TIPs By Ben Krause:                       Here’s a con­tin­u­ance of my own lit­tle story for ser­vice con­nec­tion for the fol­low­ing: Sleep Apnea sec­ondary to Sinusi­tis and Aller­gic Rhini­tis. I was denied for these con­di­tions right after my sep­a­ra­tion from ser­vice, in 2001.                           A lit­tle back­ground. I had a sleep study in ser­vice con­ducted by the Fargo VA. The VA had the records of a sleep study and was noti­fied as such. Yet, dur­ing my eval­u­a­tion, the VA did not request its own files and sub­se­quently denied my con­di­tion. I had brief episodes of apnea but did not require a machine. They also denied ser­vice con­nec­tion for the other con­di­tions despite at least 12 instances within my ser­vice records requir­ing treat­ment. The effects of sinusi­tis were later con­firmed in 2009 via an MRI as were the polyps from aller­gic rhini­tis. The next year I was given a CPAP machine.                         Rub­ber, meet Road. In 2010, I put the whole claim together with a lit­tle doc­u­men­ta­tion help from law school and “The Lit­tle Book on Legal Writ­ing.”   I called the Fargo VA for the actual sleep study from 1998. While on the phone, the FOIA guy at the VA faxed the records to me after a lit­tle con­vinc­ing (that was the morn­ing of my recent VA exam­i­na­tion – don’t wait to the last sec­ond like I did). The records ver­i­fied my apnea. I was also able to find Con­gres­sional Reports about the con­di­tions of the dor­mi­to­ries we lived in while at tech school – there were issues of asbestos and leak­ing sewage along with out­dated HVAC sys­tems blow­ing par­ti­cles around. I imme­di­ately came down with sinusi­tis and pneu­mo­nia after arrival. I included this doc­u­men­ta­tion in the event that I come down with cer­tain can­cers down the road.                        Armed with the report, my med­ical records and a typed sum­mary, I went to the exam. The first appoint­ment was with an Ear Nose and Throat doc­tor. He said the VA already con­ceded ser­vice con­nec­tion but he needed to find out how many episodes I have every year. I handed him my doc­u­men­ta­tion. While he did not read over the doc­u­men­ta­tion in full, he most likely referred to it after the meet­ing while fill­ing out his exam notes. This is key, espe­cially if the exam­iner did not take good notes while in the meet­ing or for­got some key point that you men­tion. The sum­mary you hand him may be the dif­fer­ence between a 10 or 30 per­cent.                         My sec­ond eval­u­a­tion was for sleep apnea. I showed the doc­tor my cur­rent diag­no­sis along with the for­mer diag­no­sis while I was in ser­vice. She took the time to read over my sum­mary, which explained how the VA missed my ear­lier diag­no­sis. Since I had the old sleep study exam with me, she was able to clearly tell that I had sleep apnea while in ser­vice. Because of the way my doc­u­men­ta­tion was set out, she told me on the spot that she was going to tell the VA I had sleep apnea in 1998. This could result in a deci­sion for retroac­tive pay if I can prove VA com­mit­ted a Clear and Unmis­tak­able Error dur­ing their 2001 denial.

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