Proving Service Connection for a Veteran’s Cause of Death
Video Transcript
Hello, I’m Eric Gang. I want to talk to you a little bit about service connection for the cause of death. If you’re on appeal trying to obtain service connection for the cause of death, there are some very important things you need to consider.
A Case Study: Linking PTSD to a Gastric Hemorrhage
I’ll illustrate my point by giving an example of a case we recently just won. I represented the widow of a veteran who died as a result of a gastric hemorrhage. Now, he was service-connected for PTSD, and of course, the VA denied the claim because they said, “Look, PTSD does not cause a gastric hemorrhage.” And normally it doesn’t; a psychiatric disability is not normally something associated with a gastric hemorrhage.
Fortunately, we were successful in the claim because we understood some things that were going on here.
This veteran happened to be on a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). These are medications used to treat anxiety and mental disabilities. He was service-connected for his PTSD, and so he was using these medications. However, he was also on non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications. And that, of course, increases the risk that somebody is going to experience a gastric hemorrhage. He died of the gastric hemorrhage.
We were able to service connect this disability because we found medical literature, and our medical experts were able to say that SSRIs combined with the non-steroidal anti-inflammatories created a synergistic effect. This increased the risk of gastric hemorrhage, which ultimately resulted in this veteran’s cause of death.
The board granted that claim, but only because we were able to understand the relationship between the medications used to treat the PTSD and the existing medications he was taking for non-service-related conditions. Fortunately, this widow will be experiencing a monthly check every month from the VA because we were able to prove this particular claim.
The Importance of Medical Experts
The point is, when you’re dealing with a service connection for cause of death claim, you must analyze the medical evidence very carefully. The necessity of obtaining really good, outstanding medical experts cannot be overemphasized. In most of the serious service connection for cause of death claims that we’ve had over the years, we could not have won without the services of good, high-powered medical experts.
So I want to encourage you: you’re not going to get very far if you’re only relying on the VA compensation and pension examiners. They’re generally not favorable to the claim, and you’ll be waiting a long time if you’re expecting them to write something favorable towards your claim.
Need Help With Your Appeal?
If you’re in the middle of a claim for DIC benefits, trying to obtain service connection for the cause of death, I strongly urge you to check out the educational resources available on this site. And again, you’re free to contact our office if you’d like to explore how we may be able to help.