You had to love it when the Operational Readiness Team showed up (always unexpectedly) and the commander was at Mamasan’s House of Credit (whorehouse).
Here, we see the same sneak attack scenario with the OIG pounce. “Excuse me, sir. Step away from the shredder.” Remember, this was the home of the first “the machine ate the Vet’s homework” VARO. Good old Cleveland. You can almost hear Drew Carey and gang punctuating it with “Ohio”!
Seems the old Cleveland office is messing up again. Since everyone is very deferential and non-judgmental about others’ performance, you will notice that they tread lightly over how much havoc has ensued and gently admonish the troops to be more careful. Nothing is said about how a highly-trained DRO with years of experience is signing off on TBIs which he presumably has read and agrees with. Remember, unless its an extraordinary award over $25,000.00, it only needs the rater and his DRO supervisor’s John Hancock (to whom I’m related, thank you). Never mind, I hate name droppers too.
I find it interesting they can get AO claims done right. Perhaps it’s because it’s presumptive and it takes the grant or deny argument down about 5 notches to make it easier. Pretty sad. The good news is they got the warning on the Winston-Salem cigarette RO pretty clear. Rumor has it they rented a large storage area in Indiana across the state line to hide the overflow. 5 mail room personnel are there with scanners and fax machines sending records back to Cleveland on an as-needed basis to save gas.
asknod
brewerkelli
cspencer02
jamesaurora
kcraveiro
Laura
Veterans Claims Help 
Does anybody know the -specific- location of this off-site storage facility?
Check with the VARO on that one. It shouldn’t be classified info.
Traumatic Brain Injury. There is also a fairly new medical treatment provider called a Phsyatrist that are involved in treating vets or whoever for TBI
Actually a neurologist is the specialist who should treat TBI. There are times when the TBI causes psychological issues that need to be treated by a Psychologist or Psychiatrist. A Psychologist may perform counseling and some minor therapy. A Psychiatrist may counsel, prescribe drugs and all therapy. Psychologists are the ones running around the Vetcenters trying get everyone to sing Kumbaya.
Mental Conditions are all rated the same way in combination. The Vet gets one rating percentage for all mental conditions combined. A mental condition can be secondary (and often is) to TBI or the mental condition can stand alone such as PTSD. It is fairly common for Vets to acquire a secondary mental condition (anxiety, MDD) as a result of serious injury or disease. All too often the VA rates one or the other but not both separately simply because of the behavioral symptoms. I find it rather ironic (hell, it’s really sad!) that getting appointments to see neurologists and psychiatrists takes 8-18 months. It is entirely possible that medical evidence for both would not be available for a Veteran’s claim for two years!