- Hi and welcome back to Hill & Ponton's
Veteran's Disability vlog.
I'm Natalia Jofre, company COO.
- And I'm attorney Anne Linscott.
- And today we're gonna be talking about
the five common mistakes made
when a veteran is filing their claim.
- Yes - Right
So let's go with number one which is,
not filing your claim right away.
- Yes, so that's a big mistake as far as,
you can't get the benefits until you file the claim.
The VA has duties to assist and duties to notify veterans
but all of that is triggered by the filing of the claim.
So the VA has no duty to tell a veteran
that they should file for a claim,
- Okay - from the onset.
- There's obviously exemptions to every rule,
but for the most part, all of those duties
for the VA to do things starts when you file the claim.
And really the main importance,
or the main reason for it being a mistake
to not file early, is that you're risking
giving up a lot of money. - Right
- And other potential benefits.
- Yeah the longer you wait, the longer it takes
to get you paid. - Right.
- Yeah, you could lose.
Okay so number two, giving up on your VA claim.
We see this a lot, unfortunately.
- And it's totally understandable.
I mean even as an attorney, the VA is frustrating.
So not only is it a complex system
just to understand as far as what forms to file,
timelines, things like that, then you throw the legal
issues in the mix and it's,
I can understand when veterans just say,
you know it's not worth my time or frustration.
That's where we can step in.
- Right - And help take care of
some of those frustrations, but it's a mistake to just
give up on that because, similar to not filing a claim,
you're giving up not only monthly compensation benefits
but potential healthcare benefits.
- Which is huge.
- Miscellaneous benefits that are available for veterans
for service connected conditions.
So you know if the process itself is just
weighing on you, definitely don't give up.
- Yeah - Call a firm like us.
Look and see if there's someone that can
help take over those frustrating parts
so that you can still pursue the benefits.
- And I think that sometimes people do feel overwhelmed,
even when they watch the videos,
they're like, wow it's so much information to go through,
and so much to understand.
And so much I feel like I need to do or get,
and I'm just not up to it.
It's like, that's kind of one of the benefits
of hiring someone.
It's to remove that burden from you
so that you don't have to deal with that.
- Right - You know we tell people
all the time, you know, we'll focus on your claim
so that you can focus on getting better.
- Exactly - Because many times
just managing your own health, that's a full time job.
- Yes, and I was gonna bring that up.
That's what I tell veterans a lot.
You take care of you,
we'll take care of the VA side of things.
And of course there's always going to be
hassles and frustrations involved with anything,
but we can help take away a lot of that,
the not knowing things,
and kind of boil it down to what you need to know
and take care of that.
So definitely don't give up on claims,
even ones that are tough.
And we've had plenty of veterans come our way
that say, everyone refused my case,
and we've been successful with them.
- Yeah, I know you just recently had pretty big case.
- Yes - Where you got
a veteran increased from 10% to 100,
and he got 13 years worth of back pay?
- It was all the way back, yes, to 2006.
So that was a huge case. - Wow
- And there's still more to go.
- Yeah, good for him, and good for you.
- Thank you - Congratulations on that.
So number three, failing to learn how the VA decides
to give you benefits.
- Yes, so that can kind of go in with
giving up on a claim as far as,
all that information is out there,
and why it's helpful to have an attorney.
- Why would you say, maybe this will help,
why would you say the VA usually denies
most claims the first time?
- Lack of evidence,
it may even be just misunderstanding.
The evidence might be there, but the VA missed it.
Or the veteran has it, and thought the VA had it.
- Ohhh - Simple things.
Also, the VA can low ball ratings.
So you want to understand, in the general sense at least,
kind of what you might be entitled to
because you might need to appeal
and get a lot more benefits.
I mean the difference between even a 90% combined rating
and 100% is a lot of money. - Right
- So knowing how the ratings work,
kind of helps enable you to know,
is it time to give up, or not give up,
but is there more to go, more things to do?
- Right, right.
- So that helps as far as being an advocate for yourself.
Although if you do hire an attorney,
we're there to advocate for you.
If you haven't hired an attorney,
or we only know as much as a veteran can tell us,
and we don't know what's going on
day to day with the veteran.
So knowing, having that knowledge about how things
are rated can help you know more about the claim.
- And I've talked about this before,
that I see one of the mistakes that veterans make
is that they assume that because the VA
awarded them a low percentage that that's
all they're entitled to. - Right.
- They think well, this is what they're giving me.
I'm grateful, this must be basically as good as it gets.
If this is what they're giving me,
this must be what I'm entitled to.
And that's not the case. - Right, exactly.
A condition that's a good example of that,
are TBI and Parkison's, where the VA will assign
the Parkinson's a 30% rating,
and that's the highest for Parkinson's.
But federal law says that they also have to
rate all the different residuals.
So that can be a huge part that the VA misses.
- So then, that's a great example.
They could then in turn maybe get 30%
for the Parkinson's but maybe get an additional
percentage for the TBI, and additional percentage
for something else?
- Right, so if you have tremors related to Parkinson's
or speech problems, trouble swallowing is common.
All of those things should be rated separately.
You might be able to get higher than 30%.
Another thing that I find common with,
I'm grateful for what they gave me,
let's not rock the boat, and I totally get that.
I'm risk adverse, but you can appeal a decision
and not risk what you've already been granted.
So a lot of times if we get a veteran
granted individual unemployability,
that's 100%, there's not much more to go.
But we might disagree with the effective date.
Well you can appeal that.
You're happy with what you've been given,
but there is still more to go
and you can appeal and not risk losing.
- Not risk that, okay.
So number four, not filing for secondary conditions.
So why don't you tell everyone
what a secondary service condition is.
- So a secondary, or secondary service connection,
would be if you're service connected for a disability,
let's say your back.
The VA has said that your back condition is related
to service and you're receiving benefits for that.
A lot of times with orthopedic claims,
because of the pain, the chronic issues
that the veteran has, they may develop depression.
That depression obviously developed
because of their back condition.
And so the VA should service connect it
as secondary to their back.
So even if the depression didn't start in service
or there's nothing that happened in service
that caused the veteran's depression,
we see a lot of cases where there's something
like a back issue then turns into something else,
and so that condition can then be service connected.
- So you then need to file a separate claim
for that condition? - Right
- Not start all over again,
but just add an additional claim for that, right?
- Right, so just to be safe,
there's a lot of regulations in case law
as far as ins and outs of when the VA
is supposed to consider secondary issues,
when a veteran is supposed to file a claim.
But to be safe, file the claim,
get that service connected, because then you can
hash out all the details moving forward.
So secondary service connection is a huge thing.
Think about all of the symptoms that you have
related to a condition.
A lot of times, I like to think of the ratings
as your symptoms you need to be compensated for.
So there are conditions like Parkinson's
where residual problems or symptoms,
they can actually be separately rated.
- Right, can you think of any other,
since you mention that, can you think of any other
common examples or common secondary service
connected disabilities.
- Obstructive sleep apnea - Okay
- Is something that can be secondary
to a lot of conditions but we see it
very frequently with PTSD claims.
And that's something that, it's a very common
secondary condition and it's also very common
for the VA to deny it, especially at
the regional office level.
There's a lot of medical research out there,
doctors who link it.
So that's a common secondary issue
that the VA might deny right off the bat,
but it's worth, kind of ties in with
pursuing and not giving up on the claim.
- Yeah, okay great.
Number five, failing to obtain a medical opinion.
So why, you know we've done a couple
of vlogs now on buddy statements,
so why are buddy statements not enough?
- So buddy statements are great,
but there are certain things that you have to have a doctor.
Diagnoses and the nexus.
So you or I could comment on someone's symptoms,
how they were before or after service,
things that we notice, but we're not
qualified to say a veteran has PTSD,
or this incident in service is as least as likely as not
to cause this diagnosis.
That's something a doctor has to do
and the VA is going to deny a claim,
you know two of the three elements for service connection
are diagnosis and a length of service.
- Right - And that's something that,
unless a presumption applies,
which that's a whole nother loop,
you need a doctor to give that link.
- Is there specific wording that the VA prefers?
- I would say the biggest one is,
at least as likely as not.
So that's 50/50. - That big phrase.
- A doctor's report might say, the veteran's PTSD
is related to service, and that's great,
as much as you can throw it in there,
but using the exact words that the VA likes to see,
as least as likely as not.
When it comes to claims involving
individual unemployability, the VA says that veterans
who can't find or maintain substantially gainful employment.
Just terms like that, get those in there.
So that's another, look at the rating criteria
for different conditions and see what
kind of symptoms or language that the VA uses
in the rating criteria, and that's something
that would be helpful for doctors to use
in their reports, kind of buzz words.
- Right, right.
- Cause you don't want the VA to miss the symptoms.
- You want to be able to make it
as easy as possible for the VA to say,
you know what, this claim checked all the boxes,
it's all the right phrasing.
It's like okay, this is clearly identifiable.
- I say sometimes, making the obvious even more obvious,
if that's possible. - Good point.
All right, Ann; thank you so much.
- You're welcome - That was really helpful.
If you have any questions please feel free
to visit our website or call our office.
Otherwise we hope you'll join us again.
- Thanks.