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Welcome to The Veterans Disability Nexus, where we provide unique insights and expertise on medical evidence related to VA-rated disabilities. Leah Bucholz, a US Army Veteran, Physician Assistant, & former Compensation & Pension Examiner shares her knowledge related to Independent Medical Opinions often referred to as “Nexus Letters” in support of your pursuit of VA Disability every Tuesday & Wednesday at 7AM Central.
Take control of your medical evidence related to your benefits and visit https://podcast.prestigeveteranmctx.info/veteran/ for more information and to connect directly with us!
Guys, it's Leah B from Prestige Veteran Medical Consulting. I'm a US Army veteran physician assistant and former compensation and pension examiner. So welcome back to the Prestige channel. If you're navigating the VA disability process, there's a term you really wanna be familiar with and that is favorable findings. So what does that mean?
Leah Bucholz:So in this video, we're gonna break that down. What are favorable findings in VA disability claims? Why do they matter? How to use them to your advantage? So let's just get straight into it.
Leah Bucholz:So what are favorable findings in VA disability? So favorable findings are like golden nuggets in your VA decision letters, those rating decision letters, which are super awesome and sort of give you the keys to what's going on. So since several years now, VA has been legally required to list any favorable findings that they make during the decision process right there in your rating decision letter. So this means that anytime VA confirms something that supports your case, it must be acknowledged in recording or it should be, right? So let me give you a few examples of that.
Leah Bucholz:So favorable findings can include things like a confirmed diagnosis of the condition, like if you've got knee pain or back pain, they're gonna say, hey, we confirm that the person has this. A verify in service event, injury or exposure, a medical opinion linking your condition to service, lay statements accepted as credible can be listed in there. Acknowledgement of continuity of symptoms over time can be listed in your rating decision. These are all pieces of that big puzzle that VA is agreeing with. And that is really huge, right?
Leah Bucholz:So why does this matter? Why does that matter? So favorable findings stay in your record, okay? Even if your claim is denied right now today, those favorable findings are still recorded. So if you and your claims agent appeal or file a supplemental claim later, the VA probably isn't going to reverse those unless there's some kind of a clear error, right?
Leah Bucholz:So they may help you support and strengthen your case. So let's say the VA denied you and denied your claim for a back condition, but they made a favorable finding that you had an in service injury. That means the VA agrees that something happened during your service. You just need stronger evidence potentially connecting your current condition to that. So boom, right?
Leah Bucholz:Now you know where to focus your next steps potentially. The VA is gonna outline it and give you those hopefully give you that information. So always read the favorable findings section carefully. It can give you insight into why your claim might've been denied and why the VA does believe what they do believe in your favor. Always, always work with an accredited legal professional if you have questions.
Leah Bucholz:So a VSO, a claims agent or an attorney, they can be found on va.gov. So some of these key takeaways. Favorable findings are things VA agrees with. Unless they're clearly wrong, they're probably gonna be binding to your case. You can use them to support you and your appeals.
Leah Bucholz:Read that decision letter carefully because the VA is gonna explain what their findings are and sort of why they made a specific decision, okay? The rating decision letter will even talk about the evidence that was reviewed. Are errors made in those rating decision letters? Yeah, of course they can be. But generally speaking, these rating decision letters are gonna be pretty helpful and go over some of that evidence that was reviewed, favorable findings, etcetera.
Leah Bucholz:So if they say for example, hey, you have favorable finding of degenerative, you had a back pain in service, we acknowledge it on 07/07/1995. And another favorable finding is that you have a current back condition, right? They may say, it was denied because there was no link or nexus between the two. Well, now you know, okay, VA is at least acknowledging that I have that in service event. VA is also acknowledging that I have a current medical condition.
Leah Bucholz:I'm just missing that piece in the middle, right? So you and your legal professional can sort of focus on that or know how to narrow it down, right? And you can also know if maybe they made a mistake. So they may say favorable findings, none, right? But you know that you were seen in service five times.
Leah Bucholz:Maybe that's a key to you to say, oh, maybe they missed something. Maybe my records weren't looked at right. It could be a key or a map to helping you see what your next step might be, and it could also be a key or a map to inaccuracies or things that might have been missed. That evidence section can be super helpful too. That's usually on like the second page or something.
Leah Bucholz:It talks about all the things that they reviewed. So Doctor. Smith, your treating orthopedic surgeon wrote you a letter and they don't have that in the evidence section, they could have mislabeled it and labeled it something else or miscategorized it or maybe they just never received it or mishandled it or misfiled it or whatever. And these are things that you and like I said, if you're working with a accredited legal professional, especially one that has access to the VBMS or the system that they pull all the records, they can sort of look at all those items with you, okay? And if you need somebody like that, if you head over to va.gov, there's a great search tool that will help you find somebody that's in your local area or anywhere.
Leah Bucholz:You don't have to work with somebody in your local area. I had a VSO, fantastic guy, Anthony, love you. He was up in New York State and I was here in Texas and he was just amazing. So he helped me a ton. Same thing with those accredited claims agents and attorneys.
Leah Bucholz:They don't necessarily have to be in the state that you're in. We're in a digital world. A lot of these hearings are done virtually anyways. So I hope this video was helpful to you guys to understand what favorable findings were also so that you can get used to looking at those rating decision letters. And I believe va.gov has put them on their website now, which is amazing because people used to have to call.
Leah Bucholz:If you didn't have your claims file, which can take a little bit to receive, if you didn't have representation at all, which you don't have to, you could either request your claims file and that could take quite some time. Or if you just wanted your rating decision letter, you could call VA and they could email you a copy or send you a copy. But now it's my understanding, I'm pretty sure for probably about a year at least now that VA is actually putting those in your va.gov portal so you can go in there and download it. Don't ask me where exactly it is in there, but there's a way to navigate, to find those rating decision letters. And then again, go over them because it And I'm not talking about the cover sheet because usually there's a cover sheet that's like says, we made a decision in your claim and then it will say there's enclosures including the rating decision letter and the rating decision letter will give you a good breakdown of what you claimed, what VA thought.
Leah Bucholz:It's not gonna have your C and P exams in there and stuff, but it will have like it might have some of the comments from the C and P exams, it might not. Those C and P exams you have to get separately. So I hope this was helpful. Again, that rating decision letter can be a really good friend to you to understand what the heck is going on. So don't give up, keep pursuing those claims if you believe something is related to your service and utilize your resources wisely, because there are a lot of great folks out there that, you know, your county BSO or whoever who can assist you with that appeals process.
Leah Bucholz:Please So drop some comments, please like and subscribe, as always thank you for watching.