- Hi, and welcome back
to Hill and Ponton's VA Disability Blog.
I'm Natalia Jofre, our firm's manager.
- I'm attorney Rachel Cheek.
- As you know, last video were talking about
PTSD and C&P exams,
and I would now like to talk about how PTSD can be rated.
I know you have some additional information
for us on that.
- Absolutely.
After you do your C&P Exam, you attend that,
that information is sent to the VA,
and then you are rated based upon your symptoms
in the C&P Exam, as well as in your medical records
and in your file, any statements
that you might have provided, that sort of thing.
It's important to know that
PTSD and essentially any other mental conditions,
so that can be depression, anxiety, that sort of thing,
anything that's mental, they're all rated
under the same criteria.
- Okay.
- You can have a diagnosis of depression,
your friend can have a diagnosis of PTSD,
that's going to be rated under the same criteria.
They look at the same list of symptoms.
- Okay.
- An example of some of these symptoms,
well, first let me back up.
Mental disorders can be rated,
once you're service connected,
you can get a rating from 0% to 100%.
- Okay.
- In between you have 30%, 50%, 70%, of course 100.
The way that the VA makes that determination
as to which level you should be at
is they look at your symptoms.
For example, I skipped one, 10%.
That's one where they say,
"Okay, well you have a diagnosis of PTSD,
"but your symptoms are controlled with medication."
- The VA loves 10% don't they?
- Love the 10%.
- They love to give people 10%,
no matter how bad their situation is.
- Exactly.
- Okay.
- Your symptoms only come out when you're stressed,
or it's controlled by medication, 10%.
- Right.
- Sometimes that's the appropriate rating,
but more often that not, the conditions are more severe.
- Yeah.
- For the purposes of this video,
I kinda wanna focus on the major,
more significant ratings.
For example, 70%.
That's something where not only are you having
very common symptoms such as
flashbacks and nightmares and sleep impairment,
that's common at many levels of PTSD,
but these are where you're getting into symptoms
that are really, really impacting your everyday life,
and making it hard for you to deal with anything.
- Function.
- It's hard to function, exactly.
Some examples of criteria that's in the 70% category
are inability to form and maintain relationships.
I speak to a lot of clients
who feel that even within their own families
they can't really connect,
or maybe they're close to their spouses or children maybe
and that's it, there's no friends,
people a work they're not able to deal with,
they're just not able to form a connection.
They tend to stay away from people.
- Right.
- Or they push people away sometimes.
Another very common one is suicidal ideation.
That does not have to be,
it doesn't have to be any action taken on that.
It can be something as fleeting as
"Well, I feel like things would just be better
"if I wasn't here.
"It would be easier on my family if I was gone."
- Right.
- Although that's not what we necessarily think of
as being suicidal, there's not an act of effort,
but the thoughts are there and that's ideation.
- I do think that people get confused
or misconstrue that term often because they think
well, I'm not thinking every day about killing myself.
Or I hear often,
"But I don't have a plan."
- Mm-hmm.
- People are very quick to say,
"Oh, but I don't have a plan."
So they think, well, this must not really apply
to suicidal ideation, but like you're saying,
if it's something as simple as
where you have this recurring thought
that things would be better if I just weren't here,
or my family would be better off if I just weren't here,
that is a form of suicidal ideation.
- Ideation, it's an idea that's in your head.
- Yeah.
- They call that Passive Suicidal Ideation.
Still counts.
- Right.
- Another example of one of the symptoms
that's found within the 70% criteria
is impaired impulse control.
That's generally something
where you also have outbursts of anger.
- Okay.
- That's common in, again, a lot of mental conditions.
PTSD of course, but even anxiety and depression
even though that might...
- The rational is there.
- Yes.
- It's almost like they lose that moment
where this is no longer reasonable.
- Exactly.
- Isn't that where a lot of road rage incidents happen?
People always talk about, it's like this disconnect
all of a sudden, where this person cut me off
and now it's just become a full on battle.
- Exactly.
You can't control your impulses.
- Yeah.
- Normally, if maybe you were thinking straight
and you weren't having to deal with the condition,
you could set it aside, but with this condition
kind of affecting you so strongly,
you're not able to control your impulses.
Road rage is a great example.
- Mm-hmm.
- I also see a lot of times in medical records
sometimes it'll be noted,
well, this veteran gets very irritated
with their children, any kind of noises,
any kind of little things can set somebody off.
Whereas normally, again, if you weren't having to struggle
with this condition, you didn't have to deal with that,
you would be able to set things aside.
With the condition, you do have your impulses.
You can not control them as much.
- Right.
- That can outdo violent outbursts,
shouting, anything like that, is another example.
- Okay.
All right, great.
Well, this was all really informative.
Thank you, Rachel.
- Of course.
- We're gonna keep talking about all of this
and a whole lot more, but in the meantime
if you have any questions,
please visit our website or call our office.
- Thank you.
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