Shreddergate Part 2: How to know if you are a victim?

Posted on July 25, 2012 by joeaveragevet

Nod’s article on Shreddergate One, should surely be an eye opener, noting that Shreddergate ONE made the Veterans Benefit Manual.

According to this article with the Federal Register, we Vets do not have 365 more sunsets left, as the one year period to declare shredded evidence would expire October 2012.   Dont take chances and get your request for special handling in pronto as it may be too late after Oct. 1. 2012.

However, how would a Vet know if his Regional Office Shredded his evidence?  The short answer is we probably would not know.  I will suggest these clues:

1.  Dont worry if you were not at one of the 41 Regional Offices caught shredding..38CFR 3.218 did not exclude any Regional Offices, in part because the 41 were the only ones to get caught, and shredding could well have happened in the other 16 Regional Offices as well.   Also, your evidence could have been “shipped” to one of those offending RO’s as the VA often “farms out” their claims to other RO’s.  You may or may not know if your claim was “farmed out” to an offending RO or not.

2.  Look carefully at your “reasons and bases” for denial.  Does your R&B say that there is “no evidence” to support your claim, especially when you know that you did see the doc for that malady during your military service?   Also study carefully the “evidence” section in your decision, as that may even help document that you had evidence shredded.

3.  Order a copy of your C file.  Compare it to what you remember, and the evidence you have.   If there is a discrepency, you, too, are likely a victim.    You could also try asking the VA for a copy of a specific evidence document you think may be missing.

4. Dont count on your VSO to do this for you.   Your VSO may well be too new for shreddergate 1, and may not even know about it.   Even if your VSO has been around for decades, many of them are “still in denial”, that the VA could possibly do such a horrible thing to Vets as destroy their evidence.

5.  Give yourself the benefit of the doubt.    If there is an approximate balance of evidence that your RO shredded evidence and that they didn’t, then give the BOD to the Veteran and go through the “shredded evidence” procedure.   You are probably right.  There is no evidence that the VA sent out letters to the shreddergate victims to inform them of their rights.  Instead, the VA wants us to be a detective and solve the mystery as to why we were denied when we have a valid nexus, or even a good running Accord.

Since it would appear that the VA was ineffective at eliminating “shreddergate One”, we can expect “Shreddergate Part 2” to surface at any time noting the VAOIG has apparently not done a followup shredder bin inspection since the “October (2008) incident”.     I am not buying the concept that the Regional Office habit of shredding Veterans evidence (which appears to have gone on for decades)  was miraculously cured overnight, and that no follow up inspections are necessary.

Posted in Guest authors, SHREDDERGATE | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

BEING SENSITIVE

Posted on July 25, 2012 by asknod

Member Cal (who I don’t recall as being terribly sensitive) sent me this this morning. Being sensitive to your humor needs, I naturally post it post haste:

Three rednecks were working up on a cell phone tower:
Cooter, Ronnie and Donnie.
As they start their descent, Cooter slips, falls off the
tower and is killed instantly.
As the ambulance takes the body away, Ronnie says,
“Well, shucks, someone should go and tell his wife.”
Donnie says, “OK, I’m pretty good at that sensitive stuff,
I’ll do it.”
Two hours later, he comes back carrying a case of Budweiser.
Ronnie says, “Where did you get that beer, Donnie?”
“Cooter’s wife gave it to me,” Ronnie replies.
“That’s unbelievable, you told the lady her husband was
dead and she gave you beer?’
“Well, not exactly,” Donnie says. “When she answered the
door,  I said to her, ‘you must be Cooter’s widow.'”
She said, “You must be mistaken.  I’m not a widow.”
Then I said, “I’ll bet you a case of Budweiser you
are. “Told ya’ I was good at that sensitive stuff.

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THE PHYSICS OF TRAVEL PAY

Posted on July 24, 2012 by asknod

Early this year, the line at the travel office window became longer and longer. The VAMC put up some boxes with forms to fill out and apply without waiting each time. Win-win for Vets, right? Well, Virginia-not exactly.

The first thing I discovered was the distance from my house to the VAMC shrank. 38.5 miles to the VAMC X 2 =77 miles round trip. 77 miles X .41/mile =$31.57. $31.57 +$4.00 for the Narrows (Galloping Gertie) Bridge= $35.57. Subtract $6.00 for Dealer Prep and destination fees and an energy surcharge and you have $29.57. By some stretch of the imagination, I was always paid $27.05. Apparently they knew a 6.14 mile shortcut to get there that I didn’t.

Now, I get checks in the mail for $17.05. The bridge toll went up to six dollars so I guess I’m supposed to be using a boat and cutting across Puget Sound. Any way you slice it, the numbers are wrong,wrong, wrong. They won’t respond when I do the math longhand on the paper for them. I guess I have to risk my compromised immune system and get in line to find out how I’m supposed to do this for so little. At $3.69 a gallon for gas, it pencils out to 5.13 gallons which is $18.92. I don’t mind helping get America back in the saddle financially by taking a rump travel pay settlement but I’m going in the hole. Throw in the bridge toll and I’m paying $5.87 to go to appointments instead of reaping McDonald’s money. How did vA shrink the universe and make it less miles to and fro?

This wouldn’t be a major concern but today I discovered there were no forms and the travel pay line was clean out the door to the outside. No way can I stand up that long without getting incontinent. Wait. Maybe that’s the trick to shortening the line…run them out with the stink when I crap my pants.

VAMC Travel pay line at American Lake

Posted in Complaints Department | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

38CFR §3.218=SHREDDERGATE

Posted on July 24, 2012 by asknod

I spotted this in the VBM this morning before my journey to the land of vAMC. We have several vets from the Cleveland area, one of whom has incontrovertible proof of the shrinking C-file phenomenon. That would be our Joe Average Vet who regularly contributes here. Keep an eye out in the regulations for the appearance of said §3.218 as you will only have 365 sunsets in which to file and take advantage of the offer. This thing is going to evaporate faster than an ice cube on the road in Atlanta in July.

12.5.7  Special Procedures Related to Documents Missing from VA Claims Files

As the result of a 2008 audit of selected RO mail processing procedures, it was found that claims-related documents (including applications for compensation/pension, informal claims, and other claims-related documents), were improperly designated for destruction by shredding. As a result of this audit, which identified a document-shredding problem affecting numerous ROs, VA proposed to establish temporary claims-handling procedures for affected claims, for the period from April 14, 2007, through October 14, 2008.239

The VA proposed regulations adding a new section of 38 C.F.R., section § 3.218, providing for procedures by which a claimant who believes that his or her claims-related documents were improperly shredded, can request that his or her claim be considered under this special procedure, and submit the evidence/submission allegedly submitted earlier. The effective date for any alleged submission (that was not found in the claims file and hence was possibly destroyed), would be the date asserted by the claimant as the date on which the Secretary received the claim. The time period under which a claimant can request consideration under this procedure will be one year from the effective date of the regulation.240 However, as of the date of publication of the 2011 edition of this Manual, this regulation has not yet been issued in final form.

Footnotes

239. 74 Fed. Reg. 58,232 (Nov. 12, 2009) (Proposed Rule).

240. 74 Fed. Reg. at 58,233-58,234 (proposed 38 C.F.R. § 3.218).

Posted in SHREDDERGATE, Veterans Law | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

vA JOBS PROGRAMS BY MOS

Posted on July 24, 2012 by asknod

At last, we’re going to be saved. Yessir. They’re starting with military policemen  and eventually will work all the way down to cooks in the mess hall as culinary masters in Michelin 5 star Restaurants. Were you a mechanic? Chances are you could find yourself in a high paying job at Mr. Goodwrench® in the near future thanks to the President’s new program that will pay corporations big bucks to hire you with continuing tax writeoffs for decades.

This program for ex-military police is pretty exciting. $111 million for 600 new jobs and to save another 200. That works out to $138,750.00 per year per person per job for them. Really? You think any police outfit is going to pay FNG cops, even Veterans, that kind of change? Worse, is that the message you want to be sending the 99% in the middle of economic doldrums? Do you want to see Occupy Oakland Police Department? Reality is as usual. The new cops will get $49 K plus bennies and the bigwigs will get their bonus for dreaming it up. The Oshkosh, Oklahoma cop shop and others across the fruited plain will get a one-time check to hire 3 officers in 2013 and then the money dries up. Mr. Vet goes on unemployment in 2014 and the program is quietly retired. Like sand through the hourglass…

Across the fruited plain

And if you have PTSD? This could get interesting.

Posted in All about Veterans, vA news | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

VA-FAIR AND BALANCED

Posted on July 24, 2012 by asknod

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Undersecretary for vA Apologies doesn’t come out with the new Logo. No flies on Fox News.

FAIR AND BALANCED

YOU REPORT

WE DECIDE

 According to the poohboahs, every claim is viewed in the light most favorable to the Veteran. What more do they want or need? A good question. vA sees their rules and regulations as being extremely liberal and slanted toward Vets. Well, okay, but liberal as opposed to what exactly?

War is messy. We’ve had Vets we helped here who had transfusions- myself included- that there are no records of. vA will ignore much in order to deny you. A thru and thru GSW is mighty hard to fake. It’s a signature scar. Often that is not enough to win with if you don’t have a PH or a CIB. I’ve read BvA decisions where they denied HCV because there was no mention in the SMRs of sharing of razors or toothbrushes. Imagine a mortician with a dead cadaver and his exposure risks in 1970. Nope. No risk there. He wasn’t a medical worker and his MOS was Graves and Registration. No risks or reported needle sticks in the SMRs so he lost. You lose because there is no contemporary evidence in a decidedly brief military medical record of your adventures for several years. If you were TDY or deployed to places that weren’t on regular maps, your medrecs didn’t reflect all that happened.

Nevertheless, the fair and balanced way to do this is, in vA’s eyes,  by the record to keep everyone honest. One ploy I love is to have a BvA hearing and pull down your pants or shirt to expose the mega scar for the VLJ. A military tattoo or a contemporary one “looks” old by its very nature. Just because you don’t have a nexus for it doesn’t make it evaporate. Many learn what they need to win very late in the ratings game and are forced to play catch up. This gives many a chance at a remand and an opportunity to obtain what they lack ( the nexus).

As for fair and balanced, lay testimony is looked at like, well, just that. vA views your recollections like an adult listening to the ramblings of a five year old with ADD-very imaginative but hardly truthful. They aspire to rebut it by the extreme passage of time on your memory and further by finding something minuscule to point to proving you are purposefully stretching the truth and the facts. This sets the stage for the denial. How in good faith, granting every benefit of the doubt, can they in good conscience grant the claim when your recollections and the records don’t support it?

vA is not allowed to openly treat you as a hostile witness. In truth, the whole adjudication process is based on exactly that.  Working strictly toward a negative outcome, they carefully construct a scenario that corrupts everything you say occurred. In order to make it all above board, they phrase it in glowing terms. “Dear Joe-Thank you for your service to America. Unfortunately, we were unable to do this. If you had some real evidence you got group haircuts in service documented by STRs showing they put the razor back in the blue juice behind the barber on the shelf in between ‘dos, then perhaps we can change our decision. Your buddy letters from John Sixpack and Tommy Twotones were very convincing but no one can recall that far back. Dude, that was like 40 years ago. Tommy, on the one hand, swears it happened in Germany whereas John said he recalled it in Basic at Ft. Hood. While we sincerely believe you case has merit, we are unable to grant in spite of the benefit of the doubt”.

Always keep this in mind when you get down in the trenches with vA.

Now serving Number 25 (from 2006)?

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JACK DANIELS FISHING STORY

Posted on July 23, 2012 by asknod

More from Michigan Bob. This is entirely believable. Most snakes hear you coming and beat feet. Most. Not our friend the Water Moccasin. They come to you knowing you are a potential meal.

Jack Daniels Fishing Story

I went fishing this morning, but after a short time I ran out of worms.

Then I saw a cottonmouth with a frog in its mouth. Frogs are good

bass bait. 

 

Knowing the snake couldn’t bite me with the frog in its mouth,

I grabbed it right behind the head, took the frog, and put it in

my bait bucket.

Now the dilemma was how to release the snake without getting

bit. So, I grabbed my bottle of Jack Daniels and poured a little whiskey

in its mouth. Its eyes rolled back, and it went limp. I released the snake into the lake without incident and carried on fishing, using the frog. 

 

Not long after, I felt a nudge on my foot. It was that damn snake…with

two more frogs.

 

Life is good in the South. Now, if we’d just won the war…

Posted in Humor | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

HCV–HOW BAD WILL IT BE?

Posted on July 23, 2012 by asknod

This just in from member Shawn  about predictors of how bad and how rapidly your liver deteriorates measured by a 1970s- era infection. Its done by the NIH which makes it semi-legit. At least they don’t have financial ax to grind to make money.

P.S. I’ll piggyback this one of hers on here too. This one is more about the vA’s interminable hope that we’ll commit lead poisoning and go away.

Posted in HCV Health, Medical News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

ADVENTURES IN vA LAND–NEW BOOK

Posted on July 23, 2012 by asknod

Well, I guess the cat’s out of the bag now. XLibris just informed me they sent out this press release several days ago. I’m not finished talking to them on price. I didn’t get any input on that yet. I don’t have copies of it either but am expecting them soon.  Its time for a new era in claims-one where the Vet is the aggressor and controls the claim rather than a powerless bystander.

Press Release

Posted in All about Veterans, NEW BOOK | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

The One & Only campaign

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Laura

If you have ever had an injection that did not conform to the exact guidelines in this CDC video, you did not have a safe injection.   The rule is, “one needle, one syringe, only one time.”  There are no exceptions to this rule. 

The intended audience for this simple 13-minute video is healthcare workers.  It explains how to avoid spreading blood-borne pathogens by using safe injection practices.  Multidose vial use is covered.   About 8-minutes into the presentation, there is a good animation about how cross-contamination occurs.

Notice that there are no exceptions for jet-gun injectors and needleless devices.  Now we know how to protect ourselves and our families in the future.

Posted in Guest authors, HCV Health, Medical News | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment