Anxiety condition award start date

[Riplip]

Hello, I am still out here battling away. Finally got my personnel records after 7 months. Been going through them for a couple weeks now. I was granted 50% Anxiety condition on 8/14/2019. While going back in my records I was denied the same condition 4 times going back to 4/3/2015. Should they have granted it back to then or not? Just wondering. Thanks for any thoughts

[pacmanx1]

6 hours ago, broncovet said:

Not so fast!  A few hours of your time could well result in thousands of dollars of retro to you. 

I agree with Bronco, a few years ago on a remand from the BVA, the VARO granted me a CUE claim and I filed an NOD on top of my just granted CUE Decision and won an even earlier effective date by proving the VARO failed to review my entire records to determine my onset date of my disability. There is a precedent rule called Clemons v Shinseki. 

 

[Riplip]

This is some good stuff. I did recieve my personnel file finally and its almost 5000 pages so I think I need to look at all the denials and the approval and find out what was different? 

[brokensoldier244th]

Was it paper, or PDF? If PDF you might have to open it an Adobe, type 'Recognition' into the sidebar to get the option to convert to OCR recognition. Adobe will then scan the whole thing and try to make what text it can identify searchable. It won't work well (or at all) on handwritten stuff, but for the typed things it helps alot. You may not need to, though. Try searching for a few  common words like "depression" or "headache" or whatever you know should be in there somewhere. See if you get any hits. Sometimes the format of how the file is scanned doesn't include OCR recognition because it takes longer- at 5000 pages you'll start the process and then go do something else for an hour or two. 

[Riplip]

Not sure how to figure that stuff out. When I put the disk in the computer it comes up through my bluebeam account. There isn't a search button that I can find. Been doing what you said. An hour or two hear and there. 

[brokensoldier244th]

28 minutes ago, Riplip said:

Not sure how to figure that stuff out. When I put the disk in the computer it comes up through my bluebeam account. There isn't a search button that I can find. Been doing what you said. An hour or two hear and there. 

Try CTRL-F on your keyboard, and then look up to the upper right. A search line might open. 

[Riplip]

Brokensoldier, thank you so much. That does open up a search column. That will help a ton.