Receiving a remand from the Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA) can seem like a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the Board has not denied your claim(s), allowing you to continue to prosecute your case. Yet, on the other, the battle to get your entitled benefits continues without any apparent end in sight. One thing is for sure: DO NOT …

There are two ways to establish service-connection for service-related disability(ies). The first, causal service-connection, is the most common and familiar. If some in-service incident (e.g. physical accident/injury, toxic exposure or psychological trauma) results in a permanent disability, the disability is deemed service-connected/service-related. It is important to keep in mind that the in-service incident need not immediately cause the disability; the …

1) What is Sleep Apnea? Sleep apnea is a serious sleep disorder that occurs when a person’s breathing is interrupted during sleep. People with untreated sleep apnea stop breathing repeatedly during their sleep, sometimes hundreds of times. This means the brain — and the rest of the body — may not get enough oxygen. There are two types of sleep …

The only constant in life is change. Military members are trained to be prepared for the unexpected, and to adapt to changing circumstances on a moment’s notice. But when you have returned to civilian life, you are hoping for more predictability, especially when it comes to disability payments and the ability (or inability) to work. If a veteran meets the …

This, in my opinion, is the most important, and yet most difficult, challenge for disabled veterans. In the vast majority of cases, VA disability claims are won or lost on the medical evidence. The medical evidence process usually starts with the VA obtaining a one-time medical examination as part of its duty-to-assist, which includes a written opinion based upon the …

It does not matter whether a sexually assaulted claimant has tried once or several times to service-connect his/her PTSD or related psychiatric disability claim. In either case, military sexual trauma (MST) claims are difficult to prove. Rarely will the victim have reported the incident at or near the time of the in-service assault, and rarely will there be any other …

It is never too late to file a VA disability claim. Claimants are not limited in the number of disability claims they may file. But there are important distinctions to keep in mind. For claims seeking service-connection, the VA calls them original claims, and once they are denied and become final, all other claims are called claims to reopen. As …

Let’s start at the beginning.  A veteran or claimant begins the adjudication process by filing a claim(s) for entitlement to a service-connected disability at one of the many local VA regional offices or with a local DAV or VFW.  A VA employee called a Rating Specialist develops the claim(s) by gathering evidence and then decides the claim and sends it …

Disability Benefits Questionnaires or DBQs are the standard VA templates for VA and private examination reports.  DBQs set forth an exhaustive list of questions to be addressed by physicians and these responses are the used to evaluate a veteran’s disability claim.  If your treating physician or a consulting physician is going to write an opinion in support of your claim, …

That is a very good question.  There is no doubt that the vast majority of VSOs try their level best to help disabled veterans, and many do a very fine job at it.  However, in recent years, the VA disability system has become more complex and adversarial. Due to incompetency, needless formality and basic insensitivity, many VA regional offices have …