City of Houston Office of Veterans Affairs

DIRTY TRICKS THE VA USES TO CHEAT VETERANS OUT OF THEIR VA BENEFITS
(5) Divide and Conquer
When I came back from Afghanistan in December 2007 I was disabled. I knew it and my unit, the 160^th Military Police knew it too, but they tried their best to cover it up. I won’t go into detail but suffice it to say I had multiple medical issues that my unit military doctors did not, could not or would not diagnose or document. As a direct result of that, I had to try to figure out myself what to claim on my VA disability Compensation Claim.
My medical conditions had to be in my military medical records because I don’t have x-​ray vision and could not run the medical and laboratory tests I needed for diagnosis, so I settled on 25 known medical conditions. I know what you’re saying. Wow. No wonder you had so much problems. True, but you don’t understand. If I didn’t claim them at that time, and claimed them later, I would lose out on my back pay.
The VA disability compensation program is designed that way for that exact reason. They want you to wait to claim medical conditions because it saves them money. But it doesn’t really matter because even if you had two medical claims, they can divide it by denying one and granting the other, thereby forcing you to appeal or give you a partial decision on one issue and reserve the other issue so they can” kick the can down the road.” See, VA dirty trick number One.

This «Divide and Conquer» technique serves many purposes. The main purpose is that this dirty trick allows the VA to generate a perpetual ‘backlog” of disability claims which means more federal funding for them. The VA created this «hamster wheel» to keep veteran’s compensation claims forever at your local VA Regional Office, which leads me to VA dirty trick number six.
6) The Hamster Wheel
The local VA Regional Offices deliberately deny claims so they can be appealed, we already know this, but what you may not know is that they do this by making «vague» and «unsupported» decisions so that when it is appealed and goes to the Board of Veteran Appeals, it is certain to be REMANDED (sent back to them). This is done deliberately.

Example: My clothing allowance claim was for forearm crutches for my service-​connected Fibromyalgia/​Traumatic Brain Injury. When the Houston VA Regional Office denied it, they wrote that it was denied because my medical records stated my forearm crutches were for a non-​service connected back condition. That is a deliberate lie and they know it and I know it, but now I have to appeal it to the Board of Veteran Appeals and prove it is a lie. It was done on purpose to put me on the Hamster Wheel.
Putting a veteran’s claim on this VA created Hamster Wheel allows the local VA Regional Offices to sit on your claim for another three or four years and starts the entire process all over again just as if you filed a brand new claim. No final decision. Now you have to wait for more appointments for more tests, more doctor visits, more x-​rays, then wait for another decision, then file another Notice of Disagreement and wait for another Statement of the Case and appeal it and then wait for it to be certified back to the Board of Veteran Appeals. The VA motto which should be on every Department of Veteran Affairs document as their letterhead «Delay and Deny till the Day they Die».
Sandra Hale, Retired Nurse, Combat Veteran

Helped out a lot!!! Great organization!!!

You can seek assistance from the Office of Veterans Affairs by dialing 3−1−1 or by dialing direct to 832−393−0992. Be sure to also check out the online resource directory at