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VA'S FLAWED DECISION -- VA declares vet's liver was removed,

which it wasn't and which would cause death, and then rates

it at zero percent. But, there's more to this flawed decision.

Veterans' Advocate Jim Strickland reports.

Veterans' Advocate Jim Strickland provides regular columns for VA Watchdog dot Org.

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by Jim Strickland

The Flawed Decision

I'm becoming jaded. I hear from veterans every day that something went wrong as they were dealing with their Department of Veterans Affairs.

I hear of lost records, misinformation, rude behavior directed at veterans by VBA employees and flawed claims decisions. I see many flawed claims decisions.

Most decisions that have errors could be debated one way or another. Is the veteran employable? Is she 30% disabled or 50% disabled? It often depends on perspective.

There are those occasions thought that make me wonder if there's any hope for improvement. Is the VBA system so badly broken that it can't be repaired? If you spend time reading years of OIG and GAO reports and the lengthy list of recommendations that have been ignored for the last decade or longer, you can't help but question if there can be any improvement.

Is the VBA, like a broken mirror, impossible to fix or is there some hope?

I see a decline in the quality of overall adjudications. I don't have a research department and access to hundreds of thousands of file to cull scientific data from but I see many decisions that are so wrong that my mind boggles.

But, I'm jaded...nothing can surprise me any more.

Until today.

I received a letter from a veteran earlier that left me with that feeling of having been sucker-punched. It was that sensation of taking a fist in the gut and being unable to catch my breath.

The veteran told me he had served as an officer in the reserves and on active duty. His honorable military service spanned the Vietnam era to OIF.

In his last days as a soldier, he became ill. He was weak, vomiting, aching and had a noticeable amount of rectal bleeding. While still on active duty in September 2004 the veteran reported to his base clinic and was treated for hemorrhoids with some salve.

His final service was from January 2002 until March 2005. In correspondence about his claim, his VARO told him that couldn't be correct, their records showed he served from July 2007 until March 2005. No, I didn't transpose those dates...that's what his VARO told him.

In June 2005 three months after his discharge there was a significant rectal bleeding event. Within a couple of days, at a civilian hospital near his home, he was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Although his surgery and chemotherapy went reasonably well, his cancer has recurred a number of times and has spread to his liver and lymphatic system.

Our veteran eventually got around to filing a disability compensation claim with his VARO. He didn't get to this as timely as he wanted to as he was a bit under the weather during those days.

But, he filed a claim and in 2007 he was finally scheduled to meet a QTC physician for a C & P exam.

By now, our veteran was notified that his civilian medical records that had been delivered to the VARO were lost. He scrambled to get a few of more than 800 pages of records faxed to the VARO. When he arrived for C & P, his examiner had nothing...no records at all. She wasn't sure why he was there. After all, she was a well qualified orthopedic doctor, not an oncologist.

But in the spirit of things she forged ahead and examined his scars, his colostomy bag and listened to his heart.

As time went on he had a piece of his now cancerous liver surgically removed as well as his gallbladder. His abdominal tissues weren't healing well so there were other operations to patch in pieces of plastic mesh so his remaining intestines wouldn't spill out into his lap.

Then more cancer and then more surgery and then more chemotherapy and still the cancer returned.

The veteran had another PET scan in March of 2008 showing suspicious activity over a kidney so now there's another appointment with another surgeon to see about cutting that out too.

Our veteran has a 30% award for PTSD. He was involved as our forces invaded Iraq you see...the first time. So, it isn't like he has no income. The Social Security folks took a quick glance and awarded him his SSDI soon after he'd applied for it...about that same time he asked the VBA for help.

Having lost his records and asking an orthopedic quack to have a quick look at him, the VBA at his VARO issued their decision in February of 2008. He's forwarded it to me.

And so I write to tell you I thought I'd seen it all. I'm the jaded one, remember? Nothing surprises me, not if it comes from a VARO.

But this time, well...have a look for yourself. If I try to tell you, you won't believe me.

If you, like so many of us, have seen this letter before, you understand the impact that this will have on the veterans life.

He's been notified that his colon cancer, the residual colostomy, metastatic cancer to his liver and his lymph nodes are service connected. He's also told that his liver was removed...it wasn't removed but that was also service connected.

And then he's told that although these devastating conditions are ceded as service connected, he won't be compensated above the 0% rate.

There can be no excuse for this sort of an error that makes any sense at all. This isn't a debatable detail of a claim, this is sheer incompetence.

Prepare yourself...this is coming your way.

-------------------------

posted by Larry Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org

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