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Caluza Triangle defines what is necessary for service connection
Tbird posted a record in VA Claims and Benefits Information,
Caluza Triangle – Caluza vs Brown defined what is necessary for service connection. See COVA– CALUZA V. BROWN–TOTAL RECALL
This has to be MEDICALLY Documented in your records:
Current Diagnosis. (No diagnosis, no Service Connection.)
In-Service Event or Aggravation.
Nexus (link- cause and effect- connection) or Doctor’s Statement close to: “The Veteran’s (current diagnosis) is at least as likely due to x Event in military service”-
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Tbird, -
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Post in ICD Codes and SCT CODES?WHAT THEY MEAN?
Timothy cawthorn posted an answer to a question,
Do the sct codes help or hurt my disability ratingPicked By
yellowrose, -
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Post in Chevron Deference overruled by Supreme Court
broncovet posted a post in a topic,
VA has gotten away with (mis) interpreting their ambigious, , vague regulations, then enforcing them willy nilly never in Veterans favor.
They justify all this to congress by calling themselves a "pro claimant Veteran friendly organization" who grants the benefit of the doubt to Veterans.
This is not true,
Proof:
About 80-90 percent of Veterans are initially denied by VA, pushing us into a massive backlog of appeals, or worse, sending impoverished Veterans "to the homeless streets" because when they cant work, they can not keep their home. I was one of those Veterans who they denied for a bogus reason: "Its been too long since military service". This is bogus because its not one of the criteria for service connection, but simply made up by VA. And, I was a homeless Vet, albeit a short time, mostly due to the kindness of strangers and friends.
Hadit would not be necessary if, indeed, VA gave Veterans the benefit of the doubt, and processed our claims efficiently and paid us promptly. The VA is broken.
A huge percentage (nearly 100 percent) of Veterans who do get 100 percent, do so only after lengthy appeals. I have answered questions for thousands of Veterans, and can only name ONE person who got their benefits correct on the first Regional Office decision. All of the rest of us pretty much had lengthy frustrating appeals, mostly having to appeal multiple multiple times like I did.
I wish I know how VA gets away with lying to congress about how "VA is a claimant friendly system, where the Veteran is given the benefit of the doubt". Then how come so many Veterans are homeless, and how come 22 Veterans take their life each day? Va likes to blame the Veterans, not their system.Picked By
Lemuel, -
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Post in Re-embursement for non VA Medical care.
broncovet posted an answer to a question,
Welcome to hadit!
There are certain rules about community care reimbursement, and I have no idea if you met them or not. Try reading this:
https://www.va.gov/resources/getting-emergency-care-at-non-va-facilities/
However, (and I have no idea of knowing whether or not you would likely succeed) Im unsure of why you seem to be so adamant against getting an increase in disability compensation.
When I buy stuff, say at Kroger, or pay bills, I have never had anyone say, "Wait! Is this money from disability compensation, or did you earn it working at a regular job?" Not once. Thus, if you did get an increase, likely you would have no trouble paying this with the increase compensation.
However, there are many false rumors out there that suggest if you apply for an increase, the VA will reduce your benefits instead.
That rumor is false but I do hear people tell Veterans that a lot. There are strict rules VA has to reduce you and, NOT ONE of those rules have anything to do with applying for an increase.
Yes, the VA can reduce your benefits, but generally only when your condition has "actually improved" under ordinary conditions of life.
Unless you contacted the VA within 72 hours of your medical treatment, you may not be eligible for reimbursement, or at least that is how I read the link, I posted above. Here are SOME of the rules the VA must comply with in order to reduce your compensation benefits:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/38/3.344
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Lemuel, -
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Post in What is the DIC timeline?
broncovet posted an answer to a question,
Good question.
Maybe I can clear it up.
The spouse is eligible for DIC if you die of a SC condition OR any condition if you are P and T for 10 years or more. (my paraphrase).
More here:
Source:
https://www.va.gov/disability/dependency-indemnity-compensation/
NOTE: TO PROVE CAUSE OF DEATH WILL LIKELY REQUIRE AN AUTOPSY. This means if you die of a SC condtion, your spouse would need to do an autopsy to prove cause of death to be from a SC condtiond. If you were P and T for 10 full years, then the cause of death may not matter so much.Picked By
Lemuel, -
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Question
Wico1337
I know this will sound very bizarre. I just want to be honest and upfront about the situation as I want the honest answer about what I can do to fight this.
I had a VA Claim appointment with a VES Doctor about 4 months ago. I had like 7 conditions I was claiming. The Doctor's information was sent to me, he has 0 years of experience working with VA and 1 year as a doctor. My VES appointment for all 7 conditions lasted about 20 minutes. This is how it went.
- 4 he outright threw out.
- Sinusitis - He service connected me with a 30% rating.
- Headaches - Gave me the bogus rating of 0%. But at least service connected me. Already filed supplemental claim.
- Hypertension... - decreased from 10% to 0%. But still service connected. - This is where it gets interesting. Let me give full details. I was service connection for hypertension in 2018. I was given a 10% then. My blood pressure Diastolic has had many times been above 110. So I figured I would file the claim for a raise. During this examination, he hooked my arm up to a blood pressure reader and took my blood pressure 3 times back to back. He then insisted to ask me if I took my blood pressure medicine the night before, saying that "some people" dont take their blood pressure medicine and think that making their blood pressure higher for the examination would give them a higher rating, and it wont. I knew this, this is pretty obvious. But the way he was asking me and telling me about it was him acting like I had faked it or some crap. I was pretty xxxxxxx nervous because ive heard horror stories of stuff like this happening where these assholes drop ratings for no reason.
Anyway, I then tried to hand him a paper saying that I wanted to turn in 3 recent blood pressure readings that show I have consistent high blood pressure. Ironically, all of these 3 readings were from recent VA Visitations. He refused the documents saying that the Evaluation has nothing to do with recent blood pressure readings. He stated that 3 individual readings does not indicate anything about how the VA rated blood pressure. That the VA only cares about the entire last years trend of your blood pressure readings. He then cherry picked times that my diastolic went below 100. He then proceeds to blatantly outright tell me that "I have done thousands of these claims, and the VA simply does not rate anyone above 10% unless they are months away from dying." Yes, you heard that right. He has experienced thousands of results from BP claims while hes been doing this less than a year. He said that the only way that someone can have a 110 consistent diastolic to meet the requirements for the VA rating is if they are on the brink of death and the doctor has given them months to live. This whole thing is so crazy to me, because I have seen everywhere that the blood pressure evaluation is based on 3 seperate readings. I merely was using 3 VA readings, not that he knew, he didnt care who did the readings or what they even were. Its like he had something out for me?
In the VA Decision Letter, he treated the entire thing as if he was denying my claim outright and trying to Un-service connect me for Hypertension. his reasining for the rating decision was to type out a huge thing summarizing the following.
"Veteran had blood pressure of 156/74 and 150/85 the year before entering service (at MEPS)." He did not reveal the 3rd reading. I got a nurse to take tests outside of MEPS because I was freaking nervous there. They accepted me saying that I had white coat syndrome which increased BP.
Continue to list readings during military service of my BP being 150/85. Sometimes it spiked higher, but the military would have me "retake" until it dropped from Hypertension to Prehypertension.
I seperate in 2014. My blood pressure is was still Prehypertension.
Skip to 2017, I am on many more meds, VES evaluator puts "The BP 2017 showed 149/113. This appears to be a nature progression of the vets BP was aggrivated beyond its natural progression by the military service during service. Therefore, it is my medical opinion that the vet's current diagnosis of HTN is less likely than not (Less than 50 percent probability) aggravated beyond its natural progression by an in-service ilness event or injury".
So he is saying that in 3 years, it is normal progression for my Diastolic to rise from 85 to 113.
The rest of the Decision letter reads that I am still service connected, but just now at 0%. I checked benefits.va.gov and it shows I am service connected at 0%.
The VA decision letter end says "A Higher valuation of 10 percent is not warranted for hypertensive vascular disease unless the evidence shows:
* A history of diastolic pressure predominantly 100% or more and there is a requirement for continuous medication for control: or,
* Diastolic pressure predominantly 100 or more; or,
* Systolic pressure predominantly 160 or more. (38 CFR 4.104)
Maybe I am taking this all in wrong? I am hoping that you guys can decipher where I went wrong here. I feel like I just have had so much bad luck with evaluators man. What do I do in this situation from here? Thank you all for all you do on giving us novices advice on this complicated stuff.
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broncovet
If you have a Written decision which reduces your rating, "cry foul" by filing a NOD disputing the reduction. You have 3.334 regulations in your favor:
jamescripps2
# 1, Was your 10% HBP rating fully stabalized by being in effect for five years or better at the same rate? # 2, The C&P doctor did not /could not reduce you or assign a percentage. The rater
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