so
hello and welcome to another edition of cck live my name is emma peterson and today i'm joined by
kevin medeiros and rachel foster and we are going to be discussing how you can tell if your va
cnp examination went well so let's jump right in so what is a cnp examination or a compensation
compensation and pension exam it's a medical examination of your disability that's going to
be performed by a va healthcare professional or sometimes va will contract with a third party
provider to perform that examination va uses the cmp exams to gather more evidence about your
claimed conditions before making a decision and either assigning service connection or granting
you a specific rating so cnp exams are used to confirm or deny service connection that important
nexus element that veterans need to get their disability service connected or to establish
the severity of your stability what rating are you going to get in light of the symptoms and
impairment your disability causes now prior to the exam um the cnp examiner should review your entire
claims file um sometimes they will you know review it electronically sometimes they'll if there's if
it's around some paper copies it should probably be electronic by now but they're supposed to look
at everything in the file and that should contain previously submitted evidence and the arguments
you've made your prior treatment records your service records you know the whole shebang
um but they should look at everything ahead of time and it is extremely i cannot stress
it's enough extremely important that you attend your cnp examination if va schedules one for you
you're gonna have to go most likely um failure to do so often results in va denying whatever
benefit you're seeking if you're unable to attend and that certainly does happen i need
to reach out to the va right away and attempt to reschedule that examination so let's get to
what everyone is here for kevin how can veterans out there know if their va examination went well
sure there are a few ways and the first is to request a copy of the examination report
the va examiner is not going to complete it and hand it to you on your way out the door they're
going to complete it probably at some point later and and get it over to the va adjudicators
so the way to request the copy is to contact your local regional office there's a va hotline
that you can call and request an appointment to review your file or if you're working with a
representative you can ask them to request a copy on your behalf so once you have the copy of the
examination report you'll be able to review and see whether or not it turned out well
it's important to to do this to see if their results are favorable so in a service connection
case you'll know if it's favorable if the examiner provided a positive nexus opinion
or you'll know if it's unfavorable and get an idea of what you can do
to maybe respond to that and submit favorable evidence of your own
on um on the question of service connection so you want to take a look at the report make sure it's
filled out thoroughly and has accurate information so in terms of increased ratings for
orthopedic disabilities for example if you experience flare-ups you'll want to make sure that
the examiner adequately described your reports about your flare-ups and how how they affect your
functioning during those times um you'll want to see if the examiner accurately reflected the
severity of your condition overall whether they were familiar with your medical history you know
if they took a look at x-rays and accurately um describe them in into the examination report
and in terms of the ultimate medical opinion like i i was referring to in service connection cases
the examiner is required to provide an opinion so
you'll know it's favorable if they include language that it's at least as likely as not
that the claim condition is related to service or to another service connected conditions
and if they use the the phrase less likely than not or not at least as likely as not
then it's an unfavorable nexus opinion and your claim will probably be denied so
you'll want to take a close look at that if you're if you're seeking service connection see what
reasoning the examiner might have provided for the negative nexus opinion as it's known and if it is
um a negative opinion see if the reasoning is accurate or something that you might be able
to respond to either with lay reports or with you know medical evidence of your own and the
last the last thing to look for are the examiner's credentials va does have certain conditions that
require specialists to conduct the examination so if you'll want to look to make sure they
for example for for a psychiatric condition that someone with a psychiatric specialty
actually conducted the examination and if not that might be something to bring up to the adjudicator
either before or or after they make their decision based on the opinion
thanks kevin and just for everyone out there that wants to know that
number to call va to get a copy of your exam is 1-800-827-1000
and we'll post that in the comments in case you missed it but once again 1-800-827-1000
and you can request an appointment to review your file or ask for a copy of that examination
um now just for people out there jumping off what kevin said sometimes va is going to schedule an
exam with not the you know precise drilled down specialist that might be the perfect person for
your condition and that's okay um you know a lot of times internists the regular you know general
doctor or nurse practitioner may be the one conducting the exam so just because it's not with
the specialist you thought doesn't mean that va is going to immediately get you a new exam but as
kevin mentioned there are specific conditions that require specialists um so reach out to your bso
your accredited rep and attorney or whoever you work with on these claims just to get a sense of
whether or not your condition requires some sort of special treatment when getting a va exam
so rachel what can you do if you disagree with your cmp exam results what are what are the next
steps sure so there are a few different options that you can consider the first of which is
gathering buddy statements so buddy statements are written statements from people who know you
they've observed your symptoms and they have directly seen how your disability affects your
everyday life these people might include your spouse children other relatives fellow veterans
from your unit co-workers really anyone who can speak directly about the issue another option
is to request a hearing from with the board of veterans appeals so when appealing a decision to
the board you have the option to request a hearing with a veterans law judge on the hearing docket
attending a hearing can allow you and your attorney to point out the specific problems
with your cnp exam and present evidence that may counter or weaken the exam results
because we also know that there is a long delay with board hearings an alternative option is to
submit something in writing to the board raising the issues found in the exam in lieu of a hearing
if a veteran's law judge if a veteran's law judge feels as though your cnp exam is lacking
the adequate amount of information required to make an informed decision they can remand or
send your case back to the regional office within specific instructions for additional development
sometimes this can include very specific instructions for the va examiner such as
asking them to pay attention to evidence they missed using the correct legal standard or for a
specific kind of specialized examiner to review your case similar to what emma was describing
the regional office that will then order a new cnp examination and you will have an opportunity
to attend a new and hopefully more adequate exam a third option is to ask your own medical provider
to complete a dbq so the disability benefits questionnaire or dbq for short is a survey
style form that gathers relevant information for a given disability and most of them are
publicly available a dbq form allows you to submit a medical exam reformed by a private physician who
is very familiar with the medical history of your disability most va examiners also use dbq forms
however something to keep in mind is that va examiners are often responding to a very specific
question from the regional office and maybe may be asked by them to provide a medical opinion or to
make sure that they are including reasoning and rationale the dbq form that your doctor
would complete does not automatically have this requested information from the regional office
therefore if you choose to pursue this option let your doctor know that they should support their
answers with a written explanation even if the form does not require it if this isn't included
it could lead va adjudicators to give that dbq less weight in making a decision on your claim
thanks rachel and to get that new exam you know ordered from the board it's really
important that you attack the exam previously examination so let's say um you had a va exam
the regional office issues you a rating decision for whatever reason another exam is scheduled
in between the time you get that rating decision and you go to the board in this new system under
the ama it's really important that exam that happened prior to the rating decision you appeal
to the board is the one that causes the problem in the new system you know there's no automatic
duty to assist that the board is going to just keep brand banding for new exams so it's really
important that that first exam the robust is something that you bring up and counteract with
either your own dbq or with an argument um or explanation as to why you may need a new exam
um kevin any final thoughts for those out there watching this and wondering you know how can i
make sure i have a good exam or what to do if they end up with a less than favorable exam
sure i just think it's really important for veterans to be as descriptive as possible um
when they're in an examination describing their disability in the case of seeking a higher
rating describing how the disability operates how it affects the daily functioning how it
how flare-ups might further impact you know you know regular activities of daily life or even work
and in terms of service connection really describing the history of the condition how
it developed in or ever since service so that you know when you get the examination report and you
review it you can ensure that it's it's accurately reflected in there and that the
examiner has fully described you know everything that you explained to them and if not then um you
know the board's not going to have information that might entitle you to a higher rating or or
would have changed the examiner's opinion so i think it's important to be very as descriptive
as possible a lot of the times we see very very um bare bones descriptions from examiners so
um if what they have in the report is not um you know fully complete then that's something you can
you can deal with a representative or an attorney in addressing after you review the report yeah i
couldn't agree more and also it can be difficult to be as open and honest with this new person that
you've never interacted with describing you know a personal medical condition um and so that's that's
certainly understandable that it's not exactly the same as seeing your treating provider um
but if you can take notes you know bring a journal um think about it ahead of time before you go in
there and have some thoughts prepared it certainly will help you in that process um rachel do you
have any final thoughts or suggestions for those out there wondering you know what they can do
before a cnp exam or how to know what to do after yeah so i second everything that kevin said
um if there isn't evidence or additional evidence that you can submit it is so very important to at
least get it in writing or you know one of the options is to present it at a hearing to raise
those issues at the that occurred at the va exam um sometimes a veterans law judge if it
gets to the board might miss those inadequacies if they aren't raised previously thanks rachel
so for more information about cnp examinations including tips on exams do's and don'ts please
be sure to visit our blog and you can check out our other videos on youtube
if you have any questions please be sure to post them in the comments and thanks everyone
for tuning in oh and please be sure to subscribe to our channel to make sure you stay in the know
about va topics once again i'm emma peterson with kevin heroes and rachel foster thanks so much
you