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ramblingrelic t1_jeb1wsi wrote

Reply to comment by geauxtigers77 in Veteran Hearing Loss [OC] by Late_Sink_1576

Hijacking. Meet with your VA advocate too. The VA hospitals have an advocate and they can hook you up with the VFW or the Legions. They can, and will, do the heavy lifting for you if you ask when it comes to paperwork and appeals.

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Late_Sink_1576 OP t1_jeb30pj wrote

THIS! I was fortunately enough to be hand carried from office to office by my VA Advocate when I was enrolling in the VA. That system is a labyrinth, and they are your guide.

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fresh_haggis t1_jeb70kr wrote

Note: Evaluations for service connection are performed by the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) not the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). Folks in the VHA are the front line clinicians providing clinical care to Veterans. A service connection assessment by the VBA is explicitly NOT treatment, it is an eval to determine whether disability, injury, condition, etc is least as likely as not to be related to service. The clinical services provided by the VHA is an easy thing to crap on because who would disagree with the statement that we need to take care of Veterans. I work in addiction treatment in the VA and I wish civilians had the immediate and continuous access to addiction treatment that the Veterans at my VA are able to use. Sometimes it takes multiple 21 day residential intensive outpatient treatment episodes to achieve something that resembles recovery. It isn't perfect but a helluva lot better than private insurance (at least for MH and addiction treatment from my perspective).

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