VES C&P Examiner Rant and Defensive Actions During My Examine

[GulfWarVet1990]

Good evening, one thing have a I learned throughout my years of C & P exams is to not to argue with the examiner. 

However, no one ever told me how to handle an argumentative examiner. 

First off, C & P Exam is for a 20 year NOD that was never adjudicated. (you might have seen my previous post)

About 7 conditions all related to Gulf War and Environmental Hazard Exposure.

Gulf War included - Chronic Fatigue and Joint Pains. 

I had a C & P exam today with a VES contracted Provider for what I thought would be an examination for all the conditions that were not adjudicated. 

I called Veterans Evaluation Services (VES) in advanced and  inquired which conditions were on the schedule, of which they listed all that were not adjudicated. 

So during the exam the doctorr did not ask me about CFS or GF issues, so I asked him if they were on the list, and if he will be examining or asking questions re: aforementioned.

OMG - he ranted on and on about he did not need to examine me for these conditions because I did not have a diagnosis.  And why he did not need to examine me for the conditions. I have no idea what he said after that because I totally shut down.

He never answered my question although i asked him twice if CFS was on the list of conditions for examination. I left the appointment more stressed than when I arrived. 

He also spent a lot of time explaining himself about how many Veterans he has examined, how many years he has been a contractor with VA, how poorly kept other examination offices were, etc. All unnecessary and irrelevant. 

He also asked me questions that were not relevant to my exam such as "if my family lived in the area, am I from the area, and how do I feel about the war in Ukraine". Totally not professional. He also gave unsolicited stories  about some of his patients, and their conditions, I guess to let me know he was familiar with VA examinations. 

I've never come across someone as unprofessional as he in a long time.  

Can anyone tell me where I can report this "provider" for his unprofessional behavior?

Thank you. 

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by GulfWarVet1990
typo

[john999]

I had one crazy exam doctor ask me about my religious feelings.  He asked if I was a Christian.  I thought he was nuts. I told him I believed people who ran the VA would burn in hell for their sins.  That shut him up.

[GulfWarVet1990]

Yup that will do it, what did he write in your C&P exam? 

[john999]

He made some dumb comment.  It did not affect my rating.  I had some other doc tell me that vets get fat on purpose just to get diabetes so they can get paid.  What can you say to such ignorance?

[Vync]

I bet the examiner did a simple search in the system and that's it. If your service treatment records are like mine, then they are likely to be about 98% handwritten to include cursive. From when I got out in 1995 until the early 2000's, many of the VA's treatment records are also handwritten.

When I got my claims folder on CD, the PDF file had optical character recognition (OCR) applied to it. OCR is a feature which attempts to translate typed and handwritten content into alphanumeric characters. It works reasonably well on typed content, but generally fails miserably on handwriting, especially cursive. With c-files now being digital and available online for examiners to review, many will simply do a search for terms related to your claim, like back, knee, shoulder, etc... That's reasonable so long as the examiner manually goes back and reads every single page, front and back, to decipher the sloppy handwriting. However, if you had a lot of handwritten pages, they probably did not make a good faith effort to review them.

Instead of just filling out a form and submitting a claim, I prefer to spoon-feed the VA exactly what they need. I include a list of treatment dates and connect the dots to explain each issue, plus include a copy of the corresponding treatment record. All they have to do is verify my submission. Sadly, many examiners can't even do that correctly.

As far as the conditions like CFS or GF which they failed to address, I have had cases where the VA sent me to one doctor for some things and another for others. Although I doubt they did that in your case, it still remains a possibility.

[Whodat]

You are right Vynce. I have actually seen where they just did a pdf word search. It's best for vets to thoroughly go through their records and upload documents themselves. 

[john999]

My SMR's are a mess since I got them 50 years ago.  They are totally incomplete and the ones that exist make no sense.  I had military doctors that deliberately left things out of their exams.  I had a shrink that did not submit any written records in an attempt (he said) to protect me.  90% of my basic training records are missing and all the records at my last duty station are missing. I have looked all over creation for them with no luck.  Back in the day the Army did not supply discharged soldiers with any records.  I got no copies of records when I was discharged.  This was 1971.