Legal Help for Veterans blog.
Claims Processing, Mental Health, PTSD
by Jim Fausone Veteran Disability Attorney Once again showing the differences between men and women in combat, VA recently reported that women appear more susceptible to depression than PTSD. The study looked at 246,976 veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and 246,080 who served elsewhere. Among those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, about […]
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News and Press
by Jim Fausone Veterans Disability Lawyer VA runs the largest health care system in the world. Most of the time the VA provides excellent health care. VA issues an annual report card on its services. The latest 200 page document reports that last year there were 62,686,340 outpatient visits in VA. The average number of […]
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Mental Health, News and Press, PTSD
by Jim Fausone Veterans Lawyer A new study may be of help to veterans when making their PTSD claim. Female veterans who become pregnant may be at more risk for mental health disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety, a study finds. VA commissioned a 5 year study. Among the study participants, 32% […]
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Claims Processing, News and Press
by Jim Fausone Veterans Lawyer Veterans Affairs has recently vowed to eliminate the backlog in veterans benefits claims by the end of 2015. There is a million claim backlog across all levels and it takes years to process a claim. However, VA says all those seeking payment will have to wait no longer than three […]
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News and Press
by Jim Fausone Veteran Lawyer A local Michigan documentary film producer, Keith Famie, has a new film out about the Vietnam generation. This DVD follows on the heels of his critically acclaimed film “Detroit: Our Greatest Generation ” about Detroit’s role in WWII. Keith is a dedicated and skilled storyteller and film maker. I have […]
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News and Press, Veterans Law
by Jim Fausone, Veteran Lawyer We have written about the MST problem before. Military Sexual Trauma broadly covers rape, sexual harassment and discrimination. We deal with the aftermath when veterans seek compensation for MST. About 80 percent of unwanted or threatening sexual acts are not reported. Victims who report abuse to their superiors often face social isolation, retribution […]
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Mental Health, News and Press
by Jim Fausone, Veteran Attorney The first large scale study of female veterans found that female veterans — age 18 to 34 — are three times as likely as their civilian peers to die by suicide. Veterans make up 20% of the people who commit suicide in the country. However veterans only make up 12 % of the population. […]
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News and Press
by Jim Fausone, Veteran Attorney This week the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the issue about when a veteran misses the 120-day appeal period. The Veterans Court has taken the position that it could not grant a deadline extension for any reason. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed, based on a high court 2007 decision, […]
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Claims Processing, News and Press
by Jim Fausone VA just announced that it will test quicker ways to access private medical records. It wants a private contractor to quickly retrieve the records from the health-care provider, scan them into a digital format and send the material to VA through a secure transmission. But we have found that most Regional Office […]
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Medical Issues / Disability, News and Press, Veterans Law
by Kristina Derro A recent decision by the Court, on one of our client’s claims, stressed the importance that VA must get a medical opinion before it summarily declined to refer an issue for extraschedular consideration for unemployability. Our client worked as an accountant, handling his clients’ taxes. He was forced to stop working because […]
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