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Bladder cancer claim

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12thcavmedic

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I presently have rating for PTSD, Tinnitus, Hearing loss and Prostate cancer.  In April 2021, I was diagnosed with Bladder Cancer. I filed a claim for Bladder cancer since it had recently been listed as one of the Presumptive diseases related to service in Vietnam and exposure to Agent Orange. The claim was received, evidence gathered and has been in review status since August2021. I thought since this was a presumptive cancer, the decision would be determined quicker. Has anyone received a decision for a bladder cancer claim? Thanks for any help and advice offered. 

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  • HadIt.com Elder

12thcavmedic Welcome to Hadit You could do a couple of things, but this Covid thing really has slowed down the claim process with the VA. Call 800-827-1000 which is general info desk. They have very limited visibility on what they can see, but they may be able to shed some light as to where it is and what may be holding it up. Since it is cancer, I would ask the rep also if they can put a hardship notation on your file due to the cancer. Secondly, if you did the claim yourself, you can go thru a VSO that has the ability to actually see more info as to what your claim is doing thru VBMS. Not all VSO's have this authorization. If you are close to a county VSO, they would be able to do this for you. Overall, it is not a process that is quick these days, so don't read anything into the delay. Good luck to you brother.

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The snag is your service records or STR's, I almost guarantee it. NPRC (National Personnel Records Center) has been on limited to no internal staff in the building for almost 2 yrs. If the records were not already digitized then they are literally found and scanned, and if they are on a reduced or no staffing footing they can only get the records that are already digitized. I have an occasional contact there that I talk to through Fb and last year in June/July they were something like 400,000 claims behind. Claims for them are not just ours, though, they are civilian requests, also- grandpa's medals, civilian service agencies, genealogy, stuff like that. I put in an NPRC request for records to verify combat action or AOE or something I can usually guarantee 3 months, probably more, and in some cases ive had a case come back around to me that has been waiting for almost a year. We can work your claim based on what you send in, and in some cases piece together enough to actually send to rating but without having service records on file its all still quasi speculation. We have to have the STRs and we have to have the service records. 

Luckily in the last few months there has been a relaxing of that for service verification where we can accept non-official, non-certified documents as proof of service in the absence of anything else, provided we can verify that they look to be unaltered. This falls first on the baseline VSR (me). You can imagine that I am hesitant in what I think about the whole thing- I like that I can potentially move a claim along faster without the official certification, but on the other hand I am not a document forensics specialist. I do, and have done in the past, some IT security stuff so there is some overlap with identifying computer altered documents, but its not like its on my resume or anything or part of my job duties. I don't not want to approve them and move the claim along but I don't want some guy in Duluth that has never served getting the farm because he happened to be a wiz with Adobe, either. 

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I might be reading this wrong but I am under the impression that this vet , 12 Cav Medic, is a Vietnam in Country veteran and his STRs would not be needed for the decision, because bladder cancer is presumptive to all incountry Vietnam vets ( and Blue Water Navy vets who fall into the AO ship' list of AO ships.Or can prove their ship was exposed within the 12 mile limit, with their ship logs.)

I hope the claim does not get tied up with a VA attemtpt to get info from NARA, that the veteran does not need for a decision.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

The dopes- ooops the VA ,denied my AO IHD claim saying my husband's SMRs did not reveal IHD. (1STMARDIV 65-66 Vietnam.)

I cued them in a heart beat, as these AO vets with IHD due to AO were often kids still in their teens in Vietnam and none of them could have even enlisted if they had Ischemic heart disease.

The VA reversed their stupid denial but I wonder how many widows might have  been denied that way by the idiot who did not understand Nehmer  or the word "presumptive."

 

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I agree -that is my take- I took note of  this vet's handle, 12thCAV Medic ,and this told me he probably had MANY stressors in Vietnam amd he does  have  a PTSD SC rating.

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