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So, the VA has scheduled you for a VA exam. What should you do to prepare? The first thing we do with our clients is we actually look at the instructions that VA sends to the examiner. This shows us the reason for the exam, whether it’s to confirm a diagnosis, determine the whether service connection is warranted, or maybe just check out the current severity of the condition. We have real time access to this information, but the veteran doesn’t. You’ll have to request this information directly from VA prior
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to your exam. Now, the next thing we do is we pull the disability benefits questionnaire for which that exam is is required. These DBQs are used not only to assess the current severity of the disability, but also to diagnose, to confirm stressors, etc. Finally, when you go to the exam, you want to explain to the examiner your symptoms on their very worst day. And I would also encourage you in prepping for the exam, if you can have somebody attend the exam with you, a family member, a friend, a co-orker, a colleague, etc. who has
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witnessed or experienced your symptoms. That is also very very powerful evidence not only to accurately assess the disability, but to convey to the examiner the extent to which this is this disability is impacting your life on a daily basis. Now, I often tell my clients that during an exam, don’t get bullied into just answering yes or no. If an examiner asks you that uh whether you have sleep impairment, tell them yes and then explain how that impairment impacts you dayto day. Are you irritable
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the next day? Do you have problems focusing or concentrating because of your lack of sleep? Um do you fall asleep during work? Are you angry? uh do you have to go home and take naps because you’re so tired because you can’t get a full night’s rest or you have disrupted sleep? Explaining these full breadth of symptoms, um, providing that anecdote will help explain to that examiner and show that examiner the true picture of your disability whenever they’re filling out those DBQs.
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