Question:

Hi Jim, Thank you so much for being willing to answer questions! Short of the long, I was injured during training and am 99% certain my collar bone was broken and relatively severe damage to my shoulder occurred. Medical told me I was perfectly fine and sent me back to training, and that the visible fracture/break was swelling. It’s since been 5 years and I am out of the military. I currently get less than 20% from that particular shoulder due to restricted mobility. I am pursuing civilian specialists as at this point I can only hold my 7 month old son for short periods of time before my shoulder gives out. It also does not stay in the socket and shortly before being discharged I was advised by physical therapy to be careful picking up anything with weight as my shoulder could telescope completely out of place. I also lose feeling often down my arm and into my hand. My question is, if this specialists figures out what all is damaged and performs surgery, what are my options as far as the va goes? Is there any compensation available for the years I went untreated? Will they attempt to take what little they gave? I can’t afford to take a loss, but I am worried I won’t be able to care for my son if I don’t get it fixed. 

Jim's Reply:

The military lifestyle is physically demanding. Accidents happen, bones are broken. This has been the case for more years than I can count and in America today there is a system in place that is set up to compensate us for disabling conditions that result in a loss or potential loss of earning capacity.

The system as managed by the VA is a set of laws promulgated by Congress and over time codified into rules and regulations that tell us how all this should work. This is the system you're subject to.

You tell me of 2 injuries, a collarbone and a shoulder problem. These are different areas of the anatomy and you'll want to be careful filing claims and so on and not introduce any confusion into your statements.

We are compensated only after we have a diagnosis of a condition that was caused by, contributed to or aggravated by our military service and we file for the disability compensation.

It sounds as if you're telling me you have a shoulder condition rated at "less than 20%" and that would mean you have a 10% rating on that shoulder since ratings are in 10% increments. There is no compensation for anything before you filed the claim. As I said earlier, this is the law and how the disability compensation system works.

These more or less minor ratings are seen as permanent by VA and unless there were some sort of extraordinary circumstance a 10% benefit is permanent. If you believe that the shoulder is not fairly compensated, you have to file a claim for an increase. Nothing happens unless and until you file the claim and tell VA what you believe your rating should be. Once you do that VA will send you to the usual C & P exams and you may be awarded an increase.

If you have surgery on a service connected joint, you'll receive a temporary rating of 100% as you recuperate a couple months and then a new rating that will reflect any improvements to the joint after corrective surgery. 

I'm not at all sure what you're trying to say about a broken collarbone but if you had one, most likely you'd have known it and there would be x-ray evidence. If there is no evidence and no documented history there will be no compensation.

For what it's worth, the #1 most common shoulder injury is a rotator cuff tear of varying degrees. That's usually proven by MRI these days and may be compensated up to 30% for loss of range of motion. How do I know? I have bilateral full thickness rotator cuff tears that are service connected (since 1971) and often very painful.

Prior to the advent of MRI my condition was rated as "Bursitis/Tendonititis" since the damage to the rotator cuff couldn't be seen on standard x-ray. I chose to not have mine corrected, I'm very cautious the way I use my shoulders and I get along without the surgery.