COLORADO VETS SEEK TDIU STATE BENEFITS

Colorado's veterans with a VA rating of TDIU seek state disabled veteran property tax exemption benefits. This video explains our campaign.
See more at www. codisabledvet.blogspot.com

President Promises "to move Heaven and Earth." VBA Ops Out.

The President's commitment on behalf of America to "move Heaven and Earth" should have been vetted first by Veterans Benefits Administration and Veterans Health Administration. His promise was made at the dedication of the monument to us.

With the greatest respect to the President, he should know that VBA and VHA both instead prefer tactics to hold claims decisions off, at least in the case of C-123 veterans' Agent Orange. With officials at all levels promising "case by case" evaluations while the Institute of Medicine study progresses, the fact remains that all claims are either denied, or postponed for decisions only after the IOM report is released. Someday.

"Heaven and Earth" apparently does not refer to our claims. Maybe our claims are VA anti-matter?

Apparently, the fewer C-123 veterans left alive once the dust settles, the less VA has to pay, the fewer for whom to provide medical care. And year by year, veteran by veteran, we're doing our bit to help out as fewer and fewer of us remain.

That IOM C-123 report was first officially promised by VA in 2012 by Dr. Wendi Dick of VHA's Post Deployment Health. The promise somehow disappeared without VA comment. It was renewed in 2014 only with legislative pressure and after peer-reviewed scientific articles appeared supporting C-123 veterans' arguments, as VA's stall to prevent any awards based on evolving scientific understanding.

Now, postponed another month, the IOM report is yet unpublished, and C-123 veterans are denied VA medical care for soft tissue sarcomas, ALS, prostate cancer, heart disease, lung cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.

Waiting for an Air Force to Die? What about moving Heaven and Earth?

Paralyzed Veterans Push for "Common Sense" Disability Ratings

Bill Lawson

National President, Paralyzed Veterans of America

Complex Veterans Claims Require Common Sense Approach

Posted: 12/19/2013 1:08 pm

Veterans with complex medical conditions, whose lives don't fit neatly into pre-determined templates, are often needlessly denied life-critical benefits because the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) relies far too heavily on disability checklists and rules-based calculators.

Complex medical cases demand human reasoning and judgment to achieve true accuracy. Strict adherence to rules-based algorithms and checklists has already left too many veterans shortchanged in their benefits.

Those of us at Paralyzed Veterans of America (Paralyzed Veterans) appreciate the need for speed in rating disability claims to expedite the delivery compensation and other benefits to veterans, and recognize that VA is focused on addressing the backlog in veterans' claims.

Paralyzed Veterans embraces the notion that there must be a balance between modernized processes, standardization, expertise and common sense when evaluating the needs of veterans. The needs of catastrophically injured veterans are too complex for a standard checklist. Simple yes-or-no questionnaires cannot capture all the nuances of a veteran's life and condition.

A calculator alone should not decide their fate.

VA must enable its people to be... people. VA rating specialists who determine, or rate, a veteran's level of disability and needs must be empowered to go beyond the rules-based algorithms when necessary and use common sense to make sure that America's veterans get what they were promised and have earned.

VA staff should not be required to always insist that severely or terminally ill or wounded veterans submit to additional "C&P" (Compensation and Pensions) exams when the medical record more than adequately supports the claim. For some of our most disabled and ailing veterans, waiting sometimes months to be scheduled for "just one more" test or filling out yet one more lengthy form can put unnecessary delays between them and the benefits they've earned.

For veterans with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), a painful, aggressive and debilitating neurological disease that is almost always fatal, delay of benefits can be equal to denial of benefits. When VA rules-based processes can require these veterans to complete yet another questionnaire despite strong clinical evidence -- such as being in hospice care -- when there is no time and no need to wait for a rating decision. These veterans may die before receiving any benefits -- benefits that could make their final days a bit more comfortable.

When Paralyzed Veterans' leaders recently testified on Capitol Hill, we asked VA to:

• Assign cases involving complex, severe conditions only to the most experienced raters, and empower them to make judgments and recommendations not based exclusively on rules-based calculator results

• Ensure that new raters are properly trained in the handling of severe disability claims, to increase the number of talented VA professionals who can properly handle complex cases

• Empower rating specialists to make common sense overrides, and fully implement and train them about the reasonable doubt doctrine, which requires that when the evidence for and against the claim are equally compelling, VA must resolve doubt in favor of the claimant

• Expand the "acceptable clinical evidence" option to allow VA rating specialists to gather medical information by phone instead of having veterans with severe disabilities forced to report in person for examinations.

In essence, we asked that VA staff be empowered to balance the push for more timeliness in the adjudication of claims with common sense reasoning to ensure complete accuracy, especially in the most severe and complex cases.

We are heartened to learn that some VA regional offices took note, such as in Nashville, where immediately following Paralyzed Veterans' testimony, the regional office announced that it will be implementing several important changes in the way in which it handles ALS cases:

1. Paperwork will no longer be sent offsite for scanning to process the claim (adding unnecessary time to the process).

2. VA staff will undergo intense training regarding ALS cases so they better understand the medical dynamics inherent in an ALS diagnosis.

3. VA will make a decision about the claim within three days of submission.

We applaud the initiative of the regional office in Tennessee in adopting a common sense approach to handling ALS cases and hope that all VA regional offices follow with similar policies. Let's not lose sight of those who need VA help the most. We urge VA leaders to exercise their power to make sure veterans get what they need and what they have earned.

President Announces Major Veterans Initiatives

The White House

On Saturday, August 10, President Obama addressed the Disabled American Veterans and discussed his Administration’s work to secure our nation, wind down the war in Afghanistan, better serve our troops and military families, and honor our veterans. 

In his remarks, President Obama outlined the five priorities his Administration is focused on to ensure we are fulfilling our promises to all those who have served – ensuring the resources our veterans deserve; delivering the health care veterans have been promised; ending the claims backlog; protecting the dignity and rights of wounded warriors; and making sure all veterans have every opportunity to pursue the American Dream.

The President announced a new national action plan to guide mental health research and commitments from 250 community colleges and universities to aid veterans in their efforts to complete their higher education so they can compete for the high-skilled jobs of the future.

Additionally the President noted that we are turning the tide on eliminating the Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) disability claims backlog, with a nearly 20% reduction over the last five months. The President also renewed his call on Congress to pass his Veterans Job Corps proposal to put our veterans to work protecting and rebuilding America, and to extend permanently the Returning Heroes and Wounded Warrior tax credits for businesses that hire veterans. On Friday, August 9, the President signed into law the Helping Heroes Fly Act, to ensure wounded warriors and disabled veterans can travel with dignity.

Military Disability Retirements: A New Perspective

Most of us veterans who retired from the service do so through completion of twenty years service, either Active Duty or Guard/Reserve. Some, however, are retired for reasons of physical disability - injuries or illness which make it impossible for the servicemember to continue in service.

There has been a significant, through very subtle, development regarding military disability retirements. For decades since the establishment of their retirement systems and review boards, the military (particularly the Air Force), assigned disability percentages for a member's illness or disability which made continued service impracticable. Ignored for decades and still ignored for retirement disability calculation are specific injuries situations where disabilities where existed but which did not in themselves render the member unable to continue in service.

But in particular, ignored for decades, was the "catch-all" situation of unemployability. The VA has routinely assigned veterans a rating of IU (for individual unemployability) to address situations where the disability rating schedule failed to address the case of a veteran's illness or injury totaling perhaps 60% per schedule but in effect, leaving the veteran unable to pursue meaningful employment. Then a rating of 100% disabled for reason of IU could be awarded.

The VA applied the provisions of law and regulation to veterans qualified for IU, but military retirement boards very, very rarely did so. And never were the disabilities which themselves were not career-ending disabilities. The result is that the military services generally did not extend the protections of law and regulation in situations where individual unemployability might be called for. The DoD definition of unemployability, taken from DoD 1332.39, reads:

"Total disability will be considered to exist when the member's impairment is sufficient to render it impossible for the average person suffering the same medical condition to engage in substantially gainful civilian occupation." 

In fact, a recent FOIA to Randolph AFB seeking the numbers of unemployability ratings resulted in only a vague statement "there probably were some." Further, a conversation with a PEBLO got a comment that "The Board doesn't like to make unemployability awards." A board's failure to "like" a particular protection due an injured service member seems questionable.

However in April, one of the military's Board of Correction of Military Records relaxed a bit on that issue. In a decision specifically worded to be non-precident setting, the Board accepted their Medical Advisor's recommendation to grant an award of unemployability to a retiree. Many factors came into play, including the member's date of enlistment, date of injury, date of retirement, Chapter 20 (rehab) testing by the VA, etc, to permit the decision...but the important point to take is that the Board did indeed make an award of 100% disability retirement for reason of unemployability!

For too many decades, DoD has denied even considering unemployability awards for disabled military retirees, actually citing the fact that the VA awards them, that the VA can advance a veterans status from one percentage to another over time, and that the systems are similar but separate. Stressed is the fact that DoD considers the "snapshot in time" of the service member at retirement. So...if that snapshot is of an unemployable person, that person should be considered for the maximum retirement percentage of 100%-75% for pay.

That's big. That means individuals with 60% or higher medical retirement disability decisions from the military might want to examine their situation to determine whether an appeal to their service's Board of Correction of Military Records might be in order. The advantage might be an increase to the maximum of 75% of base pay for retirement (75% of base pay being the maximum retirement under most circumstances unless service totals over 30 years). Retirees who also are rated by the VA as 100% for IU might want to pay particular attention!

Good luck...get your rep from the American Legion, DAV, VFW or other service organization to give you a hand on this complicated issue!