Hello and Happy New Year to you all. I pray that you had a wonderful New Year and that you start the year with joy and happiness.
Today I would like to talk about whether it is cost effective to get a second opinion on your DBQ. I was told by a rater that it would be good to locate a non-military affiliated doctor to do an assessment of my back and to fill out a DBQ for my. I guess I'm pretty naive because I really didn't think this was going to be a problem, but all the doctors I called said they didn't perform this type of service.
I kept digging and I located one office who did. I was told to send them an email and this was the response I received:
"Veterans are scheduled for an initial consult appointment with either Dr. Kyle Mitchell or Dr. Christopher Parman. This consultation appointment is not billable to insurance companies and the fee is currently set at $350 that is due at time of service.
COPIES of complete STR (service treatment records), DD214 Form(s), previous decision rating letters (if applicable), VA treatment records (if applicable), and civilian treatment records (if applicable), are required at this appointment. **** PLEASE NOTE THAT CONSULTATION APPOINTMENTS WILL NOT BE SCHEDULED UNTIL COPIES OF ALL RECORDS ARE AVAILABLE****
Doctors will then review your military history and discuss any major illness or injuries incurred while in active duty and determine whether or not you will benefit from the VBAT program. If you decide to proceed with the program, copies of your records are asked to be left at the office in order for claim writers to begin record review and extraction. The initial deposit of $600 will also be due at the time of your consult appointment (totaling $950).
The total fee for the VBAT program, to include the review and extraction of records, developing claim package, and completing the IME (independent medical exam) is $2500. Discount option is available upon request.
If necessary, the physician will then refer you to schedule a new patient appointment through our medical office, Northside Family Practice, in order for them to begin medical treatment on discussed conditions. Otherwise, a "worklist" will be provided to you for guidance on proceeding with the program.
Please note that you will be responsible for providing your medical insurance to the office in the case that you come through and are treated as a patient. You will be exercising your medical benefits when you are medically treated by our providers and this is considered separate from VBAT or fees associated with VBAT program. You will be financially responsible for any co-payments, deductibles and co-insurance that are required by your medical insurance. If your insurance requires for you to list a specific primary care provider, you will also be responsible for ensuring that either Dr. Kyle D. Mitchell or Dr. Christopher L. Parman are listed as your current primary care provider, prior to your initial appointment with Northside Family Practice.
Dr. Mitchell's consults are scheduled from Tuesday to Friday at 1:30pm and Dr. Parman's consults are scheduled on Fridays at 10:30am. Please let me know which provider you would like to schedule with and your next availability and we will do our best to accommodate."
The total cost for this service is $2500, I don't know, so I'm asking you all, is this a fair price or is this price gouging. I personally thought it was a bit high, If you have received assistance from an outside doctor to fill out a DBQ or write a Nexus letter, I would appreciate it if you would share your experience and the cost. There are many of us out here who could use your expertise.
As always, thank you for your support.
TTYL - Be blessed!!!
I think $2500 + whatever copays you end up having to cover "up front" is a little steep. There are dozens of these companies out there, personally if I chose to go that route I would choose one that is on a contingent basis. One such company that I have spoken with recently is Vet Comp and Pen out of Florida. No upfront fees, 5 months worth of the percentage increase (payable over 10 months, so you get 1/2 of the increase while making payments) and 10% of any back pay awarded. They provide IME's, IMO's and Nexus/DBQ's and build your case for you. It "seems" like a good deal and I have at least one Vet Brother that is using them and Happy with their services. I personally had the time and resources to build my own cases and decided to join some of the FB groups dedicated to helping Vets and this ha worked out well. Many of these groups have VSO,VA Raters,VA specialists and SSA employees as members and they have a ton of info and are willing to share. There's no reason a relatively intelligent and computer savvy vet couldn't do their own claims successfully with the right guidance. If you have been fighting the VA for 10 years and gotten no where then most likely your gonna need professional help and or more concrete medical evidence. Whatever you choose, it's a gamble but in my opinion no matter which way you decide the best investment you can make is to learn 38CFR backwards and forwards, get All of your medical records from service,civilians,VAMC and your Cfile and learn what the process is yourself and then make the decision on whether you have enough evidence and can do it yourself. If you know the process and talk to a so called "VSO" and they are feeding you a bunch of bull you will know they aren't who you want handling one of the most important decisions of your life. Just some food for thought :)
ReplyDeleteHello Bigwrench. Thanks for your response and information. I thought this was a lot to pay but I wanted to get other opinions. I am a member of many of the FB groups so I share my blogs with them and get information to share from them as well. I'm in GA. I wish there was someone like who you have in Florida. I will share the Florida info with my readers.
ReplyDeleteSonja thanks for the reply ! I am actually in Virginia but that company is out of Florida. They represent Vets all over the country. I don't want to appear to be advertising for them but they do have a web site you can google which will give much more info. If I was stuck and not getting anywhere I would definitely use them compared to a lawyer. I have read many Vets posts saying they don't believe you should ever have to pay for anything, but sometimes it is best to just step back and let a professional take over. Lets say your a a Disabled Vet with a 10% current rating, you use this company and they get you increased to 80% by just going through all your records and building your case for you the way the VBA wants to see it. That means that you would get an increase of $1422.56 a month ( Single Vet no dependents) for the rest of your life ( assuming the VA doesn't evaluate you and reduce you lol ). Now with that above scenario with the above company , the way I understand it is you would pay them a total of $7112.80 which would be 5 months of your increase amount. You would have 10 months to pay that back so for 10 months after your increase you would get $844.85. After 10 months you would go to $1556.13. In the big picture it seems like a ton of money, but its a little over $17,000 more on your yearly income tax free. I've always been told 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing. If you spend 25 years fighting them and pass away you didn't gain anything but 25 years of heartache. If a lawyer charges you 30% of all back pay and a flat fee of $2500 and it takes a couple years to get your increase to 80% that's around $13,703.92 :(
DeleteBTW I just talked to my buddy and he got an increase in 6 months.
Sonja Baisden,
ReplyDeleteI know this is two years later but I have some insight on this office that could help you if you're still trying to go through the process.
I used them and I learned a lot of useful information. If you're trying to develop a full claim for the first time I would recommend you pay the full $2500. That gives you 6 or 8 DBQ's.
If you're just trying to get an increase on 2 or 3 ratings, I'd just pay the price for the individual DBQ's. I think they are around $150 to $200 a piece. Don't quote me on that.
The money doesn't go to the provider but to his team that puts your package together. They are all doing this on their own time.
The DBQ's that Dr. Mitchell provide are very thorough and he has a very high success rate of getting big increases.
Because of his success there is a lot of people wanting to use his program which is why the price is where it is now.
He has a network of physicians that understands how to write the note to the VA standards. This is the most important part of their process.
If you haven't noticed, you can provide the VA piles and piles of evidence documenting that you suffer from a condition but if it isn't stated in the exact verbiage that the VA recognizes they will deny your claim.
This program is very knowledgeable of that verbiage and is why they have such a high success rate.