Insights Into How Our Legal System Works

Are You A Veteran? Know About 3 Disabilities You Could Need Legal Help With

6 July 2016 by Yolanda Lane

As a veteran that suffers with a disability, receiving disability benefits is something you are most likely looking into. Unfortunately, even after contacting your VA and filing a claim, you could be denied benefits and not be sure why. Now that you have the denial letter, the next step should be hiring a lawyer that can help you appeal the claim denial and figure out if you are entitled to compensation for these three situations.

Aggravating Issues

It's possible that you once had a medical issue that was minor, but after enlistment the issue was made much worse. In this situation, you are entitled to file a disability claim, but compensation is only based on how much more the issue is aggravating you. For instance, an injured knee could have been considered 10% disabled prior to enlisting, but now considered 20% disabled due to the time you served. You would only be able to receive benefits for that additional 10% disability that you sustained.

Disabilities From In-Service Duty

You can receive compensation for any injury or disease that you incurred during your time serving for your country. It is common for these issues to be reported in your final medical exam, and compensation would be received after being discharged. It's possible that your exit examination did not find a problem, or the full extent of your problem is not documented properly. Work with a lawyer to correct these problems so that you can receive the proper compensation that you deserve.

Post-Service Issues

There are sometimes conditions or diseases that were not present during your exit examination, but do not appear until after you were discharged.. This includes PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), complications due to being exposed to chemicals while serving, or an illness that developed over time.

The challenge with this type of injury will be proving that it was directly related to your time that you were serving. In-service medical records will need to be examined, as well as medical records from after being discharged. The goal will be to show a correlation between the post-service issue you are suffering from and it stemming from your time serving.

In all of these situations, your lawyer is the intermediary to handle all of these problems for you. It is the best way to ensure that you receive the compensation that you are rightfully owed for injuries that you sustained. Visit a website such as http://www.johnehornattorney.com for more information.

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