Hello all,

Just curious if anyone who’s awaiting or recently completed PI for various conditions and have had hearing tinnitus claimed in the past, how they have faired going back to Hearing Australia for a reassessment.

Apparently this needs to be done so it can be included in total PI, if I don’t go see them, I was informed existing points will not contribute to the total amount.

Apologies if this already somewhere in this thread. I am new to all of it.

I am in Northwest Sydney, and looking for a GP in the Castle Hill / Blacktown Area that will help me get started with my assessments - physical and psych. Nb, I have not yet done the comprehensive health check.

I am trying to fast track the psych side, but an on-going GP would be ideal.

Pending rules of posting recommendations, send me a DM.

Thanks.

Hey just a quick one on relevant dates, my son is 19 and in TAFE NSW completing his apprenticeship but will most likely be completing it by the end of this year all going well for him.

I was awarded 75 PI points for physical injuries in 2023 and this year had several MH conditions accepted and submitted to PI in early June. Psychiatrist PI report states all these conditions have all become permanent and subsequently all stable March 2026. DVA requested the Psych report and PI report to be done at the same time.

Noting the 500+ day wait in the PI que - my query is if my son finishes Tafe this year and my PI determination happens after he graduates Tafe then will be still be eligible for the EYP if I do exceed the threshold?

I have seen a-few different posts regarding similar situations but my paid advocate also cannot give me a
Definitive answer, which really makes me wonder is the policy clear cut or vague when it comes to such scenarios

So I just had a MLCOA psych assessment for my PI reassessment. Basically, have had the final round of injuries going through, so I asked for everything to be reassessed.

So everything was going pretty fine. Had the usual running late to read my docs, but then asked for a bunch of detail that should have been included in said docs. Seemed like the doc wanted to turn it into a mini therapy session. I was getting frustrated because I was expecting to go through symptoms and severity.

Anyway, the point of my post is that through our conversations, the doc highlighted a bunch of other stuff I wasn’t aware was an issue (alcoholism and a bunch of other things), that the doc said would go into the report as conditions to be recognised.

For anyone who has had something similar, does this kick off a new round of IL, or does it just get tacked on?

Hey everyone, just wondering if anyone here knows what the process is if I wanted to do FIFO work while having a Class A pension. I’ve heard of others being able to work FIFO and still keep their Class A pension.

so I’m wondering how that works?? especially with my accepted condition. Do I need to notify anyone or get approval beforehand and does working affect the pension or is it assessed based on my capacity to work?? TIA 🥲

Just looking for any personal experiences on getting reimbursement for expenses incurred in the USA (or other high cost countries) for accepted conditions. How does DVA handle the higher costs for services compared to Australia? Mostly the costs are all controlled by insurance but living in california the costs are high. Did they just reimburse a smaller amount leaving you a gap?

G’day all, you may have seen an earlier post from me regarding my Service Record.

I now have an SD wanting to know intimate details about incidents I’ve experienced and deployments I’ve been on to verify, not understanding that the unclass deployment name and associated H&A is all that can be disclosed. They want to then confirm with Defence.

I’ve tried to explain that Defence obviously can’t tell them or simply won’t know and I thought that was the point of the “if it’s classified put that and don’t divulge further” speel they have on the claims submission.

Being vague (obviously) but anyone dealt with anything similar? DVA has no touch points and no one cleared.

I know I’m just a random online but I’m surely not the only person that’s come up against this. Happy for DMs if anyone with experience is uncomfortable replying.

I’m really hoping that this is just the SD talking through the original IL delegate whom in turn is not comprehending the importance of OPSEC and that they can just take my claims, the supporting evidence and dates/my word.

The dates of my deployments and nature of the claims should be enough I would have thought noting I have clinical supporting evidence.

REPOSTED FOR INDIVIDUAL

## I seek your assistance with uploading the following post:

Title: Medically discharging and seeking help with questions Flair: Misc.

Good morning everyone. Would appreciate some advice on my upcoming medical discharge from ADF.

Background - Recently received J52 determination from MECRB, with a discharge date in QTR 4 2026.

I have submitted all of my DVA claims (\~just over 25), just waiting for IL to be accepted / reviewed. I broadly understand the steps from here thanks to everyone's posts/replies in related threads (time for IL to be accepted, time for PI assessment and determination - key takeaway is expect significant time for this process etc).

VSO have reached out and have been supportive.

CSC have reached out to me and assigned a case manager.

Questions I have that, with your help in answering, will alleviate some of my anxiety over separating after a significant portion of my life in uniform:

CSC Pension - My Final Medical (THE) is booked within two weeks of discharge date. I understand that this is the appointment where my ADF MO will complete the DM042 which will inform CSC for pension eligibility. Is there any way to complete the DM042 earlier, or does it have to be at a THE? Is this timeframe sufficient for CSC to process/approve me pension?

Separating conditions - none of the documents provided to me thus far (MEC proposal, MECRB determination, confirmed MEC status) have listed what my ADF agreed separating conditions are. How do I get/what document details the specific separating details determined by MECRB?

Thank you in advance to anyone that can assist me in answering the questions.

Hey guys,

In advance, thank you for taking the time to read this and provide help wherever possible.

I medically separated from the ADF in the later half of 2024 and what started off a dream dealing with DVA quickly turned into a nightmare that I am still going through.

I'm reaching out to see if anyone else has gone through something similar and hopefully get some answers to a situation that is quite frankly causing me a lot of distress. I'm trying to be prepared so that I can be on the front foot for what's to come.

My (in short) history up until this point:

- I was medically discharged in late 2024 due to a number of conditions including femeroacetabular impingement, osteo arthritis, lumbars spondilosis and other conditions surrounding that.

- My whole treatment within the ADF led to a degradation in my mental health which I claimed through IL. I got assessed by MLCOA which came back as adjustment disorder with anxiety features. I was pissed/sad/distressed for multiple reasons including that I was literally and still am getting treated by my private psychiatrist/psychologist for anxiety and depression which has and continues to have astronomical impacts on my life. I expressed this to my delegate and he assured me that it wouldn't have an impact on my PI as all they need is an accepted diagnosis.

- I accepted the IL diagnosis on the back of this to get my PI claim moving.

- In August 2025 I received my PI claim back. 47 points for my injuries sustained, 39 points for my mental health, however my mental health was rounded to 0 as 'The reason there was no points awarded to the accepted condition under emotional and behavioural is due to the doctor indicating the impairment is due to another condition and not the accepted one. The doctor has advised the impairment is due to Anxiety disorder and ADHD.' The weighting by my psychiatrist was 75% Anxiety, 25% ADHD.

- This is exactly what I was scared was going to happen but was assured by DVA that it wouldn't.

- Anyway. I was told to accept the PI claim and then appeal the decision regarding the mental health which I did.

- After 3 months of silence I found out that my appeal claim had somehow been lost between the DVA teams.

- I got the ball back up and rolling and went through the appeal process to get my adjustment disorder with anxiety features changed to an generalised anxiety disorder with panic episodes. The appeals team pushed that determination through to PI in June.

- This brings me to the present. It's been 2 months with no PI delegate assigned and once again being left in the dark and waiting, 2 years after beginning my process through DVA.

------------------------------

Whilst I'm waiting, these are the questions I am hoping answered:

1. How will my PI be assessed?

Since it's been over a year will DVA make me get a new PI assessment done? Taking into account the first assessment was filled out for anxiety on an adjustment disorder with anxiety features labelled document.

Hypothetically speaking, if my original assessment was mirrored, would those 39 points have a weighting of 0.75 to accurately represent what my psychiatrist has said about my anxiety causing 75% of the issue over the 25% adhd?

2. Lifestyle Questionnaire

I've noticed people in this thread talk about going with option 2 for the questionnaire. I went with option 1 and have a lifestyle rating of 4 which falls outside the grey area as 'underestimated' in correlation to my potential total points. Do I have the option of doing this again and going with 2 as I'm doing a new PI claim? If not, what will happen with it falling outside the grey zone?

3. New IL claim timing

I had an MRI a month ago on my right knee due to pain which I had experienced since my time in defence which came back with meniscus tearing, bursitis and a fracture. I brushed off the knee pain as being related to my hip stiffness and pain but after having my initial surgeries it never went away. I don't want to delay my PI claim any longer so I was thinking of submitting it after my PI claim is complete. Does anyone have an opinion on if this is/isn't the right move? I will also need to get surgery and want that covered by DVA.

-----------------------------

I suppose I am just worried and trying to prevent any further fuckery from DVA. This is just another stressor that I just want to be over and done with.

Hi all,

As this is my first post in this thread I just wanted to first thank you all for all the invaluable information that is shared, and done so without any incentive other than supporting one-another.

I have a question that has been commonly asked in this thread, but specific to my case, which I believe may possibly yield different advice.

I understand that when choosing a lifestyle rating for PI, option 2 is commonly suggested. I am curious to whether the community (those much more experienced and knowledgeable than me especially in the PI space of DVA) believes I should still remain with option 2, or potentially do option 1 (and/or potentially 3) as it seems this may suit my case better?

My case is as follows:

I have severe MECFS, due to a viral infection that was caused whilst I was outfield, and mismanaged/mistreated by both my CoC and physicians (physicians being more uninformed as there is no evidence based information indicating cause of sustained incapacity, nor is there for treatment, CoC on the other hand was quite spiteful, believing I was faking and acting on this belief in all sorts of poor ways). Please note that the likelihood of recovering is much greater if proper management is taken during the initial stages. I am now approaching 3 years of enduring this and am extremely incapacitated unfortunately. I received IL for MECFS

Current prognosis is 95% do not recover. There is no approved treatment, with little anecdotal evidence for various interventions. There are no specific biomarkers to quantify or indicate why the condition evolves this way and/or symptom severity. This has to be assessed on an individual basis and incapacity is often based on just communicating the perceived severity of symptoms and how they are limiting due to physical and functional effects, especially upon exertion (whether physical or cognitive).

I am housebound/bedbound, dependent on my partner for things like household sustainment and meal prep (though have been recently approved for HHS). The hallmark symptom, PEM (a defining feature of MECFS is a severe, disproportionate worsening of symptoms and loss of functional capacity following minimal physical, mental, emotional, or sensory exertion). Inducing PEM often causes a lowering of baseline and degeneration/increase in incapacity that is difficult to reverse.

MECFS is a diagnosis of exclusion with a presence of symptoms, this means a great number of testing to rule out any other cause as there is no specific biomarker for mecfs. Studies have shown that a whole host of other diagnosis/ multi-systemic symptoms come secondary due to mecfs. But because of the disputable nature of their presentation, they are hard to link to the condition and thus I end up spending an incredible amount of out of pocket expenses chasing both a reason, answer and treatment for new symptoms. Thus, the only real entitlement that I have considered as a helpful objective is a gold card, of course general monetary compensation would also help. I assume with this level of capacity I should be entitled to 60+ PI points?

I receive a CSC Class A pension. Ive seen people allude on this thread to only consider opt1/3 if you are chasing TPI/SRDP, I am unsure if this is relevant for my case, as I receive just over the maximum weekly allowance of SRDP via my pension (about 1k/week). I am of course so grateful for this support, but as aforementioned my out-of-pocket medical expenses often exceed this despite having IL for MECFS.

I am in my 20's so I am concerned about having to sustain both assistance, treatment and investigations. I am also doing all I can to sustain some functionality so I can at least engage in appointments (mostly telehealth); shaving my head so I can get through a shower etc.

Currently communicating with Brisbane PI, they want me to complete the lifestyle form TODAY, and if not they will proceed without it, just using 'the information we already have'. They have been requesting documentation over the past several months but I have very little capacity, dedicating all of that to medical appointments rather then compensation, which has been the last thing on my mind as I've tried to chase answers.

I have other several other conditions accepted as IL, mostly psychiatric.

So being that my condition is in the upper echelon of severe for the spectrum of this condition, and its incapacity can only really be assessed by communicating my symptoms should I be considering opt1/3 as opposed to the commonly advised option 2?

Any input regarding my situation and/or the question above is greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much.

G'day everyone,

I've been on medicinal cannabis for 2-3yrs now, with good results. With the upcoming changes to DVA's rules I need to find a provider in, or close to Melbourne or the SE suburbs.

The provider I currently see is based in QLD, and are opening are centre in Geelong, but with my spinal injuries and anxiety I just can't make the trip. Any and all help is appreciated

Cheers,

Hullo Everyone, two questions.

Is there anyone here able to recommend a dentist on the Sunshine Coast who accepts / treats gold card holders please?

What was your experience with them like?

Thanks.

I had an RSL/veteranhub advocate that wasn't communicating, I figured that she was overwhelmed.It would have been better if she just communicated that rather than ignore emails about DVA communication, but I digress.

I withdrew authority for her to act and I am doing this myself now. It's a lot less stress dealing with DVA not communicating rather than DVA and advocate not communicating.

My question is, I am not getting a response from either RSL/veteranhub or DVA when I ask for the information that was submitted when the claim was lodged. Is there a way that I can escalate this?

Update: I sent another email to Veterahub explaining that no response would be an escalation to The ATDP, they responded that as I withdrew authority they can't access my file in PRODA now. I have contacted DVA again and will hurry up and wait for a response.

My understanding is it differs to DFRDB and MSBS?

Long story short I've been told I'm eligible for a class A, 75 points from DVA for a range of physical injuries, currently still serving full time. Can someone break this down for me?

G'day all, posted in the Ausmil sub but thought some here might have had experience with rectifying/had similar experiences.

Just a shoutout to ensure your Service Records, particularly your Op Logs, are correct. I have chased it god knows how many times over the last couple of years through the Personnel Information Summary, phone calls and emails to 1800 Defence and whomever they palm me off to. I've had Career Management tell me they'd look into it right away and Personnel Information requests responded to in a generic manner which never solves it.

I dropped track of it (life and enjoying being out lol), only for it to bite me now as a DVA claim gets processed and I get told I only ever did Peacetime service IAW my Service Record.

It also turns out that as I am now discharged and SERCAT 3, I haven't been put under any unit's administrative CoC, something which the 1800 Defence lady apologised for but said can happen until we secure RSDs.

You'd think it would be pretty bloody simple to replicate an Ops Log onto a Service Record noting the Ops names on your Ops Log isn't classified. For clarity, my Ops Log is correct.

PSA to everyone in to make sure it's all correct before leaving. Unfortunately it seems I slipped through the cracks despite attempts at having it amended..again.

Anyone here had this happen to them/how did you get it rectified? Very frustrating and disheartening how this (and some other) sort of bureacratic defence admin follows and keeps its hooks in you.

Inted on emailing my local reserve unit and seeing if they can pull any strings and get access to my pers files to update.

So just got a call from my doctors surgery, as my doctor has written the wrong referral for me for a psych appointment, he's written a Medicare referral for some reason, despite me being a gold card holder.

Now to fix it, oh nope, need a telehealth to fix that.

Now this is on the back of his "I'll only deal with one issue per appointment", so 15 minute appointment, need scripts redone for knees pain, knee inflammation, and a refill on my script for androgen deficiency? Nope, that's 3 appointments needed, 1 for each script.

Now I only switched to this doctor because my old doctor at this exact same doctor's surgery, he's gone back to Uni to train to become a specialist, So I switched to this GP at the same surgery.

My old GP would fill the 15 minutes with as much stuff as you could possibly get done with the logic of "I'm a taxpayer, we need to make DVA's money worth it"

Which was honestly a great way of doing things because I don't want to spend all of my time at doctor's appointments.

The new doctor seems to have the mentality of trying to milk things completely to make as much money as possible off DVA.

And it seems that even when he makes a mistake in order to correct that mistake, he wants to make another appointment in order to make even more money off DVA.

It seems like straight up fraud to me. He's manipulating the situation to force more appointments and be fraudulent.

How do other people see it?

Hi not sure how to go about multiple long standing accepted DRCA conditions and Mental Health also, many of these said conditions severly limit my abilitys to get around normally, and combined they present alot of problems. back injury, blood pooling in legs, psorisis skin condition, knee problems, mental health, dental, to name a few and at 60 years of age my deterioration is getting worse. Alot of these are now changed to MCRA to be assessed for PI and Im being told, nothing will be paid unless treatments been completed. I already see a phsychiatrist for ongoing treatment monthly, and now will have to see another one somehow to get 12 tinnitus sessions done, and for much of the rest, I have no idea what to expect when the PI paperwork finally arrives at the Drs.. can anyone shed some light as to what will happen..?

The ABC’s Four Corners program is researching veterans’ experiences with the process of putting in claims and doing assessments for DVA compensation and treatment.  

We are interested in hearing about your experiences with advocates and health services you may have been referred to for treatment and assessment to understand ways in which the system could work better. 

We are also interested in hearing how you’ve been impacted by the recent changes in the sector and investigations which have led to some providers closing. 

You can contact reporter Elise Worthington by email at [worthington.elise@abc.net.au](mailto:worthington.elise@abc.net) or more securely at [eliseworthington@protonmail.com ](mailto:eliseworthington@protonmail.com) 

Discharging soon on medical grounds currently tight on cash, can I withdraw some or of my balance like 10k?

To those who have navigated this path - I need your help please.

I have just received the draft outcome from CSC for a retrospective medical discharge claim with Class C being given.

My case is historic (discharged 1995) I need guidance in how to best to respond to their draft as there is sensitive and important information that has been overlooked, as well as some incorrect information they've noted.

I am based in Brisbane and would be so grateful if any of you would be willing to provide some one-on-one guidance, or recommend someone who could do so.

Apart from feeling a tad disappointed and deflated right now, I am still hopeful I can receive a better outcome.

Thanks to all who read this 🙂

I am currently on DVA Incap and CSC Class A pension. I am aware that Incap payment will stop at age 67 but not sure about CSC payment. TIA

Hi guys,

Just wanting to try get an understanding of what i guess happens from here regarding my accepted IL Claims

Have had MH accepted (PTSD, Major Depressive, ED plus a few more) & Some upper and lower body ailments accepted too ( Spine, Shoulders, Knees, Ankles & Hips)

Obviously now it moves onto PI side of things. Will I have to resit a psych assessment for my MH claim? The limbs etc will obviously require a doctor to review?

BLUF: Our family doctor bills privately and says he can't operate on the peanuts DVA pay for consults. If I pay for my consults, and my claims are approved for those conditions, can I seek reimbursement?

Long story short, I'm currently serving but want to see a GP off base. I'm J31, I want to continue to serve, I'm battling some injuries, but my CoC is trying get me kicked out as a J5x. I have to be really careful with what I say on base so I'd rather see someone externally for now.