Transcription
Back pain can lead to an 80% VA rating, valued at one thousand nine hundred thirty-three dollars per month, tax-free. I'm going to show you exactly how to do that, fellow vets. Coach J. I value your time, so I'm going to try to get this to you as quickly as possible.
The main message I want to convey today, your main takeaway, is that the body is more than just a single body part; everything is connected. When we are talking about the back today—we're talking about back pain—the back involves so many things. You got your spine; you have muscles all along your posterior chain. Everything affects everything else. So when we make a VA claim, it is important to be holistic and guilt-free, being honest with yourself that, "Hey, my back pain affected my legs; my back pain affected my neck; my back pain affected my headaches." You're not trying to squeeze too much out of the VA.
Here's an example: If you rented a vehicle, let's say you rent from a car agency, you start redlining this car, and you shoot a rod through the engine bay. Are you going to pay for just that rod that broke off, or that one piece? Are you going to pay for the entire engine bay, which was destroyed as well? You're going to pay for everything because, guess what? It was your property for that time; because you were in legal custody of that item, it was on your watch; you are liable. Guess what? We are US veterans. When we are enlisted, when we're during our service, we are property of the state; we are in the legal custody of the government. When they redline us, they are liable not only for the back but everything that it affected as well.
Let's head to the board now that we got that out of the way. That is extremely important to know; be honest with ourselves. Here's what we have: We have a back pain rating. This is all about the CMP exam. We, of course, are going to have a bulletproof personal statement for the back, but during the CMP exam, always stop when you feel pain and go further. Your fingertips should not cross your kneecaps if you're feeling pain already. If you have back pain, I guarantee you, like I can already feel it right there—it looks crazy. Stop when you feel pain; do not let the CMP examiner push you past that point. That is a 15-less flexion of the spine, which gives us a 40 percent rating for the back. That's number one. That's where most people stop.
However, we are going to volunteer the information during your CMP exam that, "Hey, I have numbness, numbness and tingling down one or both legs." Almost anyone with back pain—you know how this is, fellow vets—when you're doing elliptical or you're trying to work out, hey, a foot will fall asleep, or you'll get shooting pain down one side. This is called bilateral radiculopathy. Now what we have here is a column that is on the bilateral side. The reason that I separated this is because it's separate math; you don't have to get into the weeds for this, but there's a little bit of a multiplier when things are bilateral. So boom, bilateral radiculopathy: we have a 20 left and a 20 right. And again, we volunteer that information to the examiner; we do not wait for them to ask. 20 plus 20. But hang on, your back again—if you have back pain, you know how this is—it goes all the way up to your traps; it goes to your shoulders; it goes to your neck. We have neck pain as a result of our back pain. This is legitimate, and a neck rating should almost always be at least a 20 rating. This has to do with range of motion, physical CMP. A 20 neck rating is pretty average for what I see. Again, if you have neck pain and you ever have the shooting pain or tingling down your pinkies, down your arms, that is bilateral radiculopathy, and yes, you can double-dip for the cervical. This was lumbar, right? So we had the back pain and the bilateral radiculopathy for 20 plus 20. Now we have a neck pain and bilateral radiculopathy for 20 plus 20 for the arms: so 20 left plus twenty percent right, and the lower radiculopathy 20 left plus 20 percent right comes out to 54. 54, after VA math, using the multiplier. Now we have a 40 rating for back, a 20 rating for neck, and this is all just our back pain, aggressive, being honest with ourselves that one thing leads to another. We have the tingling; we have the numbness, both limbs on both—the upper and lower—and that gives us a 79 percent rating; round it up to 80. That, of course, is 1900 33 dollars per month, tax-free.
That is how you get aggressive in terms of being honest: "Hey, my body's a chain; one thing led to another; my neck hurts; let me be honest with that and actually go to the doctor and actually get a diagnosis about it." And let's be honest with ourselves: "Hey, I do experience numbness and tingling down all limbs at times." Now we can be aggressive with our claim. Why stop there? If your back and your neck are painful, of course you can get a diagnosis for something called SSD, somatic symptom disorder. Let me make some room for us here. Those of you who watch videos in the past know somatic symptom disorder is a mental claim, essentially saying that, "Hey, my chronic pain is causing me mental woes," because, of course, it is. You can't just be in chronic pain and be completely normal mentally, right? You have SSD now; we have that secondary to the back or secondary to the neck, and the average SSD claim I see is a 70 rating. That takes us to what? 94 percent. That means we are one real percentage point off from that 100 threshold. Neck pain, back pain, a lot of spine issues going on. If you have headaches from that, that's completely understandable, or headaches from the medications that you're taking. A lot of people have headaches. Headaches are a high-value claim, and that should at least get you to 30, but here at VA claims Academy, we average 50 for headaches. But if you get to a 30 at least, you know—again, all using statements for each and every one of these claims—that puts you to 100.
Not only that, but this is a good foundation for permanent and total because, again, we have things based off of the back here, and then we're branching out. Back pain rarely gets better with age, right? So the VA looks at this: Okay, we have some somatic symptom disorder; their mental claim is tied to their back; everything here is tied to their back; their headache is tied to their back; the back really doesn't get better with age. We have a hundred percent; you're most likely going to get a permanent and total, and that is how you attack once and never have to speak to the VA again. Again, you have to be honest with yourself and honest with the VA, but you also have to be aggressive in translating your true story into what the VA needs to hear. I may have gone over my time a little bit, but vets have really wanted to deliver this value to you, so if you found it useful, please hit that like button; it allows me to continue delivering value straight to your household. Sound off in the comments below with your story or any questions you have, and until then, I'll see you on the next one.