I have a claim for increased disability pending. I was seen by the VA physician a week ago and I saw in his report that he is asserting that my increased disability is not related to my current 30% service-connected disability by the lamest, through-the-looking-glass story you could imagine.

Can I ask the rating board to hold off on the decision until I can arrange for an IME (Independent Medical Examiner) to submit an evaluation of my chart?

The VFW has my power of attorney should I work through them?

Can I ask them what other decisions have been made in similar cases? If not, can I find that out somewhere?

Thanks

Martin the BEST thing you could do is have a real doctor give you an IME- make sure they follow my topic-Getting an IMO-
IME or IMO basically sameo sameo-
the doctor will need your complete VA medical records and any private records too

"I was seen by the VA physician a week ago and I saw in his report that he is asserting that my increased disability is not related to my current 30% service-connected disability by the lamest, through-the-looking-glass story you could imagine."

That is SOP these days in order to deny claims-

"Can I ask them what other decisions have been made in similar cases? If not, can I find that out somewhere?"

At www.va.gov if you click on the Comp and Pension Icon the BVA will Pop up- go to decisions- and there you can search other similiar cases.

The VA will not accept a similiar case award to prove another vet's claim (in 99% of cases-they have done this -when legal technicalities come into play-long story there)

But these cases will show how why VA denied or why they awarded similiar claims.

It all boils down to medical evidence-

If your IME results do not follow the guidelines I posted for these opinions- VA will reject it.

Can you tell us what you are SCed for now and what you are attempting to get secondary SC for?
maybe someone right here at hadit has had similiar claim.

If you have a good VA Doc have them look at the C&P and ask them what they think. Sometimes they will help you.

Some of these loser DOcs the VA dredge up think that they owe the VA a lowball effort. I wonder why?

thanks fellas.

To answer the question --I was made SC for "hyypertensive vascular disease" in 1974. I hads a stroke last November.

I've been under continuous Rx for HTN. by the VA since 74. Now this guy claims I have familial hyperlipidemia (with no lipid eletrophresis study to make the Dx) and that was the cause of my stroke and not the hypertension. I am faxing a request today to the VSO in Oakland to defer the rating pending submission of an IME.

Get a Vascular Doc to wrtite the IMO.

If you need one, call a local attorney and ask them who they use for IME's.
You do not need an IMO, You need an IME. An independant medical examinatuion with th e Doctor making a history with the records in hand.
It needs to be specialized or you have zero chances as the VA has every right to stick with its own docs opinion because it is in favor of the VA.

Good Luck. You should also get an attorney. I feel you will most definatly need one.

J

Quick thought, are you an in country Viet Nam Vet and do you have DMII?

J

Naw, I volunteered when I was 17 for Viet-Nam and they sent me to Landstuhl to be an OR Tech. By the time they were making general invites, I wasn't 17 anymore, and knew enough about the Army to doubt the wisdom of volunteering anymore. I served my hitch and took my good conduct medal and went home.

By a curious set of circumstances I had been worked up for "idiopathic hypertension" at Landstuhl and ten years later the college doc told me to go to the local VA and get another work-up. I was lying in my bed admiring the view of Fresno out the window when the DAV guy came in and asked me what kind of disability I wanted. 2 mmonths later I was a bona fide service-connected disabled veteran.

Life's a crap shoot, eh? Now I've been under continuous treatment since 1974 (with 2 volumes of chart) after I got a stroke in November the Fresno VA started getting dubious about my benefits. I've got my good conduct medal, I'm 3 years out from Medicare, and my VA health benefits are the only coverage I have. They won't cover stroke rehab. The PT clinic is telling me to go join a gym.

If I get enough increase in my compensation, I can afford to buy rehab out of pocket. It's a case of root-hog-or-die if I ever want to get rid of my cane. The VA rehab doc keeps trying to get me more rehab and the PT department blows him off.

So thank you everybody for your help and advice. I got a copy of my C&P report and the VA doc is claiming that high blood pressure did not cause my stroke- So yes, it's time to go get a heavy caliber vascular specialist and seek an IME. I sent off a statement today asking the rating board to give me 60 days to set it up.

So that's my story. Thanks again everybody.

"Now this guy claims I have familial hyperlipidemia (with no lipid eletrophresis study to make the Dx) and that was the cause of my stroke and not the hypertension"

what a QUACK!

I suggest that you request more time but ask them to consider (in the response time you haveleft) some prints outs such as:
http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/39/2/343

I get furious when I see something like this- an obvious SC disabilioty that has caused or contributed to an obvious
secondary disability- and veterans are forced into expensive IMOs just to combat a few words in a C & P from some quack-

Any evidence at all will protect your response dates and at the same time you can seek an IMO.

Men and women- I am taking time off in May for many reasons- one is the fact that Congressman Filner Chairman H VAC is going to receive proof from me as to how the VA deliberately manipulates these C & Ps in order to deny the claim.

MANY C & Ps are successfully overruled with evidence to include costly IMOS from a veteran- but the fact remains that C & P exams control our future and they are being performed by non professionals, or professionals who are not trained in field of disability or have no expertise in it-
and the results often reflect they dont know their a hole from their elbow-pardon my french -
like in this C & P result-

I studied cardiology to include the hyperlipedemia hypothesis, as to CVA and am still studying it-and can say with full medical rationale that
this guy's C & P opinion is medically ludicrous!

PS- even if they give you more time- combat that dope C & P with all you got-

it would be a timely response that could actually award the claim-

The VA has no way they could get medical rationale for this guys opinion.

There is no way they could definitely find your strove was solely due to hyperlipedimia-which the VA recognises but never rates at all-it is a symptom and could be a factor in stroke but
they already admitted you have hypertensive vascular disease.

Strokes are caused by hypertensive vascular disease.

These dopes arent dumb- they are paid by the VA to make sure claims get denied.

Would you be willing to possibly share a copy of this C & P with the Sub COmmittee on Disability and Memorial Affairs?

Bertha, thanks for the great information and encouragement. You may use any of this information to help disabled veterans in any manner you wish.

I wrote the director of the local VA this letter to see if he will want to avoid making a spectacle. If I can get the added language inserted without going for an IME - well I figured it was worth a shot. If I can get them to agree that my disability was 30-50 percent of the cause of my stroke - that's probably enough. Cross yer fingers

******************************

Mr Allan Perry,
Director,
VA Hospital, Fresno

Dear Mr. Perry,

One of the people over at the "hadit.com" veterans forums has asked me if she can bring the C&P report done by your Dr.Mehta on April 13th to the attention of the "Sub Committee on Disability and Memorial Affairs".

It being the case that Dr. Mehta claims my recent stroke is not related to my previously documented service-connected disability for hypertension in his C&P evaluation, and because I can present massive documentation by highly qualified MD's such as..

http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/39/2/343

for starters - calling into question Dr. Mehta's curious assertion. And furthermore, since this report will cause me to go to the considerable time and expense of finding a vascular specialist to provide an IME opinion - well, I just wondered if you wanted such a curiously singular example of your medical staff's competence to become general knowledge ?

Is it possible Dr. Mehta, upon reflection, might wish to provide an addendum to his report to bring it more in line with modern medical thinking? I understand from a recent issue of Neurology (46 (2): 301–7) that Hypertension is 30-50% of stroke risk. Is it possible that Dr. Mehta might want to include that kind of language and reconsider his claim that my stroke is not service connected on the basis of additional review of the relevant medical literature?

I believe that might best be in accordance with the VA's mission and goals - to say nothing of the "Patient's Bill of Rights". I have no wish to embarass anyone, but as a former VA RN, I am still interested in seeing the VA fulfill its mission in accordance with modern standards of care.

Sincerely,

I hope that you have not sent that letter. The VA usually hunkers down when threatened.

You should redo it and be respectful but insistent that you have an incorrect diagnosis and that you will appeal it.

I suggest that you ask for a Hearing on the matter and present the evidence to the Review Officer. This will put them on notice. You can leave the part about the puzzling diagnosis by the C&P Doc and request another C&P Doc if they decide to do another one.

Good Luck

Interesting tactical war maneuver!

Yes= that might work! Might........some of these letters we send are opened by lackeys-and probably trashed but it is worth a try-

If they don't believe you just tell them I am Berta Simmons -my address etc-is all listed under Testimony -Witness list at the H VAC web site for the hearings-"Document Tampering". I am using new program that makes it difficult for me to post links-
I forget when that was-in March ? it is at VA Watchdog too-

I can post it tomorrow if you dont see it there-

But a C & P can be challenged with full rationale and medical abstracts etc-as well as common sense.

When some VA doctor said my husband's death was possibly due to cocaine overdose-to deny my DIC claim -I re -sent them his toxicology report and full autopsy- cocaine my butt-
I proved the VA killed him with negligence.

I sent the lousy C & P PA recently a copy of his actual report and how I knocked it down to the VA - with a CC to Congressman Filner- I am fed up with fact we deal with quacks.

I said right in the rebuttal to VA I did that I know more about cardiology than this PA does and more then 2 cardios at the VA (proven in my FTCA settlement reports)

Fight back any way you think will get them to read the evidence properly-

Another trick I used is to completely identify all med recs that this PA ignored-in my rebuttal
and I caught how he said my IMO Dr examined the veteran----- 10 years after the veteran had died, yeah right and said my husband had a CVA in 1988- NOT true-he had a misdiagnosed heart attack in 1988 diagnosed by me in 1995 and misdiagnosed brain ischemia, never diagnosed until 1995 by me - but not a CVA-until 1992-misdiagnosed too

Fight them on this -if you get a better C & P that would be great-
I got Rod a better C & P many years ago- I called the C & P doc up at Canadaigua and raised hell and knocked down his report with a rebuttal too -Rod got another C & P done.

I defer to Berta

I had a friend once who liked to mess with feminists. He would get into a discussion of equal rights and then claim that women only made up 27% of the population so it didn't matter anyway and then watch them just sputter trying to deal with such an outrageous gambit. This C&P result is like that - it's so bad it isn't even wrong, only ludicrous.

I hope I haven't been too forceful with these people, but it seems to me nobody is going to publish such a totally lame heap of obvious baloney unless they mean to screw me over in the first place. If somebody throws a brick through my window, is it wisdom to wonder whether it was a mistake?

I was an RN at this VA hospital for two years. I wish I could say this was the most disturbing misbehavior I've ever seen pulled off by a VA suit. It's down there but not even close to some of he chicanery I've seen them try to pull off.

God help all of us and preserve us from the tender mercies of these people.

Pete- I do feel we should be respectful when dealing with the VA but not allow them to get away with stuff like this.

My philosophy -

it oftens takes putting a foot up someone's rectum to force them to remove their own thumbs from it.

My former vet reps are trained to be "nice" to the DROs and VARO employees-

I know where nice has gotten them- right at the bottom of the barrel as far as awarded claims ( see BVA Annual Report from the BVA Chairman Terry-the assessment of the service orgs stats)
and most of their vets get denied. The VARO up here walks all over them and they considered me a loose cannon because if I didnt buy what VA was selling (and did not accept the rep orgs persuation to do that)

You can be very respectful in a very strong letter to VA-one reason I went to AMU and learned how to write Orders of Command-

But we all must aggressively prosecute our claims-
and strongly raise our objections to piss poor deficient medical reports.

NVLSP (who I have had claims training from ) makes this point very clear in the VBM.

I personally do not feel this vet's letter was inappropriate at all. You should see what I have written to them.

Pete said:
"The VA usually hunkers down when threatened."

True- but often that is when they start to actually read the evidence.

In 1997 when I told VA what I was going to do next-
someone in DC was horrified enough to go through my file and clearly- my prime evidence has been destroyed, I faxed it to DC, and Bingo- the award came immediately on that one.

( I was going to report one of the VA's Chief Physicians in DC to the American Medical Association as being incompetent.But they werent incompetent.

VARO Buffalo had withheld so much evidence from them
that their initial medical report reflected they were medically incompetent -when the report was compared to the clinical record. )

They then did a profoundly detailed medical review Re-do report using the actual evidence- which revealed beyond any doubt that VA killed my husband.

Too many vets gets lousy C & Ps that they could attack as soon as they get the actual exam-

I want the VA to have regulation stating an unredacted copy of the full C & P report will be attached to SOCs or better yet sent o as soon as a copy is available to the veteran-(will work on that next month with letter to the H VAC)

If we have real rights at all like in a civil court we would get all evidence they have (like C & P exams)without being forced to ask for it.

Vets out there still dont know in many cases that they can get these actual reports before they are manipulated or parsed in the SOC.

It means we fight an invisible enemy-
we should have those C & P reports right away as they are the single entity in most claims-that controls the denials.

Berta, I got quotes from three medical textbooks showing that this guy was talking applesauce when he stated that ischemic strokes aqren't caused by high blood pressure - which would quash my claim. I gave them a week to respond and they haven't.

In addition to going up the chain of command, I was thinking of complaining to joint commission for obviously unprofessional conduct. Where can I find out where this guy from Bombay got his US licensyre so I canlodge a complaint. Do you know?

Thanks,

Martin what does your neurologist have to say about this? Are you affected on your rt or left side? I noticed you spoke of the use of a cane, so you are able to ambulate, right? What therapies were used and when did they stop? Do you have someone else who can help you with exercises? With strokes, one usually receives treatments with neurologists. Do you see civilian physicians, those outside of the va?

For a small fee Health Grades will do a run down on him-if this doc is in their data base.


Also your state might hacve a HHS data base for disciplined doctors.

If he has ever been disciplined for medical error or malpractrice he should be listed there in the state data base under HHS.

I found the NYS HHS disciplined doctors data base very quickly-but it depends on how your state has posted it on the net-

Use those textbook print outs as evidence and even give them to your IMO doc- I have present IMO doc and sent him many printouts for my current claim to cooborate the other IMOs I have.