How to Win Your Sleep Apnea Claim - VA Made Easy Podcast (Video)

 Posted on July 06, 2023 in Uncategorized

In this episode, you will learn about sleep apnea, how to link it to your service through either direct service connection or connecting it secondarily to an already existing condition.

Audio only version:

VA Forms mentioned in this episode:

- To apply for VA benefits for a new condition use Form 20-526EZ: https://www.vba.va.gov/pubs/forms/vba-21-526ez-are.pdf

-To provide new evidence via a statement after denial use Form 20-0995: https://www.vba.va.gov/pubs/forms/vba-20-0995-are.pdf

Full transcript:

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Hey guys. Welcome back to VA made easy. If you missed the last episode, go ahead check it out about the Pact act and how you could use it to increase your rating. This episode, we're gonna talk about sleep apnea. I see a lot of veterans applying for sleep apnea, and I get why if you use a CPAP machine or APAP or BiPAP, I mean, you're entitled to a 50% rating.

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That's huge. I see a lot of veterans denied that yet because they don't understand how to link it to their service. So this episode is going to teach you how to link sleep apnea with your service. There's two different ways either direct service connection or connecting. Secondarily to condition like PTSD or back injury.

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And.

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Before we get into the discussion of how to service connect sleep apnea,

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I want to clarify that there's two different types of sleep apnea.

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There's something called central sleep apnea

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and something called obstructive sleep apnea. Central sleep apnea is the issue with your brain sending signals to your muscles to breathe. That is not the type of sleep apnea we're going to discuss today. Maybe another episode will touch on that. Today, we're going to discuss obstructive sleep apnea, and that's a result of a narrowing of your airway, which causes some breathing in your sleep.

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So everything we discussed today is going to revolve around obstructive sleep apnea. So first thing you need in order to win substantial for sleep apnea is you need a diagnosis. Guys, if you don't have a diagnosis of sleep apnea, it really feels like you have no business filing a claim on it. Go get a diagnosis

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if you're eligible for full free VA medical care.

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A lot of the facilities will give you a at home test

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that you could use

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to vote vice. You bring it home, you put it on while you sleep and they interpret the results. The VA will accept that at home sleep study

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as long as the results are interpreted by a medical professional like a medical doctor.

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And just to clarify, yes, your diagnosis does have to be confirmed by a sleep study.

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If you've had a doctor for some reason, say I

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think you have sleep apnea, but you've never had to sleep study

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and you don't have VA health care, that's okay.

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could force the VA

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to give you a sleep study as long as you want to have something showing. A doctor thinks you have sleep apnea. And two, there is some sort of indication that it's related to your service.

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So there's a very powerful law called the VA's duty to assist. So if you have something indicating you have a diagnosis, sleep apnea and or some indications related to your service, but you just have had confirmed by sleep study, the VA should provide your sleep study in those circumstances.

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So establishing a diagnosis is probably the easiest part of winning your sleep apnea, a claim that's probably not here to learn to establish a diagnosis, you're probably here to learn. How do we how do I connect the sleep apnea to my service?

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there's a big misconception out there that if the VA diagnosis your sleep apnea, the VA is also admitting that sleep

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apnea is related to service. That's not true.

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The health side of

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things on the VA don't talk very well to the benefits side of things. So just because you have a VA diagnosis does not mean truly a service, you're going to have to prove it's related service.

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I'm going to tell you a few ways how to do that.

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There's two different

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major ways that I have found the most success in the last 13 years. Working as a VA credit attorney.

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first major way is called direct service connection. So this

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means that your sleep apnea either was diagnosed in service or began in service.

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Now you're going to hear these Internet companies, these quote unquote, insiders tell, you know, don't go that route. Don't go to direct service connection route. That's bullshit. Don't listen to them. It just shows how inexperienced and unmanageable those companies are and their zeal for a money grab.

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I've had a lot of success winning sleep apnea claims with direct service connection.

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So if you're diagnosed with sleep at me on active duty, I mean, you're golden. You're probably not watching this video. If you if you were diagnosed during active duty and your claim was denied, you know, give me a call. I'm happy to help you out there.

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But the other way is to establish that you had sleep apnea type symptoms while on active duty.

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Now you're probably thinking, oh, I'm going to do that. And I didn't call the doctor or sick call Doc, what you need to do.

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We tracked down some buddies you served with, and this is anybody. These are the guys who slept next to you. If you had someone say had damaged snore like a bear last night. That's the guy you need to call.

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So what you're going to do, you contact those guys and you're going to get statements from them or work with them on writing a statement for you.

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So these statements, they should just say, Oh, yeah, Joe had sleep apnea in service. They're not competent to diagnose whether or not you had sleep apnea in service. What they should be testifying to is what symptoms you had and they observed in you while on active duty.

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So, for instance, you snore very loudly.

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You stop breathing in your sleep. They're worried your dad, because you had such long pauses between breaths. Those are the type of

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symptoms they need right in their statement.

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So loud snoring in itself. Yeah, it's a major sleep apnea symptom, but you really need also them to say they either had long pauses in the breath or you woke up gasping for air.

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Snoring in itself isn't enough to establish service connection.

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so I'm going to share statement with you on the screen here.

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This just works as an example so you can help your buddy write their own statement.

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My name is Beau Ranger. I served alongside Joe Snuffy in the U.S. Army from 2000 to 2010. We were both deployed to Iraq in 2004 and we both slept in military style barracks.

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It's a born guys to establish that this person is familiar with your sleeping habits

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while on active duty.

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Joe's rack was right next to mine. Joe snored incredibly loud.

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Every time he fell asleep. It sounded like a freight train was coming through the barracks.

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I knew if I didn't fall asleep before him, I wasn't going to fall asleep that night. Joe would stop breathing in his sleep as well. You'd be listening to him snore and all sudden it would stop. He wouldn't be breathing. And sometimes we worried he was dead and he would gasp for breath and start snoring again.

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this statement establishes a no new veteran active duty. They were familiar with their sleeping habits and they witnessed sleep apnea type symptoms while I was on active duty.

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Your buddy should also write that he declares under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct and have them sign it.

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Get as many of these statements as you can think, at least two would be helpful.

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Next, you're going to write in yourself again, you're not saying that sleep apnea on active duty.

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you're going to discuss your

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sleep apnea symptoms and the statement.

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the symptoms you should focus on

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in your statement are

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whether you woke up gasping for air in the night,

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whether you woke up with a dry mouth,

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woke up with morning headaches, experienced daytime sleepiness and

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appearance, irritability, all of these are signs and symptoms of sleep apnea.

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This is going to help the VA examine to establish that, yes, you began experiencing sleep apnea while on active duty.

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So you're going to submit these statements along with your claim if you've never filed suit back in a claim before, you're going to use VA form 21. That's 5 to 6. Easy.

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If you have filed sleep apnea before, you want to file supplemental claim that's using VA form 20 dash 0995 include the statements with either these claims.

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So the point here is

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want to get these statements in front of the examiner so he could review them and say, yes, absolutely, that was sleep apnea. You have sleep apnea. Now, these statements establish that you your sleep apnea, OBGYN service.

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Now, guys, this is not a magic bullet. Even with the statements, you're still going to get some of these knucklehead VA examiners saying you don't have sleep apnea.

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It's okay. There's a couple of things you could do.

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One, get a copy of that exam and review it. If there's any factual inaccuracies in there, that's a bad example. If exist, the Examiner also must review those statements you submitted. If he did not mention reviewing them, he does not discuss those statements. He does not discuss symptoms that your body says to in those statements.

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That is a bad exam and the VA should not be relying on that exam. So what you need to do is you need to file an appeal, preferably probably a higher level review at this point, arguing the exam is bad because they did not consider the statements.

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a higher level reviewer of always is going to agree with you and set you up with a new exam with a requirement that that examiner review those statements

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if you're still denied.

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Well, it happened, but don't give up. You still have options. You can provide your own opinion.

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now, if you don't have a doctor's willing to write detailed medical opinion for you, I think that's the time when you should reach out to a accredited V.A. attorney or agent.

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They can help you obtain what's called independent medical evaluation linking your sleep apnea to service.

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Please make sure whoever you use is accredited by the VA. There's so many companies out there that are taking advantage of veterans and paying ridiculous amounts of fees For them to do a shit job.

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If you want to find a

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VA accredited agent or attorney, go to this

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website

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w w V.A. forward slash og c for slash ap s for slash accreditation. You

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okay. So that's direct service connection. That is the best way to link your sleep apnea directly to service is through the use of these buddy statements. Next I'm going to discuss how you link

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sleep apnea to already service connected clinician

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I know many of you try to link sleep apnea to PTSD and I understand why.

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There have been studies that come out saying that there's a high rate of veterans of both PTSD and sleep apnea. However, correlation does not equal causation. So

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the science is still a little weak and how PTSD and sleep apnea are related.

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Yes, you could find medical professionals who are willing to link the two directly. But there's also another way, which I think makes for a stronger case. And let me walk you through that process.

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So if you're suffering from PTSD, I get it. I suffer PTSD myself and you go through those low points and you're depressed and you don't feel like exercising and you're laying on the couch and you're watching TV and all you want to do the fast food.

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Next thing you know, you've gained £25 and you're having sleep apnea problems.

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So these these poor lifestyle choices can lead to obesity or being overweight and being overweight or obese is one of the major risk factors for sleep apnea.

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So my suggestion is, instead of asking the VA to directly linked the sleep apnea to PTSD is use this.

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You see obesity and being overweight and what they call an intermediary step. So you want the VA to say yes, is PTSD contributed to his poor lifestyle choices, which led to being overweight, which then led to him developing sleep apnea. The Court of Appeals of Veterans claims has stated that this is a valid way to establish service connection.

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If you want to read the case about that, it's called Garner v Tran. You could Google it, but this is a valid way to link your sleep apnea to your PTSD.

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So this time it's going to be your own statement that you submit.

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So get a hold of VA form 2141 38. This is just a blank form. You can write a statement on and discuss your PTSD and your depression and how it affects your ability to get up and exercise and how you eat junk food to make yourself feel better

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you self-medicate with alcohol. And that led to me being overweight and obese.

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You want to discuss what your lifestyle choices were before you got PTSD? So preferably you weren't overweight, you ate better, you exercised. And it wasn't until you got PTSD that these poor lifestyle choices began happening. If you had these lifestyle choices before PTSD, this is not going to work for you. So you need to establish

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healthy fit. Before PTSD.

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I would mentioned weight and weight loss before and after

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and try to pin down the date you began experiencing sleep apnea.

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Preferably that was after you got the diagnosis of PTSD or began experiencing PTSD.

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This should be enough to get again, get you VA compensation pension exam. And again, guys, this isn't a magic bullet. I'm not saying this is a guarantee.

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The VA examiners regard goofy decisions, but this is a valid way to service. Connect your sleep. That means PTSD. Again, if you get a bad exam, please don't give up. Get a copy of that exam. Review it. Is it accurate? Did the examiner review your statement? What's the base's opinion on if there's a way you could argue the exams that do it?

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if you're denied again, look into getting your VA agent or VA credit attorney researcher. Make sure they know what they're doing. Yes, there are fees involved, but they are limited of what they could charge.

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Unlike these unaccredited Internet companies that are charging 80% of your back pay. Please love that. Not go to those companies.

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I know the VA is frustrating, but guys, you could do this. You could win these cases. Yeah, you may have to appeal a few times. You may have to wait a couple of years. But with this knowledge, I really feel you can win your VA disputed claim if you have more questions, put them in the comments below.

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Visit my website that law officer. Com. I'm always happy to answer questions for you guys. I'm not going to send you a bill or anything ridiculous like that. I hope this was helpful and I'll see you next time