You veterans know what I’m talking about when I use the phrase “shotgunning your VA Disability Claims,” right? Shotgunning is when you list every ailment, ache or pain you have on your VA benefits claim, whether you think it’s service-related or not. Just throw everything against the wall and see what sticks.
Well, I think this is a bad idea, and I’ll explain why.
First, you really shouldn’t ever file a claim for a disability for which you cannot make a clear connection to either your military service or another service-connected disability. What you’re doing here is telling the VA, “Here is a problem I have. Now you guys go figure out if it’s service-connected.”
Listen, if you aren’t even willing to put in the time and research to determine if your ailment is related to your military service, do you think some overworked rating officer at your VA Regional Office is going to put in any more time than you did? Let me answer the obvious: NO!
And your VA Disability claim is just going to get denied – but not without wasting much of that rating officer’s precious time, which causes delays in getting other claims adjudicated, which every veteran waiting for a claims decision complains about. Want to help decrease the backlog? Stop filing frivolous claims.
I’ve seen many Veteran Service Officers (VSO) just ask the veteran to list every problem they have without ever asking how that issue is related to their military service. This clogs the system with frivolous claims.
When I’m working with a veteran with mesothelioma who wants to file for multiple disabilities, I create a simple chart for them. All the ailments go to the left. Then I tell them to write in the right-hand side all the causes of their problems, and then draw a line from the disabilities to the causes – or to another disability that already has a line to one of the causes. The end result looks something like this:
Notice the line from peripheral neuropathy to herniated disk. This line means the peripheral neuropathy will only get approved if it is medically noted as being caused by the herniated disk, and only if the VA approves the herniated disk as service-connected.
If we can’t connect a line from a disability to a cause or to another disability, we don’t file for that disability – or we work on figuring out if there is anything in the VA manual that might make that connection for us.
For instance, a veteran may have a disease that has now been added to the list of burn pit illnesses. Or a veteran has a condition that has now been linked to the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. If you aren’t capable of doing that research yourself, your VSO should be willing to help you. After all, if your own VSO isn’t willing to put in any time researching your claimed disabilities, why should the VA Rating Officer – who doesn’t even know you – put in this time?
So do yourself – and your fellow veterans – a favor and only file for disabilities for which you have some evidence connecting it to your military service or another service-connected disability. Your claim will get a decision much faster and it will help rectify your VA Regional Office’s backlog of disability claims.
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