Asknod was kind enough to invite me to write some guest columns. I’ve followed along the various Veteran focused blogs for years (Asknod, Hadit, /r/Veterans, etc) and I have a ton of respect for what Asknod does. He is definitely a zealous advocate! I will do my best to live up to his expectations and to contribute to the community he has created here.
So, my name is Robin Hood (yes it really is) and I am a practicing attorney. My first job out of law school was with the Veterans Benefits Administration in 2008, and I worked there until 2014 as a claims adjudicator. I was very senior by that point and would train and mentor the new folks. When the Director had a hot case that really needed to be moved along, my desk was one they would choose. I was very good at it, and I really did love my job; I got to grant people benefits by way of solving puzzles and using laws, regulations, and policies. It was glorious. But, it’s the VA, and no place is perfect. I finally had enough of the red tape and bureaucracy and lay people trying to tell me what the law is, when I’m the one with the law license. So, I left and joined a Very Large Law Firm in 2014 where I still work because they wanted to get into the VA space. (I’m not mentioning their name in order to avoid having to clear any of this with them).
Over time our lead attorney left and the leadership role fell to me, and our junior attorneys both quit within months of each other, and so now I’m faced with handling three attorneys worth of work and rebuilding the department. I am very fortunate that this summer we were able to hire Glenn away from the Board of Veterans Appeals. He’s a 20 year retired Marine and I’m hoping to get him to contribute here as well.
I’d like to try to write an article each week, talking about claims/appeals related issues, or maybe telling stories “from the trenches” as we deal with fighting/dealing with the VA. Oh the stories I could tell. It might give the regular readers a window or insight into what is going on behind the scenes.
Potential future topics I could write about:
- Claims Sharks: how to recognize them and why they are evil.
- How VSO and accredited agents/attorneys are similar and how they are different
- The difference between “Service Connection” and “Evaluation”
- Service Connection in depth (Direct, secondary, presumptive, aggravation)
- The Appeals Modernization Act in the real world at the VARO level.
- AMA at the BV
- BVA Hearings
- Higher Level Review Informal Conferences.
- Independent Nexus Opinions or Evaluations
- Effective Dates.
- Dead Reckoning in the context of Blue Water Navy claims.
- The “business” of being an accredited Veterans Attorney/Agent
- “War Stories” as they occur to me, based on recent experiences with the VA
- Other topics suggested by you, the dear reader! Post a comment with suggestions of topics you’d like to see.
Obligatory disclaimer to keep me out of ethics hot water. I’m an attorney, which means I have to follow the Rules of Professional Conduct as adopted by my State Bar. The preceding statements are not legal advice and do not create an attorney/client relationship. See my profile for contact information.
P.S. As a postscript, and due to potential legal attacks for discussing the subject of “VA Claims Sharks”, we (both Mr. Hood and I) are forced to state this disclaimer that anything you read here is not legal advice instructing any of you to stiff a company you contracted with to do your claims. Perish the thought. However, it does not prevent us from saying we do not sanction a business model clearly forbidden by the Congress and the DVA. As a VA Agent with no legal training and no JD, my thoughts on the subject do not constitute legal advice and never will. Consider Asknod.com/asknod.org as an entity akin to the Babylon Bee site.
asknod
Bethanie Spangenberg
kcraveiro
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Wesley McCauley
Veterans Claims Help 
Robin – welcome
Asknod – don’t forget the troll extraordinaire, Vol. What a prick.
Robin – Welcome
Excellent addition Alex! Would luv to hear about the internal “BS” at the VA. I am sure the stories are great…
Great addition to the best in the business! May this allow more time and energy to increase Direct participation for Veterans needing help! Welcome Robin Hood!
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Agreed. Alex was my inspiration starting with my first denial not knowing a thing, to my recent 100% P&T award. I still have some HLR appeals in the pipeline. Opinions: Let ‘em ride, or withdraw them? Emphysema (mild) and DMII are the worst of them. Want my wife to be protected.
And a big welcome aboard Robin Hood!
Let me start by saying “This is a question for whoever is representing you, whether that’s a free VSO or a paid accredited attorney/agent.” And if you don’t have someone that does this all day every day for a living in your corner, you’re shooting yourself in the foot a little bit. Yes, yes, I know you CAN do this yourself, just like I can change the oil on my own car, but the shop has a pit and a lift and a ton of tools and seven guys wo do nothing BUT change oil, so I pay a man. 🙂
That said… what’s on appeal at the HLR process? Is it service connection or is it evaluation? Because those are not the same thing. Generally speaking though there’s not much of a reason to withdraw an appeal. The only times I ever suggest withdrawing something is if I’m worried about VA proposing a reduction. If you’re P&T, you CAN lose it under certain circumstances, and it’s unlikely that anything deriveing from the respiratory condition or Diabetes will change your money. Only someone such as a representative with access to the VA systems and a lot of expeirence could tell you whether to withdraw those HLRs or not. 🙂
Thanks for the reply. I have a VSO, but mostly for VBMS access honestly. I did just submit a withdrawal for the one disability that put me over the line. That was the HLR turned to supplemental. So withdrew that so as not disturb my current rating; and money-wise no difference. The others are all service connection issues, so I am inclined to leave them and let them play out. I don’t see the harm in that. I do have a call with my VSO tomorrow to catch up on a few issues.
Looking forward to reading your articles.
Also, re your wife: Make sure that you die of something service connected, or something service connected is at least a CONTRIBUTING condition on Part II of the death certificate. THat’ll make the widow’s DIC claim a lot eaiser.
Thanks! I already gave her the speech. Lol. I’m going to put it in writing for her and place it with my Last Will.
Welcome to the hands down best VA practitioner Alex Gordon Graham & his website. His unselfish nature is Obvious with taking you n others on to assist veterans as his primary purpose. Purpose… pray your as conscientious as he has been thru the years. Look forward to hearing from You… again, welcome! Sent from my iPad
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I have two suggestions that I would like to hear an in-depth breakdown on. First up is the A to Z on HLR’s. I had a low rating which I thought should be higher per 38 CFR. I filed an HLR which ended as an “assertion of difference of opinion.” Is that a difference of opinion that I was low-balled bt the first level rater and the HLR agreed with me? Was the difference of opinion that the HLR thought I was rated too high, or shouldn’t be rated at all? How do you know?
The “closed evidence” HLR then suddenly morphed into an “Appeal Supplemental Claim.” That sounds absolutely insane that a closed record review is suddenly a new claim, and it certainly doesn’t seem veteran friendly. So basically all of the tips and pitfalls of “Difference of Opinion” would be helpful. There is not much reliable information out there on Difference of Opinion
Secondly I would like to get a more in-depth perspective on how VA quashes retro pay and how to prevent it. I had a supplemental appeal I filed that was increased on appeal, but was assigned a later effective date stripping me of potential retro pay. But my real argument was that the VBA got the rating wrong from the outset when they low-balled me. So the appeal that was granted was considered by VBA to be a request for an increase. By doing this they stripped nearly a year of potential retro benefits from me in my opinion.
So, in short “Assertion of Difference of Opinion” at HLR reviews & morphing into an “Appeal Claim,” and how to protect retro from VBA trickery.
I am a veteran, not an accredited agent or attorney.
Thanks.
Re HLRs: It sounds like you had an Informal Conference with the Decision Review Officer and conviced them that your previous C&P exam didn’t give you a fair shake. So what happened is the DRO issued a Duty To Assist error rating decision, and takes the appeal out of the HLR lane and puts it into the SUpplemental Claim lane, where they order new exams/opinions based on the specific things the DRO said in their HLR Rating Return document (visible to whoever is representing you, and you NEED someone representing you that knows what they’re doing).
“Difference of Opinion” means someting else, and they’re using it wrong here, I think, but that doesn’t mean they’re doing the wrong thing; they seem to be getting you a new exam which will hopefully give you a fair shake.
Re effective dates… welcome to my world. VA screws this up all the time. The rule is supposed to be eval is based on date of claim for increase unless there’s evidence of increase within a year prior to claim, in which case use the earlier date. The rule is NOT “date of exam” or “date VA finally had no choice but to acknowledge an increase was warranted.” Also, there’s effective date protections under AMA that are supposed to apply, which they routinely screw up. So, yeah. There is no silver bullet here.
Oh, hate to hijack this thread. Another subject I would love to get the real scoop on is the use of the use of peer reviewed articles and such as evidence.
During my claims journey I used tons of them; almost universally from governmental agencies like EPA, DoD, ASTDR, Dept of Health, OIG etc. Virtually every one of them was a government study/report, and or a peer reviewed health article.
Hard for one department to call the other a liar the way I saw it. Anyhow, I have had these articles listed as evidence in my own claims/appeals, and have seen them mentioned at CAVC decisions many a time.
A particular unnamed website that seems to be administered by mostly retired or active VBA staff were adamant that YOU personally have to be mentioned in order to submit it as evidence. I haven’t found that to be true.
For example I submitted BRAC documents to help prove exposure to toxic chemicals and to what extent. This is a DoD report, a very detailed report, and while I wasn’t a subject in the report, it looks to me that they fully accepted my documents/reports into evidence.
An article on evidence admissibility, and what is or isn’t evidence would be great. I still believe based on my own decision letters that they are blowing smoke!
Jez, Todd. Go ahead and identify the gomers! Remember we don’t censor anyone here and there is no membership sign up. Todd’s talking, of course, about Veterans Benefits Network (VBN). You may remember one of their moderators who posted under the alias ‘Ye Olde Medic’. It was he who insisted you could only get Hepatitis C from parenteral drug abuse. A former DRO too ashamed to use his real name calls himself Cruiser. He used to enjoy getting wasted on Bourbon and insulting everyone. His motto on VA was “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”
Alex…nailed it on all accounts!!! God I hate those guys. But it is because of them that I found this site and you. You rock! They actually banned me for calling out Cruiser on some of his misinformation and nobody can do that. Lol. Bunch of losers!
Ok, I’ll add a column on “evidence.” But typically, those EPA reports or other things are sometimes good enough to show EXPOSURE or INCURRENCE, but that still doesn’t mean it’s proof of nexus. For example, I had a guy one time that was a jet engine mechanic with some sort of cancer. I was able to use manuals for the type of equipment he worked on to show exposure to TCE, and other research that supported TCE causing cancer to make the claim at least plausible, but without a nexus from a doctor (either VA or private) the case still won’t be won. FOrtunately I had a good nexus that used all those research papers and then some, and won at BVA. So those reports and studies have SOME evidentialry value but they’ll never give you NEXUS. THey’ll give you INCURRENCE or EXPOSURE at most.
Same. I was also an aircraft mechanic and used the Navy and Marine Corps Corrosion Control manual in addition to my STR’s, and the BRAC documents, etc. to paint the picture. The issue with the manual was mine was from the 80’s and 90’s. The later version of the manual had the less toxic versions of the chemicals in it though some of the really bad ones were still there when they started getting a little more serious about hazardous materials. Also pulled an OIG report where OIG warned leadership they were intentionally putting mechanics at risk by painting entire aircraft. They didn’t listen and now many of us suffer because of it.
Congratulations, looking forward to reading your columns.
Welcome aboard, Mr. Hood. I’ve learned a lot here at AskNod and, while VA and Veteran’s struggles are very serious and real, Alex manages to impart his wisdom with a tongue-in-cheek style that keeps my attention with just the right touch of humor. I look forward to your articles.
Suggested topic – how to connect secondary connections
I’ll make sure to talk about that during a column on service connection. The short version is, can you get a doctor to explain why, but for the service connected disability, the claimed secondary condition would not have happened?
Hi Robin, I am curious that with your extensive VA Background why you are not with a VA disability firm instead of M&M? IMHO I would think you could help more Vets that are Googling for a VA lawyer and not a personal injury firm.
HI David! That’s a reasonable question. The short answer is that there’s sort of a big-fish-small-pond thing going on. My firm doesn’t really understand what I do, but they know that we help a ton of people and it makes the firm look good. They mostly leave me alone in sort of a “benign neglect” type situation, so I’m free to build up the department the way I think it oughtta be done. Could I make more money at one of the other firms? Maybe, but maybe not. At least at my current firm, I’ve got some limited ability to make operational decisions. Plus, my firm is this giant intergalactic law firm, and I’m an equity partner in our Boston office, and I like being part of something bigger. In all honesty, if my firm decided they wanted to exit the VA and Social Security practice area, I’d just spin up my own law office; I’d only go work for one of the other guys if I was in a “have no choice” or “don’t want the hassle” situation. 🙂
My goals are these: First, help as many people as much as I can, and the financial rewards will just naturally flow from that. Second, to be as good or better than anyone else at this. Third, I want to build my firm’s VA practice into a “center of excellence” without upper management noticing. 🙂
Thanks for the quick response Robin, What surprises me is that the VA assistance there is buried at the bottom of the “Practice Areas” tab under “Veterans Benefits Denied”. Most Vets looking for help wont scroll that far to find you lurking there at your desk. IMHO your firm needs the areas of practice listed on your home page, not on a tab.
BRAVO! Keep up the Good Fight Robin!
PS You should definitely attend one of Alex’s SMC talks. He is one of the few that REALLY knows what is going on there and how to get Vets the ratings they deserve.
I believe you have the opportunity to fill a real void in the world of VA claims.
Welcome aboard!
Welcome aboard sir.