc, etc.  The Veterans dont need to know these differences.  Its the rating specialists job to know the presumptives, if they apply to that Veteran, the Veterans current SC conditions, and if any of the new illnesses are secondary to those.  

Remember, there are military Veterans who have poor/non existant reading, writing, or computer skills, at least some of which lost those skills with severe head injuries, for example.  

Some did not even speak much English.  Yep, that's right.  While I was in, there was a whole group of military who were from the Philipines, and many of those did not speak good English and many were made cooks.  

Further, there were Indians who spoke their native tongue, and these were critical to winning the war.  The enemy could not decode the indians messages because they were a rarely known dialect.  I didnt make it up.  https://www.tomedes.com/translator-hub/code-talkers.php

Its not always necessary for troops to speak English to enter service, and "speaking English" is not on the criteria list for obtaining VA benefits.  

[Mike Benton]

Thanks for the replies!