one weekend down

I just finished my last note from today’s schedule and it was an overall smooth process. I’m not sure how many I might get back because I don’t know if the QA personnel look at documents on the weekend. I imagine I’ll have a few issues because I’m not familiar with any particular preferences that VES has different from the exams I performed for VHA/VBA. It seems they go out of their way to ensure that no questions can be left unanswered, even ones that shouldn’t need to be asked. There are questions on the VA forms that if answered negatively will grey out portions of the form below. However, it seems like VES is requiring examiners to answer hypotheticals on the remote chance that a question might be asked by VBA.

I’m not sure, but I’ll probably find out next week if I get some QA addendums returned. One thing I do like about their forms is that they won’t let you submit the form if you haven’t answered all the questions, regardless of applicability to the particular case. These were mostly times when I would fill out a diagnosis but miss a question before that just asking if they have any diagnoses in general. On the VA form, if you check the box for a diagnosis, that general question is automatically answered as yes. A little backwards and redundant, but at least they make sure you don’t miss any questions which can be easy to do on these long forms.

I had one no-show today and I have a feeling I’ll get stiffed on that one, because apparently they never confirmed this Veteran’s appointment and just let it get scheduled. If they confirmed and the Veteran no-showed it’s more on the Veteran, but I’m not a big fan of letting an appointment go forward if no one has been able to contact the Veteran. We’ll see what happens. I don’t have a specific idea of what the pay will be, because it’s not entirely clear from the agreement I signed, but I’ll find out next week or so. I’m under the impression that at least one exam/opinion won’t be paid for until an ancillary study is complete and I’ve commented on the results. Given the nature of scheduling under COVID, it could be several months.

All that said, it’s good to be back in the saddle and earning some sort of income. It’ll likely fall short of my averages as a fee basis provider, but after eight months without any work, I’m not complaining.