J Basser: 0:00

Welcome folks to another episode of the Exposed Vet Productions special show. We have my co-host here, mr Ray Cobb. How are you doing, ray?

Ray Cobb: 0:08

Great, how are you?

J Basser: 0:08

this evening I'm doing wonderful. It's been a beautiful day, a little bit of rain here, but it's been pretty mostly today. My name is John Stacy. They call me Jay Basher. I'm basically an advocate for veterans. I do a lot of shows based on VA issues. We discuss everything from the claims process to VA issues to problems within the VA, navigating the VA health care system.

J Basser: 0:36

Ray is a former commander of the American Legion down in Winchester, tennessee, and he's kind of retired from that area but he always has, you know, he helps veterans. He's been doing it for years and he's got a big following down there in Tennessee. He has his own radio station, matter of fact, on Tuesday mornings at WZYX out of Tennessee and you guys can listen to that if you can. But today we've got an interesting show for you. We'll start off on the first subject matter. It's about the PACT Act. Now we covered the PACT Act last week and a couple of issues with the PACT Act and you know Bethany came on and you know gave her exposure stuff. This came out earlier with Militarycom this week. It's a pretty good-sized story. So I'm going to go ahead and cover this. If you have a PACT Act claim or a PACT Act decision. You guys need to listen to this very closely.

J Basser: 1:30

Okay, the VA Inspector General they're kind of a watchdog group. They check everything VA you know the working to the regional office and things and they kind of see if there's anything wrong, they try to find ways to fix it. And they do things by sampling. They sample different claims and things like this and then they grade what they sampled versus you know the rest of the. You know the rest of the claims process and they come up with ideas. They find issues Like, for example, the sampling of disability claims filed under the 2022 PAC Act found that roughly one quarter listed incorrect start dates. It resulted in improper payouts of about 6.8 million to some veterans and shortchanging an estimated 2,300 others. That's what the watchdog found. Their relief support, I guess.

J Basser: 2:22

Tuesday week ago, the Veterans Affairs Office Inspector General included that the legislation's complexity, along with inadequate guidance from the Veterans Benefit Administration and we'll use that as an acronym, I call it the VBA that claims adjudicators to assign the wrong effective date to an estimated 26,000 claims. Now, 26,000 claims is a lot of claims and a lot of people, you know, and a lot of them got overpaid. I'm sure some got underpaid too. Of course, you know there's nothing to. I don't know how to figure that out and it's a. 2,300 additional claims had erroneous dates and that means that they had I don't know why they had they made a retro date. They should have made a retro date retroactive to a date before the law was signed, increasing compensation for veterans, but the agency said they could not determine their monetary impact on the affected veterans. So if you packed that claim say you filed a, packed that claim before the act started and you got denied, but you turn and redid it because of the PACT Act, then they have to go back and pay you. That's just. You know, that's just law.

J Basser: 3:44

It was signed in August 10, 2022 and expanded health care and benefits to millions of veterans exposed to environmental pollutants while serving overseas in specified combat zones across decades, including the Middle East and Afghanistan. Accordingly, it has received 2.44 million PACTAC-related claims since the law went into effect. It has adjudicated 2.14 million claims and approved 1.59 million as of May 2024, and has awarded $5.7 billion in related benefits to veterans or survivors. According to that, $5.7 billion is a lot of money. The OIG investigated or estimated that the VA will have made an estimated $20.4 million in improper payments in the first three years of the law, representing about 2.36% of the payouts representing about 0.36% of the payouts. Veterans who develop an illness related to the hazardous exposure, or their survivors, are able to file a claim at any time. However, in the first year following passage, beneficiaries could submit a claim or intent to file to receive any approved benefits backdated to August 10th 2022.

J Basser: 4:45

Some vets have been diagnosed with the conditions covered by the PAC Act prior to its passage, were eligible for retroactive benefits back to their date of diagnosis. So, for example, you had a lung issue and you were diagnosed in, say, 2010,. And you got denied and I mean you got approved under the PAC Act. You would go back to 2010 and get your percentage whatever, but it's the way it should be. You know the date of diagnosis is very important, especially when you go to effective dates.

J Basser: 5:18

So the complexity of determining the correct start date led to the review of the claims for accuracy and to figure out whether the VA was assigning effective dates correctly. The watchdog examined a statistical sampling of 100 claims filed last first year and based on that, they estimate the VBA assigned incorrect effective dates to 26,100 of 131,000 claims and found Locaine 2300 should have been assigned a different date and it should have been assigned a different date and it should have been sent back when they got their diagnosis. So that's just the sampling. Okay, if that sampling is involved, you're looking at a lot higher numbers. Now they found the mistakes were made because claims processors are not adequately prepared to determine correct effective dates. They added that automated tools created to provide prepared to determine the correct effective dates. They added that automated tools created to provide assistance to determine were unreliable. So I guess they had automatic computer systems and tools and it wasn't set up right.

J Basser: 6:13

So it turned around and kicked out a bunch of wrong dates and I guess they put too much faith on it. First of all, if you're going to set a computer system up, they're paying a lot of money for this to be done. It's a waste. I mean, you've got some young folks out here that are geniuses. It's proven every day. You know, in DC You've got some geniuses working right now and they'll be able to go in there and fix their computer systems and they'll have a group working for all the government and they can build a system to fix sure everything works right. They can do that in a matter of days or a matter of hours, these people know what they're doing. That's how smart they are. But too much red tape.

J Basser: 6:56

It noted that claims processors had made the BBA aware of the complexities and administration had taken steps to include updated training to conduct reviews and ensure accuracy. Okay, so they reviewed it and were checking for accuracy. Okay, rinkenmeier, who's the OIG, and his investigators made several recommendations for the VBA to implement and include the the VA to create an effective tool to help processors determine the right date and remove ineffective date builders from the system. Continue updating the system to ensure it follows claims-oriented laws and evaluate PACT Act training and correct all processing errors found by the IG. Michael Ferreth he's the VA's acting undersecretary for benefits concurred with the recommendations in the written statement, said VIXXIS has already been made that weren't covered by the report. He said the VA would implement all recommendations by July 31st of this year and for the 24 statistical sampling claims that were erroneous. We'll complete the reviews April 30th, so they should be done next week.

J Basser: 8:10

Since the start of the second Trump administration, lawmakers have expressed concerns about the scope of the PAC Act and the impact of proposed reductions in force the VA would have on VA health care and benefits. Some Republican lawmakers say an increased scrutiny of the GOP-led White House economy could help hone the legislation they describe as being rushed through the legislative process. Some of this legislation has been rushed through, you know, I mean. They're like let's do this real quick. You know, and I got I mean I say it the more you rush, the more mistakes are going to be made.

J Basser: 8:40

You know they need to be. You know it needs to be analyzed. Everything needs to be thought, you know, thought out. You know they need to be. You know it needs to be analyzed. Everything needs to be thought, you know, thought out. And it needs to be brainstormed. It needs to be implemented and it needs to be quality assurance controlled and it needs to be. When it implements, it should be okay. You know. Let's say, we're building cars and they let the brake system off of it. You think you're going to have a recall.

Ray Cobb: 9:00

Well, you know, john, we both have worked in government before, we both understand how government works and you know there's not going to be anybody out there if your supervisor makes a statement that we're going to do this and this is going to work, and blah, blah, blah. And you know, for whatever reason it's not going to work. You know, for job security, they're going to keep their mouth shut. And then I will tell somebody that, oh well, this isn't going to work and convince them it's not and this is going to hurt the veteran and, from what I know, I have not heard of any VA employee at any level to take up for the veterans. They'll say it oh, I'm for the veterans. They'll turn around and do something that actually hurts veterans instead of helping the process. I mean, that's why we're sitting here right now looking at these PAC Act claims, and we're sitting here with a large number. I think the last one I heard just last week was 96%. Claims are now being denied the first time through. That's up 2% from what it was prior to Trump taking office. Now, what they're going to try to do because of the pressures on them, which we'll probably get into later, because you can't get into this without getting into it.

Ray Cobb: 10:34

The next thing you're going to see happen is going to be like a shredder gate, except this one's going to be denial gate and what it is. They'll look at it and they say, gee whiz, this has been on my desk six months, eight months, 18 months. Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to deny it. I got a call today. I got a call today at noon from a local veteran who had gotten a denial letter and that says why did they deny you? It doesn't say it, just says it's denied, and I've got a feeling that's what's coming down. Say it just says it's denied, and I've got a feeling that's what's coming down. The pipe now is going to get worse in the next few weeks or months. They're denying it and they're not even taking the time to write the reasoning for the denial which, if I understand and correct me, if I understand the law, they're allowed to deny it, but they've got to tell you why they denied it.

J Basser: 11:28

What was there that made them deny it? That's duty to assist. There they have to. They've got to explain it to you. That's in the law.

Ray Cobb: 11:34

So if he's got that, then they're supposed to have to, but they didn't. He didn't have any reason.

Ray Cobb: 11:40

Now he had already had an action yeah down, he had already had a match. Yeah, he does. And he said to them and he agreed, he said they didn't even tell you why. He said, well, I have to run this one down. So he ran it down and, sure enough, when the doctor the VA doctor turned it in, there was evidently two places that she was supposed to check boxes and then sign it and she didn't check the boxes. But that was something that his attorney found, or his agent found, not something that the VA told him why they turned him down. They just turned him down.

J Basser: 12:20

That's a skill of error. Yeah, it is.

Ray Cobb: 12:27

No doubt. But what's happening? We're going to see more and more of that, because what they want to say oh man, we've reduced. You know, we don't have 145,000 claims backed up now. We've got that down to 115. We're doing pretty good and they pat themselves on the back. But the only reason they got it down is because they denied all of them. They didn't take the time to really research it.

Ray Cobb: 12:48

nor did they take the time to explain their reasoning for the denial. You know as well as you know you saw my last denial when I had Alex in Bonk. You know he just got on the phone with the regional office and got it corrected right then and I didn't have to appeal it to the board.

Ray Cobb: 13:06

But that's because he knew what he was doing and the fact that they had made the mistake, and he was able to point out to a higher-level manager where the mistake was made and why and looked at my medical records and agreed. But when they first denied it, they never even sent back the reason for the denial. And of course, now that was that was a year ago, this past March. So I can anticipate what's going to be coming down the road the next year, year and a half, if the pressure is to get rid of the backlog. Yeah, they're getting rid of the backlog, but they're not being fair to the veteran.

J Basser: 13:49

Well, if they're doing that rate and that increment, if the regional office is doing that and they're getting rid of the backlog in that manner, the only thing they're doing they're not getting rid of nothing. The only thing they're doing is transferring that backlog onto the BVA and it feels processed.

Ray Cobb: 14:03

And what's the BVA doing more and more of? If I understand you know, alex, last time I talked with him what I understood is the BVA is actually sending it back to the region, saying you made some mistakes here.

Ray Cobb: 14:17

Here's what they are Get it correct and then they get the correct part of them, if not all of them, and then send it back to the veteran with another denial. That happened to me and that's why I sent it right back up to the board and that time Alex got it. You know it got approved but you know they denied it twice, even after the judge told them to correct it that I was deserving of level two in aid and attendance.

J Basser: 14:49

Well, it goes to show you that you know it's all political to certain issues. You know when you're playing with the house, money right.

Ray Cobb: 14:58

Well and they're trying to cover their own jobs. You know here locally. I was surprised I'm surprised with what I heard yesterday. There's a lady here that works out at the base and who works very closely with Tennessee Wildlife Resources and some of the other organizations concerning the wildlife and things on the base and around the base area and she's scared to death. She's about to lose her job. Well, from a person that knows what she does and everything pretty closely, said that basically very seldom does she really need to work more than four hours a day. Knows what she does and everything pretty closely, said that basically very seldom does she really need to work more than four hours a day. But she's there in the office for eight hours a day. How much work she does I don't know, but she's sitting there on a salary of $85,000 a year plus benefits, for what this game warden said is a part-time job. He said he wished he could get that money and work half of his shift. Kind of interesting.

Ray Cobb: 16:12

What's going on with all the new changes and what's happening in the government that affects veterans? The reason that was brought up to me was because of the 100 veterans in state of tennessee have a special hunting and fishing license that are free. And then they also they're what he was talking to me about they have a new program that they're going to have in effect. Well, I guess it started this this turkey season, where they actually have gotten these blinds type things for handicapped like myself with a wheelchair, that you roll up in the back of this little cart and the guy was telling me what all had a little heater in it and whatever, and you can deer hunt or turkey hunt out of it. And they've gotten I think he told me seven of those across the state, and he was asking me how we got on the subject, if I like to deer hunt or turkey hunt, which I never did deer hunt and I don't know if I'd like turkey hunting or not. I never did that either.

J Basser: 17:17

You would.

Ray Cobb: 17:19

You would. I used to do a little dove and quail and rabbits and squirrels, but a small game, but I never got into the. I guess you could kind of call it the troking game.

J Basser: 17:33

It's okay as long as you you know.

Ray Cobb: 17:35

That's what he approached me about. Then he asked me does you know anybody else that would? So you know, that's how this topic about this lady getting paid this outrageous amount of money and if that's happening now, that's just one incident and I'm sure that's not the only one. You're probably more familiar with a gentleman I know of at Murfreesboro. It was eight months ago at the hospital. He's standing there in the middle of the floor just talking to another guy. His supervisor comes by, says did you get that bathroom clean? He said no, not yet. I'll do it a little later. And he said I want that bathroom clean. He said what are you going to do? Fire me? You can't fire me.

Ray Cobb: 18:22

Well, to come to find out what happened he had been a little rude or whatever to several cocked, an attitude to several veterans that had a certain level of disability higher than his and caused him some delays and delays and seeing doctors and stuff. They caught him. Now you and I would say fire him, but because of the union and what his job was, they couldn't. So what did they do? They tried to make him quit. They demoted him to a custodian, but he still got the same job as he was doing when he was booking appointments and things, which is a much higher paying job than what the average custodian gets.

Ray Cobb: 19:03

So that's some of the stuff that I'm hoping gets straightened out in the VA. And then you know, look at these claims that are being denied, denied, denied and then not sending them a reason for the denial and the reason they don't is they want to get it off their desk within a certain amount of time so that they get an attaboy. That's true. Let me put it this way Our county service officer is probably one of the better ones that you'll find in the whole country but, with that being said, they make a lot of mistakes. But he has gotten to the point where the American Legion has required him to give a monthly report on how many veterans came through his office. Now, the only thing that he says he's not allowed to do is tell how many one claims and I don't know if that's true or not. You might have an idea of that but he said he doesn't have the authority to release that information. But he was able to tell us that there was 3,065 veterans in Franklin County.

J Basser: 20:22

I don't see why it's seeking knowledge. You know it's just numbers game. That's all you know.

Ray Cobb: 20:25

Right. I think he just doesn't want people to know how many are denied or how many are, how few are being approved. He tries to make it sound like they're overworked, you know.

J Basser: 20:41

Overworked. Yeah, they work hard.

Ray Cobb: 20:44

They work. They have in this particular case I know for a fact they have. They work three days a week. Out of those three days a week, which is 12 days a month, one of those days has to be taken up for training, and so that's 11 days a month and he only is required to see three veterans a day. Now that's not process of claim. That's just to see. That is a requirement that's put on him from the state and he's averaging 4.5. So it makes him look like a natta boy doing real good because he's above the average and above what they want him to do. But how many of those claims are properly prepared? And then how many are approved? Well, we know how many are approved, because you can say, on average, 96%.

J Basser: 21:44

Denied, you mean.

Ray Cobb: 21:46

Yeah, the rest of them are denied. 96% are denied. They come through the system and they're denied. If you take that same thing, that's saying only 4%. I can get out my calculator and do the math, but you know you got 11 days at four people a day. That's 44 people a month. Now if he sees 40, let's just round it up and say 50 a month and only 4% of those 50 are approved. That means out of that 50 veterans, only two of them are approved.

Ray Cobb: 22:17

He works three days a week. He works three days a week. That's what the county pays him to work. Three days a week he works three days a week. That's what the county pays him to work. They won't extend it to him. Most of our county service officers' offices are only open three days a week in the state of Tennessee. However, in saying that, if they are one of the service officers service offices in Nashville, at the VA hospital or Murfreesboro no, murfreesboro has gone to three days a week. Nashville, I think, is the only hospital now that has somebody in there once a day and what that means is the guy may be there, one guy may be there two days a week, another one another day a week, and then they work in the state office downtown helping with claims down there.

Ray Cobb: 23:02

They're not in that one office, so you know they kind of spread them out there, which I would imagine if they really wanted to, that door would stay open. It would stay very busy at VA Vanderbilt with somebody in the office every day. But my understanding is that the doctors there are even told unless the veteran asks where to go see someone. They're not even allowed to tell them. Oh, you know, you might want to go down on the first floor and go behind the operator's desk and those three doors there are. Veterans knock on the door and see if anybody's there. They don't even leave their door open. They shut the door. You got to knock on it. If somebody opens it, fine, he can sit in there and not open it if he doesn't want to.

J Basser: 24:00

Let's touch on another issue. We to the past. That's pretty good. I want to retouch it for an issue we discussed a little bit last week. But um, gas bottle claim.

J Basser: 24:14

The adjudicators claim they look at what they need. They, those guys, got to need a cmp exam so they sent this request out to one of their subsidiaries or one of their companies to request an exam for this vet. The company contacts the vet and sets up the exam. The vet goes through the exam, does what they asked him to do and takes his exam and goes on back home. The examiner puts it together and coordinates it and puts a stamp on it and puts it in the computer and and sends it to the VA, back to the VA. The VA looks at it, results, looks at it and they make a determination as to. You know what's what and it depends on the type of claim it is. But anyhow, the VA uses a system called benefit of the doubt and basically what that means is it's all percentage based. So if the examiner looks at you and the DBQ says is this person's issue at least as likely is not related to this issue that happened in service, and then explain why with your rationale, you know. That means that at least as likely as not. If they check that box, then that means that examiner is 51% sure that that veteran's issue happened during service or related to it in service or whatever. Okay, 50% is what you need. That is the cutoff. If you're less than 50%, it's a denial. If you're over that, it should be approved.

J Basser: 25:50

Now let's call the benefit of the doubt. The benefit of the doubt is the weight of the evidence. According to a clinic, you know how much clout the evidence has. You've got this doctor here saying yes. You've got one doctor saying I don't know, maybe. You've got another doctor saying no. How does it work? You've got to add them up. You've got a maybe and a yes versus a no. That should trump a no, right? You got a maybe and a yes versus a no. That should trump a no right.

J Basser: 26:26

Well, sure, yeah, if they write on your letterhead that your condition was due to an event that happened in service, you can actually take it to the bank that they're 100% certain that's what happened. Uh, that's 100. Now there's a 75 one too. More likely than not. I mean, they're 75, sure. Then you got your leashes, like you're not. Then you got less likely as not, that's 25, and the bottom ones did not happen to occur. That's 25%. And the bottom one is did not happen to occur. That's pretty much true, you know. You know.

J Basser: 27:07

So, as long as you get anything above and get the benefit of the doubt, tie goes to the runner, or that. It's in your favor. Remember that and it's not to be confused. I think the benefit of the doubt and they say the word benefit of the doubt, they're thinking it's a benefit and they doubt you're going to get it. But you know it just depends, because there's several different caveats in the Title 38, part 3 and Part 4.

J Basser: 27:37

And you've got attitude of surrounding officers. You've got all kinds of adjudicative tools. You've got got to add to this writing officers. You got just all kinds of adjudicated tools. You got exploration to the rules, laws and regulations has been through the depth. One of them effective dates. You know when your claim starts Just everything in the world. You know. You got this and I down and read this one. These days It'll be a lot easier on you if you're doing claims, but the benefit of the doubt is an important thing. If you get a positive there, you're probably going to win your claim Well, you know, Other than that, you know, we have to realize that, yeah, go ahead Ray.

Ray Cobb: 28:19

You got to look at it from the way I look at it, from standpoint. Va doctors are not allowed to make those statements. They're not supposed to. I asked one to make it. It's as likely as not that my agent diabetes was caused by my agent Orange. He said we have been told we cannot make those type of statements in your room. Yeah, so they're putting pressure on the VBA.

Ray Cobb: 28:52

Well, I recommend to everybody, knowing that you know, you just try to get the diagnosis from them. But what you do with the others? You can go to your own doctor, a specialist of that type, and the way I have done it in the past is I print off my medical report with the diagnosis and I walk into another doctor, another specialist, and I said here's what Dr So-and-so at the VA said I have, do you concur with that? And he says, well, yeah, let me see. Well, in one case he concurred with it and when I was talking with him I said something was said and he said yeah, he said it's as likely as not that this took place while serving at Fort McKellips, alabama, and I had that documentation. So he put in a letter and I turned that letter in. However, I went to another doctor. He said well, I don't know, I wasn't at Fort McKellip, alabama. I can't say that that's where you got exposed to Agent Orange or not. He said no, I can't put that in there. I said well, just write the letter the way you think. Well, he wrote the letter up stating the condition was correct, the diagnosis was correct, stating the condition was correct, the diagnosis was correct. But he refused or did not put in there. It's just likely it's not that it happened while serving on active duty.

Ray Cobb: 30:35

What I did, as a matter of fact, james Cripps told me, if I ever got one like that, what to do. I walked out, wadded it up, threw it in the nearest trash can and realized I wasted $105 on that doctor's visit. Well learned, okay, and for whatever reason, when you find a doctor that will help you get your benefits and be honest about it, when you tell them the story and who will take the opportunity to believe your story, then that's the one you need to tell other veterans about, so they can go and you know. There wasn't anything wrong with what my podiatrist said about my feet and he concurred, matter of fact, he concurred with the VA and he thought I think a little more expensive foot brace would be more beneficial to him on helping him with balance and named what brace it was. Now I could have gone back to the VA and said, hey, this doctor said this. Yeah, I'd had two doctors kind of say, well, this is the way we treat him and this is the way the VA does it, of saying well, this is the way we treat him and this is the way the VA does it, and I don't even know if the VA furnished that other type of a brace, because I was satisfied with what I have and how it's helped me over the years.

Ray Cobb: 31:52

I mean, I've been wearing them since 2008, 2007, 2008. So I've had them a long time. The same type of braces. This is my second set. They last a pretty good while. But you know, guys, you've got to stay on top of it, like John's talking about. You've got to know what this stuff is and look and see what that effective date is. It's up to you. When you receive your award, you can have a disagreement with the effective date, but you better be able to go back and find the doctor's note that gave you that diagnosis, that first diagnosis.

J Basser: 32:44

That's easy, you can do it. You can do it. You can do it, sure, you can.

Ray Cobb: 32:50

There's a gentleman. You don't have to worry about it. I've talked about it before, right.

J Basser: 32:56

You don't have to worry about it because it's in your file. They need to go back to find it.

Ray Cobb: 33:02

Well, a lot of times I don't, but they expect you to tell them approximately within a few months of when that diagnosis was given. Now I had a gentleman, a friend of us, here in Winchester. He came to our last conference, I think he met him there. He suffers from Parkinson's and for a year his primary care and the VA doctor says well, it looks like Parkinson's, but I'm not ready to diagnose it as of yet.

Ray Cobb: 33:36

So then he goes to an outside source Okay, and the outside doctor says yes, by all means, it's Parkinson's. So then he goes back to the VA doctor and takes the letter from the Vanderbilt doctor and looks at it and then the doctor the VA doctor says yeah, I think I'm going to go ahead and determine that it's Parkinson's. Well, since he did that, then turned it in and he won his case. But I told him, until he has a direct diagnosis from his VA doctor, you know that's not even they're not supposed to, but they lean more to the VA doctor than what they do to the outside doctor. Not supposed to, but they do. If it's a 50-50 chance they're going to go with what the VA says. If you haven't got a good policy from the outside doctor, like I said, I'll throw it in the trash, can? I don't have any use for it. It's not going to benefit me. I know what I have.

J Basser: 34:47

I know what they're treating me for yeah, that's true, you can eat outside docs too. I'm I've won several my claims on outside docs opinion over the va doc because, just face it ray, you get some good va docs. But here we got a this musical revolving chairs. You know you might have. I've had several primary care positions within VA in over a period of 20 years. You know people get mad and quit, or you know they just are overworked, or you know they don't have enough time to spend with the patient. They're too busy in front of the computer pushing keys. You say that.

Ray Cobb: 35:22

You say that that's why I changed my cardiologist after my open heart surgery. You know I was supposed to go every six months back to the VA for a checkup, a wellness check. I was like see how everything was going. Every time I went there I had a different doctor because they were using interns and so they were a doctor that got to really know my case and understand what was going on or why it happened, even or anything.

Ray Cobb: 35:51

So I went back and asked for a cardiologist that was actually with the VA and I've been seeing him now, I guess 10 years.

J Basser: 36:06

That's one of the drawbacks.

J Basser: 36:09

That's one of the drawbacks of working at a hospital is a teaching hospital You're going to have it's like my dental department you're going to have new people every so many months to come in and they rotate out and you know.

J Basser: 36:19

So you get a lot of but I mean you're getting some of the latest and greatest views because you know these guys are up on everything, because you know they're learning in school and they know what's going on. You know, and some of these older docs, you know they're on their way out, so they're kind of like what they learned in college years ago and of course, they got to keep up with the things to get their education credits. But still, I mean it's kind of a catch-22, you know, I mean you can have good luck with the interns or residents or you cannot. So but as long as you've got a permanent doctor that you can see over a period of time, you know that knows you well, you know that's. You know a different issue, because the relationships with your doctor is very important. You know you got to know who they are and things like that, and you know, because they're the ones taking care of you, you don't want to give you something wrong and kill you. You know what I mean.

Ray Cobb: 37:06

Well, yeah, you know, I had a round with an intern on my vision I go in for an eye checkup and he said oh, we need to do laser on your right eye. I said no. I said you've already done laser on my left eye and burned it and I can't see out of it. I'm not going to let you do it to the right eye. I'd be blind. Well, I'll turn you in for refusing treatment.

Ray Cobb: 37:29

I said I'm not really refusing treatment, I'll have it done. If you'll get me in writing, that'll improve my eye, guaranteed. We don't know if it will or not. I said no, all you know is for a fact it's going to say the same or it's going to rush it, correct, right? Yeah, always go to Washington, correct, right? Yeah, I said so. Therefore, I'm refusing that treatment because if it worsens, then I'm going to be blind in both eyes. And do you want to see me coming down the road driving? You know? And the supervisor who comes in, I lay it out for her too. And she said well, when was this? And I had memorized the day, because they had put me to sleep to put the laser, because they had to get so close to the center of the retina to do what they thought was the right thing and burn the retina.

J Basser: 38:20

It was true, but it happens more often you got retinopathy too, though.

Ray Cobb: 38:28

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I have retinopathy in both eyes. The right eye, the vision is not. You know, it could go bad at any time, the retina could rupture at any time. And the purpose of the inconsistency of blood vessels around your retina? They have found that if they burn the ones that are not properly formed or encircled, then that will allow new ones to come and grow and be better. That is now so, eight or 10 years later, have been proven. That's not true. That's not the case, and both Vanderbilt Eye Clinic and the Centennial Eye Clinic no longer does laser, so it's not a treatment to which they do. I don't know if the VA, because I don't go to them for that. I don't know if they're still using it.

J Basser: 39:32

I haven't heard a lot lately. It was big news back in the 80s and 90s. You know laser surgery, laser keratometry, whatever. A couple of folks had it and were pretty good. But if you get right in the eye you know macular issues. I don't think it's a good result, even cataracts.

Ray Cobb: 39:56

And another thing concerning retinopathy with diabetes Okay, if you don't treat it and if it happens, which is a separation of the retina, there's actually surgery that they can do to correct that. Okay, now, if they do laser, like they did on me, and get close to the center and burn the retina, there's nothing that can be done about that. Right the center and burn the retina, there's nothing that can be done about that. So if I'd known that going in, I'd say I'll take my chances and if the retina separates from the back of the eye, then we'll do surgery. If I had to do it over again, that's exactly what I'd do. Well, that's kind what I do, mm-hmm.

J Basser: 40:47

Well, that's kind of you know, hindsight's 20-20, you know, to look back, oh. We have to do over again.

Ray Cobb: 40:54

Well what you and I are doing. We're using our hindsight to help others to know the directions to go, the road back, to follow.

J Basser: 41:04

Well, give them a bat, tell them who to see and what to do. You know we're not going to pay you clean for you, but we'll put you in the right direction. That's all we can do.

Ray Cobb: 41:12

Yeah, and if you lose out on the pill and you want to find somebody that can a good person, honest person that will help represent you. You know you've got the list. You shared that list with me. We can get them in touch everywhere, from the mid-northwest to the far northwest, all the way down to Miami, florida and many places in between.

J Basser: 41:37

And across the USA From sea to shining sea. No, but it's true. So I don't know. I want to reiterate something guys, we talked about hiring people, agents or people to assist you in your claims. I mean you can get a VSO if you want, you know, to help do your initial claim and get it going. If you've got denial in your hand, you can pick up an accredited appeals agent to help with your claim and you get what you pay for. But still, I mean, some of these guys are excellent in what they do and that's their livelihood. That's all they do is VA claim and VA appeals. So you know they're going to fight harder than, say, some other group that doesn't have the experience. That's their livelihood. That's all they do is VA claim and VA appeals. So you know they're going to fight harder than, say, some other group that doesn't have the it's not in their heart.

Ray Cobb: 42:37

You know what I mean, ray, I do. And another thing I don't know if it is in every state, but in the state of Tennessee our county service officers, along with our DAV and I don't know about, I know the DAV, the VFW and American Legion, our service officers that represent us they are not allowed to assist a veteran on an appeal. All they're really allowed to do if they need an appeal is to ask questions like do you have this or do you have that, or you may want to get this or you may want to do that, and they tell them just go back to the county service office and tell them you want to file an appeal. You know, I'm very fortunate that when I first got started and you had the traveling medical board, as they called it, the travel BAB board- Travel board yeah.

Ray Cobb: 43:42

The travel board. You know I was able to go, sit down in front of the judge and explain my case and in today's world I don't think that I would have the same impact doing it without getting an agent, because I cannot look into the records. Talk to the people at the high enough level at the regional office, and definitely not a judge in DC, to get some things done to help with my claim. So I think today, more so than ever, I'm recommending what a guy calls me and says he's lost your claim. I tell them they need an agent. Now our local county service officer says no, they don't, you can do this yourself. Well, I do not know of anyone who has won an appeal Now. I know one or two here locally that I worked with and helped with. That won it the first time around. They did it on their own. But when it comes to winning it on an appeal, talk to one today. Call me after lunch today.

Ray Cobb: 45:09

He has actually ended up, because of the diabetes, had to have his leg amputated above the knee, and he was telling me about how they got him his new prosthetics and they're wanting him to go to physical therapy. He says I know how to walk. I just been looking at YouTube and stuff and I see how to do it with my walker and I'm going to do that and strengthen my leg that way. He said I don't have too much faith in our local physical therapist around here for doing my prosthetics, but I told him as long as he would do it on his own, he did it every day. He would push himself.

J Basser: 45:48

Above the knee, above the knee. Amputation Above the knee, above the knee, it's going to be a lot harder process, he thinks.

Ray Cobb: 45:57

Well.

J Basser: 45:58

You got to walk, you got to bend. You got to find somebody to bend that knee, to get that knee working right.

Ray Cobb: 46:04

Well, it's above the knee. It's a prosthetic knee.

J Basser: 46:07

It working right. It's a prosthetic knee, it's an automatic prosthetic knee, but he's still got to be able to fix that leg to get that knee to bend.

Ray Cobb: 46:11

Well, and they've given him one of these that attaches to the muscle, that if he learns how to use it properly, he won't even know that he had his leg amputated, one of the new titanium type. Are you familiar with those? I wasn't.

J Basser: 46:29

Lieutenant Dan legs Titanium alloy. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Ray Cobb: 46:37

Six million dollar man.

J Basser: 46:41

But yes, that's what I was talking about. I mean, you know, you guys, I've seen some scary stuff over the last several weeks on our Facebook groups and things like that looking around and we had a couple of folks that tried it on their own and then made a mistake, this or that. The VA never lets down with a mistake. They can take that mistake and they can make you claim the last 10 years. Yeah, I'm serious.

Ray Cobb: 47:02

Oh yeah.

J Basser: 47:04

It's called the hamster wheel.

Ray Cobb: 47:07

Look at my first one with the peels and everything. They stretched mine out from the beginning. After our first pile they stretched it out 11 years before I won my claim 11 years.

J Basser: 47:21

I was 14.

Ray Cobb: 47:24

Delay after delay after delay, and another C and P and all types of stuff, and you know it's an ongoing battle. So, guys, I'm telling you, with the way the VA system is set up today, right now, today, I'd recommend, if you get it in now, start looking for an agent that can represent you.

J Basser: 47:49

Yeah, and sometimes not very often but there are some agents out there that will actually help you with the initial claim Because they can do the initial claim and help you do it. It was legally fine as long as they don't charge you a dime for it. You know that when the pill process comes down then they charge you. But you know, if they help you with the initial claim, thank you very much and pat them on the back and appreciate it. But anything you disagree with you can file through them to disagree and board with them for pills, because that will promote them back to whatever you know. So the initial claim they can't help.

J Basser: 48:32

I know two that actually do it. I don't know if they do it right now because they get. You know they do a lot of stuff, but you know they got, they got to work, they got to pay staff and everything else, so they do a pretty good job. So but reach out to the exposecom if you guys need information and stuff like that and we'll tell you to reach out to. We don't care, that's what we do. We aim to help everybody get what they deserve and what benefits that they need to get. But next week, I think after Bethany's show we'll discuss I want to discuss his great adaptive housing. Let's do a show on that next week. You want to?

Ray Cobb: 49:12

Yeah, that'd be great. That's you got a lot of experience in that. I'll have to freshen up on what the levels are now of how much you receive for those two. But Hesagrant's really important when you first, especially if you have diabetes. That's you know. Diabetes is, that's you know.

J Basser: 49:34

Diabetes is the worst disease man can get, you know, except for cancer, and the diabetes is going to kill us all you know. It may not be the diabetes, but it's going to be a secondary condition, like heart disease or lung disease or whatever you know. Or kidney failure yeah, stroke. Kidney failure, stroke yeah, bad stuff. They said the Pope died of a stroke. You see that I did, yeah, so okay, we've got 10 minutes left. Ray, you want to add anything, anything going on locally that we can use, or anything?

Ray Cobb: 50:13

One thing that we you know I jumped on the bandwagon a few weeks ago, several weeks ago, and I think we've been able to get it stopped the act in the Tennessee legislature that would allow claim sharks to come in and take up to six months of your back pay and all of that. I think we've got that stopped and I think it's staying in the water. I don't think it's going to six months of your back pay and all of that. I think we've got that stopped and I think it's day in the water. I don't think it's going to come out of committee to go to a forum for a vote. So that's one thing locally that we've done. We're kind of excited that we were able to get that stopped.

Ray Cobb: 50:52

We do crosses and flags here. If you live near the Middle Tennessee area, we're going to be putting those out. I think it's May the 19th, 18th, 19th, sometime along in there. They stay up for two weeks. What this is, folks? It's a program that I was helping involved with getting started six years ago and we put out a cross that tells a veteran's name, what time and when he served and what conflict or time of military duty he served. And we have an American. I think it's a four by five military flag, a US flag above it and it goes through the cross and stands. We line them up along the side of the road. It's pretty interesting. We don't put rank on them. It doesn't matter if they were a captain or a private, the crosses look the same. And families it's a way to honor their loved ones. This year we just closed out yesterday we are going to have 977 up around the town this year.

Ray Cobb: 52:07

You're getting close to 1,000, buddy 1,000, yeah, we were talking this last week. We probably will hit that by Veterans Day and we will probably have a new dedication for it to kind of kick off the next 1,000.

J Basser: 52:27

Whoever gets 1,000, maybe give them a gift card to a restaurant or something. Give it to them as a little prize, you know, being the thousand flag on it.

Ray Cobb: 52:37

Yeah, to give it to the person that purchased it for them.

J Basser: 52:42

Yeah.

Ray Cobb: 52:43

Yeah, we have volunteers that purchase them. We have every conflict that the US has been involved with. We have a veteran that at one time lived in Franklin County is now deceased and he has a crossing flag up. So we have at least one representative. I think we've got two. We've got at least two representatives from every conflict. I mean we're talking the Spanish-American War, we're talking the Indian Wars, we're all the Indian Wars, we're all the way back. And we do have. We had 53 Revolutionary War veterans that lived at one time in Franklin County. Some of them were given property here after the Revolutionary War as part of their retirement for fighting in the war. So we have all 53 of those identified and we do a little something different for those guys. We actually put on the Revolutionary War flag, the 13 stars with the 13 stripes and those when you go down the highway and you see a cross with that flag above it.

Ray Cobb: 53:51

You know that that's a Revolutionary War veteran.

J Basser: 53:55

Well, the 13 colonies were the only reason 13 is used in a positive light, because you know there's a lot of buildings that don't have a 13th floor.

Ray Cobb: 54:05

A whole lot of hotels don't.

J Basser: 54:08

Mm-hmm, so no, and Friday the 13th, it's kind of crazy. Well, ray, I think you know we covered a lot of information, a lot of ground tonight and thank you for coming on as usual. You've been very good and very helpful over the past couple years and you know one other thing.

Ray Cobb: 54:29

Let me invite you down here. Maybe you can come down and we can go do a little night fishing or whatever in August yeah, and I'll have the exact date. I heard it just earlier this week the traveling wall is coming to Tennessee. I think it's the second or third week of August and it's going to be the closest. This is going to be the closest. So if you live in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi or any of the states that are touching Tennessee, this will be the closest place that you'll get to see it for at least a year. So you know, if you live in Kentucky and you want to come and see the traveling wall, Where's it going to stop?

Ray Cobb: 55:07

at. Come on down. We're going to have it here in Winchester and we're going to put it up at the County City Park and it will be on display there for four days including the weekend.

Ray Cobb: 55:23

They'll open it up on a Thursday and it will be open Thursday, friday, saturday and Sunday and what they're talking about one of the things they'll be doing. If you serve, they'll help you be doing. If you serve they'll like help you find if you serve with anyone and their name's on the wall. They'll help you find that. And then they're going to have some areas and some maps and some information about Vietnam so you can go see or tell someone or show your family exactly where you were stationed if you're interested in doing anything like that. But it's really a moving event. I think on the opening I think they've got planned for some high school bands and junior high bands to play. They'll have, of course, some speeches. Can't have something like this without somebody speaking so they're going to have a few things like that going on. And so they're going to have a few things like that going on.

Ray Cobb: 56:14

I don't anticipate it, but there could be the possibility that for those crosses and flags we have for the gentlemen that served in Vietnam that are not with us, someone would ask if we could put a display of those gentlemen down there with the wall. That would really require an awful lot of expense and extra work because of not getting the flags and the crosses and everything. But to drill the holes and put the holes in and properly space them would be a. It would take us at least a month to get those all up and done and in place. And then what are you going to do afterwards? If we had to take the little sleeve that we use in the ground, if we had to take it out after it's over with? That'd be a lot more work. So I don't know if they'll be able to pull that off.

J Basser: 57:12

If that was mentioned, Hopefully they can keep it on the ground. I mean it makes a lot easier to put the flags in, Makes a lot easier to put them in and hold up.

Ray Cobb: 57:25

It might be five or six or ten years before we need to do anything else down there.

J Basser: 57:34

I don't know. I like to have a picture of that, you know, because I had one on Google Earth once and it showed the flags. That's pretty cool, you know. On the computer you can look it up and it showed the flags.

Ray Cobb: 57:46

Well, I think we may be able to get, you know, 25, 30 flags, something like that, up, which I don't think that'd be a problem, but to get the number of Vietnam veterans that we have up, and as soon as we didn't get them all up, somebody's going to want to know why their brother or why their daddy or why their uncle flag or cross wasn't displayed during the showing of the wall. So I think that would really be a task that wouldn't be, worth it, but I do agree with you.

J Basser: 58:22

You can do a couple from each area, a couple from each conflict, a couple flags from each conflict and have them set up like that, instead of having to do a bunch like that. That's fair.

Ray Cobb: 58:37

I'll mention that to the people who charge it on the committee.

J Basser: 58:42

Yeah.

Ray Cobb: 58:43

Well, folks, even if we had one, if we had one of each conflict, yeah, it's going to work.

J Basser: 58:49

But you know, I mean it's true, I mean you can do Warner Pires, you know, set them up next to each other. You can actually even put them in buckets and put a couple of those holders inside the bucket it's big to get the big planters or whatever and get them, put some dirt in them and do that and put the thing there and have them like that, you know, like side to side or whatever. And then when people get around them, have them like that, you know, like side-by-side or whatever. And then when people get around them, you have to watch them. You know, because you don't want nobody stealing them, you have to get some ex-Marines down there to stand watch.

Ray Cobb: 59:19

I only had two of them stolen, and over the last four years, so that's pretty good.

J Basser: 59:27

Well, all right. Well, folks, we appreciate you listening Tune in next week at the same time, same channel, and I'm going to tell you I appreciate you guys watching on YouTube Right now. I really appreciate it. I want to give a special thanks to Bethany Spangler for setting this up. She's pretty good at what she does and she'll be on next week With that. This will be John J Basher, on behalf of Mr Ray Kopp and the Exposed Lit Productions. We'll be signing off for now.