Every once in a while you have one of those “Awwww! How cute is that?” moments even if you’re a guy. My friends Chip and Julie took in a glue factory horse and she’s gorgeous with bad feet. One of her eyes is brown, the other cerulean blue. It’s rather disconcerting-like Marty Feldman’s were. The last thing they expected was a twofer. Nevertheless, Jewel wasn’t lazy and fat. She was pregnant. The farrier said she needed to go on a diet. So they cut back her c rations and started exercising her for short trots around the property. Look what showed up.
Now imagine if both your eyes looked like that. Ladies and gentleman Vets, I would like the pleasure of introducing you to last week’s latest edition of the 2012 Mustang-the son of Jewel.
Is that too cool for school or what?
I always got a bang out of B-52 milk truck drivers. They’d belly up to the stag bar and regale each other with their “mission”. As in “There we were at Angels 20 and we cut lose. The gooks never knew what hit them. ” What were they thinking? That the bombs might miss the ground? What can you see at 20, 000 feet above mean sea level? In a word? Nothing.
As a corollary, in the construction industry, many contractors have that laissez faire attitude. It has many iterations with the 20,000 ft. test being just one. Variations are the five mile, five minute warranty, the six foot rule and “You can’t see it from my house” rule. The six foot rule is the most amusing. A contractor will cut a small diameter stick six feet long and keep it handy. When they do the walk through on a new home, he’ll employ it to show he doesn’t have to fix a blemish by proving from six feet away that it is invisible to the naked eye. This is written into the contract innocuously such that most would not ascertain the significance of it.
Similarly, the VA enjoys flying at this exalted altitude or employing their six foot stick too. The reason being is so they can misconstrue what it is that anyone with an ounce of intelligence could extrapolate from incoming correspondence. Let’s look at Member JM’s predicament.
JM has been in contact with me for several months. He doesn’t have HCV but that does not preclude my giving him advice on how to do this. A claim is a claim and VA manages to hamburger all of them to some degree. He was visiting a sister site for Vets and was rudely brushed off by some of their moderators. I won’t mention which site but it’s the one with the pink peggy logo. JM’s problem began with his denial following an October 2010 filing for his knee (right). He can no longer stand and work for prolonged periods of time and finally opted to take Uncle Sam up on his promise of care in the event he was injured playing war. Uncle Sam, as you will read below, said “Well…not exactly”.
Where this gets humorous (if such a thing is possible when you’re broke and almost homeless) is what ensued afterwards. JM filed a NOD and the vA decided it was a reopen of a new claim. Nevermind that he still had eleven months to file the NOD on the existing claim. Hell, no. He must want to file for a reopen! When he tried to straighten out that error in March via an IRIS, he got the “Roger. We copy you want to reopen the finally denied old claim for the right knee”. Again, we’re still within the one year window for his NOD and now he has three claims running for the same right knee. I know what you’re thinking. He’s one of those Thalidomide babies from the sixties with three right knees. Wrong. JM is much younger and is a product of the 9/11 krewe.
Below are some of the documents he sent me that prove his chronic, permanent condition. Of course, when traveling at 20,000 feet, it’s difficult for vA to read these documents. That is, assuming they want to read them. 
Here’s the IRIS.
| Discussion Thread | |
| Response via Email Via Email (Department of Veterans Affairs) | 06/01/2012 06:02 PM |
| Dear Mr. JM:This is in response to your inquiry to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) dated May 15, 2012.We apologize for the delay in responding to your inquiry. We have received a large volume of inquiries recently, and are making every effort to respond to them as quickly as possible.We received your compensation claim on March 26, 2012.It’s open and in the initial stages of processing. We’ll be reviewing your claim to determine if additional information is needed. If so, we will inform you of what we need.At your regional office of jurisdiction, the Development Phase is completed on most claims on average in 162 days.Your claim’s Development Phase began March 26, 2012. However, the length of time it takes to complete the Development Phase of a claim depends on several factors, such as the type of claim filed, the availability of evidence needed to decide a claim, and the VA’s pending workload. A claim may take longer in this phase based on any one, or a combination of the factors mentioned above.There are two additional phases: the Decision Phase and the Notification Phase.
However, at this time, we are asking your regional office of jurisdiction to provide verification of your claim status. Therefore, we have forwarded a request for information to them. Once we receive a reply to our request, we will contact you via this inquiry system to advise you of our findings. We apologize we are unable to provide you with an immediate answer to your question, and appreciate your patience as we research this matter. In regard to the receipt of your request to expedite your claim due to financial hardship, and to revoke your power of attorney; our records do not indicate receipt of these documents. However, this does not mean we are not in receipt. Please be aware, it may take up to 75 days for documentation you send us to be processed and entered into our electronic information systems. Please allow sufficient time for this process to take place, then contact us again for the status of receipt. Thank you for contacting us. If you have questions or need additional help with the information in our reply, please respond to this message or see our other contact information below. Sincerely yours, Donovan W. Thompson |
|
JM responded thusly:
I want to make it clear that I have filed a NOD for my claim dated october 2010 (within the year time period allowed from denial). I have not asked for a new claim. I intend to preserve the original claim date of october 2010. since it apparently does not exist from the feedback I am getting I have resent it. I also want to make it clear that the VSO does not have power of attorney over me and anything they do is without my consent. The only new claim that I have filed is for my Back which was sighned certified mail as recieved RRR april 6,2012, along with another NOD letter, and also revoction of POA from the VSO. I filed this NOD regarding my oct 2010 knee claim becuase the reason for denial directly contradicted the evidence given to the VA. The denial said there was no evidence of disability, yet my army medical documents provided clearly and specificaly referd to my chorinic disabilty due to injury in 2005. They stated this specificaly in plain english with a diagnosis,on a documenation of injury, profile and memarandum for medical discharge. This was all current at the time I filed for cpmensation and I am currently being treatd by the VA for this . Furthermore the Dr at QTC did not do a medical exam on me. He gave me an xray and did not do the exam that he said he did in his write up which also conflicted with my army medical records.
If any of you wondered why we have this interminable delay at the vA, this will set your mind at ease or raise your hackles. It’s classic proof of Murphy’s law. It can, and indeed did, go wrong. Unfortunately for JM, vA has decided to play the “We’re so confused we cannot figure out what it is exactly that you want. Could you please clarify what precisely it is you are trying to say in English? We’re here to serve you but we simply can’t help if you don’t tell us.”
This is a classic old ploy vA has used for decades and it has fallen into disuse until now apparently. We may see more of this with the backlog reaching epic proportions. Prepare for a tsunami of correspondence purposefully torqued out of context soon from the masters of doublespeak. The good news. It will only take 162 days this time to deny it even though they already have all the paperwork!
P.S. By the way, thanks for leaving your SSN and DOB on those documents, JM. I just ordered a set of golf clubs on your new Mastercard. Cost? About $899.00 . Improvement to my golf game? Priceless.
Member Randy of Colorado fame has found something we all perhaps suspected but had no conclusive proof of. Our member Chase, who just received an new liver, Robert in southern California and of course Randy, all suffer from either active or long term issues from this. Chase actually had extensive surgery to save his life and arrest the cancer.
Enter Randy at 0300 in the morning-sleepless and roaming the internet in a quest for more knowledge. As he put it in his email ” Sleep is highly overrated”. I concur. Many’s the time I have been sleepless in the near environs to Seattle due to the off the wall effects of HCV fatigue. Getting up in the middle of the night to do research is beneficial as there are no distractions. The downside is returning to bed at 0500 and sleeping for half the morning until 1100. But I digress. Here is some interesting research which corroborates what we probably already suspected but were unable to point to.
If your eyes have finally seen better days, click on it twice to magnify it. Use the bars at the bottom and the right to manipulate it to view.
From Patricia at HCVets…
My, how considerate of the MiamiVAMC to offer free medical for life to the 5 Veterans who came down with HIV, the eight who tested positive for HCV and the sole Vet who contracted Hepatitis B. I’m going to venture out on a limb and bet that they didn’t even have to file a 38 USC §1151 claim in order to qualify for these benefits. I also wonder if they were told they could file claims for this and get service connected now that they are hopelessly infected.
Let this be a lesson in where not to get a colonoscopy.
We have all heard the VA boast of its 80-90 % VARO “correct decision” rate. While most of us realized this is just another manipulation of the numbers, I think ask nod readers deserve to know why there is a discrepency between the VAOIG rates and those reported by the VA. Bergmann & Moore, a noted Veterans lawyer firm has this to say.
The VARO’s take the number of claims appealed by the Veteran, and divides them by the number of claims processed to arrive at the “error rate”.
This makes the assumption that a Veteran, never trained in VA procedures or appealate review, knows more about claims than Regional Office Management. After all, it is the Veteran who must initiate appellate review at the RO level. If the Vet does not appeal, the decision becomes “final” in one year, and is “assumed” to be correct.
However, there are many more reasons why a Veteran does not appeal. He may be too sick, dying, or even deceased. He may be homeless and have no phone or address to put on his form. He may not have even received the decision, as mailmen do not deliver mail to 1234 “under the bridge” Homelesstown, USA. 60609
Still more are advised by their Veteran Service Officer NOT to appeal. After all, appeal courts are overburdened also, and won’t they be helping a fellow Vet out by just accepting the RO decision..even if its in error 53% of the time, as this article states? My VSO said I should be happy with my “service connection” at 0%, because I can always “ask for an increase”, that is, after a trip to Washington DC at the Board of Appeals where my denial for Service connection was reversed.
A better way (though it does paint a less rosey picture of the VA Regional Offices) to calculate the error rate would be to see how many of the cases which are appealed are awarded or remanded. You see, even a remand means there was at least some type of error in the decision. If you do this, as in the BVA chairman’s report, on page 22, you will see that 42.4 % were remanded, 26.9% allowed and just 28.1% were denied. This means the RO decision was “correct” 28.1 percent of the time. Still more Vets will be awarded benefits at the CAVC or Federal Circuit levels, and some Vets with claim errors at the RO level were “fixed” by a DRO review so the “correct” rate is actually less than 28.1 percent.
According to this VAOIG report, the VA overstates the timeliness of mental health care. Could the VA possibly be overstating their error rate too?
This is from Rebeccamarie Beque Mignonesalaiz. It is a photograph by Richie Bulldog. It is the epitome of all we feel on Memorial Day. I’m sorry I didn’t see it and post it sooner. My apologies Rebeccamarie.
I forgot to add Rebeccamarie’s logo next to her name. This is a scream! I want one.
We are all aware of the VAOIG’s policy of “making recommendations” to combat fraud in the VA. One example of this was in Shreddergate 1, where the VAOIG recommended that those “untrained employees” who shredded Veterans evidence be trained to know the difference between last weeks Burger King wrapper and Veterans’ evidence.
That was a bit too strong, so now the ADVA (Arkansas Dept. of Veteran Affairs) is implementing its “Look the other way plan”….that is, until you get caught, and then your coworkers hang you out to dry to keep their own job.
In Arkansas, this is exactly what happened:
http://arkansasmatters.com/fulltext?nxd_id=546932
However, now even the Arkansas governor is taking heat, because the ADVA’s “look the other way” plan backfired and went right up the ladder to the governors office:
http://arkansasgopwing.blogspot.com/2012/06/part-ii-swindling-veterans-by-arkansas.html
Arkansas Dept. of Veterans Affairs employees need not worry about prosecution as the article states , “Criminal charges against Pickard are unlikely, according to the VA.”
Back in 2006, when I finished building the last house I ever want to live in, my wife directed the landscaping of the embankment in the front. In spite of an extensive sprinkler system some of the vegetation refused to flourish and died over time. The nursery replaced some of it to no avail. Eventually we had a weed garden that sported almost all Nature’s opportunists. I became the West Coast distributor for dandelions and thistle.
Early Spring dawned in 2007 and I noticed what appeared to be a strawberry plant in the middle at the top of the hill. Several months later I discovered it was going viral. Our next door neighbors had a small patch so we surmised it arrived via a bird. We’ve since had to pull out several tomato plants as well. Harvesting the berries was not feasible as the birds and the slugs got them faster than I could find and rescue them. Things continued apace until I went into the hospital in 2009-10. The embankment was left to its own devices for well over two years.
When I finally regained my senses last summer and started maintaining the property again, I discovered the strawberries had taken over the whole embankment. Go figure. You spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars and end up losing everything but the weeds and along comes an edible groundcover that refuses to abate. Someone once observed that Nature abhors a vacuum. Truer words were never spoken.
What we have now is impervious to weeds and the absolute joy of my grandsons-forty yards by 10 feet of unlimited strawberries and no weeds to be seen. The berries choke them out completely. The volume of fruit exceeds what even the birds, squirrels and slugs can decimate.
This spring, my neighbor came over to talk about one thing or another (my dogs pooping on her front lawn) and was dumbfounded to see the strawberries. They’ve been babying theirs along with fertilizer and TLC now for 8 years with abysmal results. That’s the karma they got for letting their dogs crap all over my property for 5 years. I was simply polite enough not to complain about it. That problem was eventually solved by the dogs dying of old age.
While this has nothing to do with your claims, it shows how tenacious a plant can be. It should be a valuable lesson when dealing with the vA. Let these tenacious berries be a teaching moment and smother the vA in pleadings and filings until they are inundated in dog poop (which makes an excellent fertilizer, I might add.).
I should justify this post by saying that I called up my vA PCP scheduler and asked to be tested for IHD due to AO. They told me they’d pencil me in for a workup in December sometime and get back to me. I asked with as little sarcasm as possible if that was December 2012 or 2013. The lady became very pissy with me so I voted with the “end” button. I exercised my rights under Medicare and had it done in the last several weeks and I’m glad to announce that the heart attack I had in the VAMC hospital October 2009 was due to medical negligence (septal infarct) and not Agent Orange. I’m glad we got that settled.
BvA’s new decisions through the end of March are out. I notice there are already 15, 652 listed just for Hepatitis. Pardon my French but Holy shit, Batman! That is a lot of sick Veterans. If this represents just the appeals in the first quarter, can you image the tidal wave of HCV claims that weren’t appealed? So much for the theory that HCV claims are starting to slow down.
They’re in there but vA isn’t letting us look at them yet! To add insult to injury, it gives me the 404 error.
Postscript– I set loose the dogs of computer and had them attack it by tampering with the IPVs and different browsers because I use Chrome. Even a different computer wouldn’t open them. If anyone does dislodge the puppies be sure and let us know.
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