Battle of Medical Experts (Attorney)

Description

What happens when a VA claimant submits a medical opinion supporting a claim, but the VA obtains an unfavorable medical opinion? Under the VA’s pro-claimant benefit of the doubt rule, the VA should grant the claim, right? Unfortunately, the answer is not that simple. The VA is permitted to consider numerous factors when determining whether one medical opinion is better than or equal to another medical opinion. However, the VA often doesn’t properly consider these factors and and simply relies on the VA medical opinion to deny the claim. This webinar will focus on how to ensure that this does not happen to your VA claimant, and how to make sure your claimant wins the “battle of the medical experts.”

This recorded webinar will cover:

-Methods for finding a private medical expert to provide a favorable medical opinion
-Steps advocates should take both prior to and after obtaining a private medical opinion
-Arguments to raise when submitting a favorable medical opinion that can persuade the VA not to order its own examination, thus preventing the development of potentially negative evidence
-A discussion of VA’s presumption of competency when it comes to VA examiners
-Case law advocates can use to discredit unfavorable VA opinions
-Strategies for arguing why the VA should place more probative value on a favorable medical opinion than an unfavorable medical opinion, and important factors to consider when conducting this analysis
This webinar will be presented by Ronald Abrams, Esq., Special Counsel to NVLSP and former Joint Executive Director of NVLSP.

This class will give advocates practical skills and tips on how to handle the very common scenario in VA benefits claims where the VA’s decision comes down to the battle of the medical experts.

Brought to you by the National Veterans Legal Services Program.