Hello I am AD USAF and am going through a med board for psoriatic arthritis (taking methotrexate and humira). I was able to get my exams scheduled with QTC except for my allergic rhinitis portion of my claim. Two questions: Has anyone heard when exams will resume for claims like allergies or anything where you would need to take your mask off? Second, I had seasonal allergies that are in my medical records before joining. Is this claim even worth pursuing? I just don't want it holding everything up if I won't get anything out of it, considering it was pre existing. Thanks!
C & P Resumption (question about allergic rhinitis claim)
- Thread starter tmoney614
- Start date
Depending if you want to speed up or slow down your MEB would be the main question to ask yourself. Call your MSC and state you would like to remove this claim if you would like to get on with the process. Otherwise, you'll be waiting for ATLEAST another month. Still no projected time for the VA to start seeing conditions that require mask to be taken off.
Good morning.
I actually just went through this. QTC told me they aren't doing anything which requires face mask removal, so I contacted my MSC to get my respiratory illness claim removed. I'll just file for it upon separation/retirement. She had me fill out form 21-4138. She didn't really give any guidance, so I wrote in that I'm withdrawing the claim due to COVID restrictions and will re-file later when exams can be conducted.
In my opinion, there's no upside to waiting for this policy to go away unless you're trying to extend the process to reach retirement eligibility, or if it's one of your referred conditions.
I actually just went through this. QTC told me they aren't doing anything which requires face mask removal, so I contacted my MSC to get my respiratory illness claim removed. I'll just file for it upon separation/retirement. She had me fill out form 21-4138. She didn't really give any guidance, so I wrote in that I'm withdrawing the claim due to COVID restrictions and will re-file later when exams can be conducted.
In my opinion, there's no upside to waiting for this policy to go away unless you're trying to extend the process to reach retirement eligibility, or if it's one of your referred conditions.
The only downside is that it can't be considered for the DOD portion. It sounds like it isn't an unfitting condition so you are probably good there. My wife requires nasal rinses with distilled water which makes her non deployable since distilled water isn't available in austere environments. This is for Active Duty Army FYI as each branch seems to interpret the DOD deploy or get out policy differently. So if she was in your shoes and declined it would affect her rating for medical retirement.
Thanks for the replies. The only portion being rated for the DOD is the psoriatic arthritis. For the VA I'm claiming psoriasis on scalp, psoriatic arthritis on all fingers, all toes, both hands/wrists, both knees, feet, both hips, back spasms, rotator cuff issues, and chronic eosiniphilic esophagitis, so I'm not sure that seasonal allergies (which is documented on my meps paperwork) will make much of a difference on my disability rating.
If you don't have nasal polyps, you are talking 10% VA. Remember VA math applies, so 10% can be much less.
Or it can throw you up 10% depending on how you p. arthritis is rated (by body part).
In looking through the VA regs, it's pretty confusing on how they rate ps. arthritis. Is each individual joint rated (like each finger) or would it just be the hand? I've seen some people on here getting 60% total, but I wasn't sure if the way they rate arthritis varies from person to person.