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Compensation Tips

TIP:  Filing a first claim for disability compensation can be a stressful experience. The stress can originate from one or more of the following factors:

  • Physical or mental discomfort
  • Financial need
  • That transitional feeling when you are no longer in the military but not really a civilian
  • Concern about the outcome
  • Lack of knowledge of the process
  • Unrealistic expectations
  • Erroneous assumptions
  • Things you have heard from other Veterans and the media and, just
  • Dealing with a bureaucracy

  

During this discussion I’d like to use my experience as both a Veteran and a senior VA official to demystify the process and empower you with information you need and what you can expect.                 

     

   

  

  

  

  

  

  

     

    

Recommendations                 
                                 
Dealing with large organizations can be frustrating. Some things that appear clear and certain to you may not be to others. Additionally, legal requirements can sometimes be confusing and time consuming. To have the best experience possible I recommend the following:

  1. If you are still on active duty and thinking about getting out and filing a claim, go through the Benefit Delivery At Discharge or BDD program at your installation. To qualify you must have between 60 and 180 days left on active duty. We will take your claim and get you examined before you go home. Normally, decisions are available about two months after you separate or retire.
  2. If you are still on active duty but have less than 60 days to go, you can still file a “Quick Start” claim. Quick Start claims are processed at dedicated facilities so decisions are quicker for most Veterans.
  3. If you are out of service for less than a year, think you might have a claim, but are unsure if you want to “go through the hassle” apply. The evidence is fresher and cleaner, there are unlikely to be what we refer to as “inter-current injuries” (i.e. you back hurts a little but when you get out you get a job as a long hall truck driver or a construction working and don’t file a claim for years. In such cases even if there is some documentation of “something in service” without evidence of treatment for the condition within the first year, service connection is less certain).

    

TIP:  Here’s a con­tin­u­ance of my own lit­tle story for ser­vice con­nec­tion for the fol­low­ing: Sleep Apnea sec­ondary to Sinusi­tis and Aller­gic Rhini­tis. I was denied for these con­di­tions right after my sep­a­ra­tion from ser­vice, in 2001.
   
A lit­tle back­ground. I had a sleep study in ser­vice con­ducted by the Fargo VA. The VA had the records of a sleep study and was noti­fied as such. Yet, dur­ing my eval­u­a­tion, the VA did not request its own files and sub­se­quently denied my con­di­tion. I had brief episodes of apnea but did not require a machine. They also denied ser­vice con­nec­tion for the other con­di­tions despite at least 12 instances within my ser­vice records requir­ing treat­ment. The effects of sinusi­tis were later con­firmed in 2009 via an MRI as were the polyps from aller­gic rhini­tis. The next year I was given a CPAP machine.
       

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

      

Rub­ber, meet Road. In 2010, I put the whole claim together with a lit­tle doc­u­men­ta­tion help from law school and “The Lit­tle Book on Legal Writ­ing.” I called the Fargo VA for the actual sleep study from 1998. While on the phone, the FOIA guy at the VA faxed the records to me after a lit­tle con­vinc­ing (that was the morn­ing of my recent VA exam­i­na­tion – don’t wait to the last sec­ond like I did). The records ver­i­fied my apnea. I was also able to find Con­gres­sional Reports about the con­di­tions of the dor­mi­to­ries we lived in while at tech school – there were issues of asbestos and leak­ing sewage along with out­dated HVAC sys­tems blow­ing par­ti­cles around. I imme­di­ately came down with sinusi­tis and pneu­mo­nia after arrival. I included this doc­u­men­ta­tion in the event that I come down with cer­tain can­cers down the road.
    
Armed with the report, my med­ical records and a typed sum­mary, I went to the exam. The first appoint­ment was with an Ear Nose and Throat doc­tor. He said the VA already con­ceded ser­vice con­nec­tion but he needed to find out how many episodes I have every year. I handed him my doc­u­men­ta­tion. While he did not read over the doc­u­men­ta­tion in full, he most likely referred to it after the meet­ing while fill­ing out his exam notes. This is key, espe­cially if the exam­iner did not take good notes while in the meet­ing or for­got some key point that you men­tion. The sum­mary you hand him may be the dif­fer­ence between a 10 or 30 per­cent.
  
My sec­ond eval­u­a­tion was for sleep apnea. I showed the doc­tor my cur­rent diag­no­sis along with the for­mer diag­no­sis while I was in ser­vice. She took the time to read over my sum­mary, which explained how the VA missed my ear­lier diag­no­sis. Since I had the old sleep study exam with me, she was able to clearly tell that I had sleep apnea while in ser­vice. Because of the way my doc­u­men­ta­tion was set out, she told me on the spot that she was going to tell the VA I had sleep apnea in 1998. This could result in a deci­sion for retroac­tive pay if I can prove VA com­mit­ted a Clear and Unmis­tak­able Error dur­ing their 2001 denial.

All Tips Submitted By Veterans