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and I'm joined today by my colleagues Bethany cook
and Matthew Fusco today we're going to be explaining how to win VA claims for anxiety
anxiety is defined as intense excessive and persistent worry and fear about everyday
situations the most common symptoms of anxiety disorders include things like feeling restless
jumpy or on edge excessive worrying difficulty concentrating rapid heartbeat trembling or
twitching muscle tension shortness of breath or difficulty breathing feeling dizzy nauseous or
lightheaded and difficulty sleeping there are several types of anxiety disorder diagnoses
including things like generalized anxiety disorder panic disorders or various phobias phobia-related
disorders like agoraphobia for example and if you have one of these diagnoses and you
think it might be related to service you can file a claim for service connection so Bethany
what are some different ways that a veteran can get service connection for an anxiety disorder
so you can get service connection for anxiety disorder on either a direct or secondary basis
to so to establish service connection on a direct basis that is to establish the anxiety disorder is
directly related to your military service you need three things so the first thing that you would
need is a current diagnosis of an anxiety disorder that needs to come from a medical professional
it needs to be a medically confirmed diagnosis and then you also need an in-service occurrence
that caused or aggravated the diagnosis anxiety disorder and then the very last thing you would
need is a medical Nexus of linking those two things together ideally that would be a medical
opinion from a qualified professional like a psychologist or a psychiatrist a planning that
your current diagnosis is at least as likely as not related to the in-service occurrence
an example of an in-service occurrence might include if you specifically treated for anxiety
during service or even if you just check off that you're experiencing anxiety-like symptoms
at the time of the discharge examination it is important to know um that it's helpful to
have evidence that the symptoms started during your military service but you don't actually
need the diagnosis to have happen during your military service that can come after
that service connection on a direct basis to establish service connection on a secondary
basis is a little bit different so you can get service connection on a secondary basis if the
anxiety was caused or aggravated by an already service connected condition so in this case you
would still need three things you would still need a diagnosis of the anxiety disorder you'd also
need to be service connected for the condition that caused or aggravated the anxiety disorder
and then you would still need a medical Nexus opinion linking those two things together so for
example a veteran may have a service-connected knee condition that causes significant pain and
impedes ability to carry out everyday activities and tasks that can obviously result in an anxiety
disorder so as a result that condition the anxiety disorder can get service connected on a secondary
basis to the knee condition there would just need to be a medical Nexus establishing that link
thanks Bethany and keep in mind VA does require specific forms when filing claims for service
connection if it's your first time filing a claim for your anxiety disorder you'll need
to use the VA form 21-526 easy if you have filed for it before and been denied and it's
been more than a year since your last decision you'll need to file a supplemental claim with
new and relevant evidence and we have a lot of other blog posts and videos that kind of go into
more detail about that but just something to keep in mind if you are interested in filing a claim
once you file a claim for VA to take action on it one thing that they're probably going to do
is schedule you for a compensation and pension examination so Matt can you talk about what a CMP
exam is and what a veteran can expect to happen during one for anxiety sure so CMP exams are
generally used to establish service connection and if service connection has already been established
they might be used to determine the severity of the condition in order to assign a rating veterans
will typically meet with a VA contracted examiner to discuss their medical history time and service
and their anxiety including the symptoms they're experiencing and the severity of those symptoms
as well when you are participating in a CMP exam it's important to be honest and upfront about how
your anxiety impacts your life relationships job everyday activities that sort of thing and also
it's important to be aware that you can bring somebody with you to the exam if you feel as
though they can offer maybe additional information about your symptoms or what you've experienced
um or just if you don't feel comfortable attending that examination alone you are allowed to bring
another individual with you it's really important veterans must always attend their CMP exams or
notify VA immediately if they are unable to attend those exams failure to attend a scheduled CMP exam
will likely result in VA denying benefits so we cannot underscore enough how important it is to
attend every one of the CMP exams you're scheduled for or at the very least let VA know if you're not
going to be able to make it after attending a CMP exam veteran should always request a copy
of the results of the examination itself and review it themselves to make sure everything
looks accurate with what was discussed with what you said to The Examiner so that's always a good
thing to do at the conclusion of a CMP exam that you have attended that's a lot of really
important information thanks Matt and VA does really look very heavily at the CNP exams when
they're making decisions on claims which is why we're constantly emphasizing how important it is
to attend and to be honest but there is a lot of other evidence that you can submit as well
um especially if the exam is not favorable and you want to get something favorable into the record so
some examples of things that you might be able to submit in support of your claim include light
evidence or statements from the veterans friends or their family or from the veteran themselves
to describe the the symptoms of the anxiety and how it affects their everyday life a lot
of times veterans don't seek treatment for their anxiety symptoms right away just because there's a
lot of stigmatization surrounding mental health diagnoses in general so sometimes having those
lay statements can help to fill in some of those gaps in the medical records to just show when the
symptoms begin and how they've progressed since they started other things that you can add to
the record as evidence include private treatment records if you do actually treat for your anxiety
condition you can also get medical opinions from non-va doctors or psychologists or psychiatrists
to help provide that Nexus link that Bethany was talking about earlier linking your condition to
service or to another service connected disability or just describing again the severity of the
symptoms employment records can also be helpful particularly when it comes to rating your anxiety
disorders and I think that that transitions nicely into our next topic which is how VA rates anxiety
disorder so Bethany can you talk a little bit more about how that reading scale works sure so
VA rates anxiety using the regulation 38 CFR 4.130 and that reading criteria contains ratings of 0 10
30 50 70 or 100 percent so these ratings are based on the level of Social and occupational impairment
on that the psychiatric disability causes so for example a zero percent rating would indicate
that the anxiety disorder causes virtually no impairment whereas a 100 rating states that the
anxiety disorder causes total occupational and social impairment and those other ratings fill in
the gaps between those two uh so anxiety disorders are categorized by its specific diagnostic code
and based on a general formula so this reading criteria is for all psychiatric disabilities the
diagnostic code 9400 is for a generalized anxiety disorder whereas there are additional diagnostic
codes for other diagnoses including PTSD panic disorder depression psychotic disorders Etc and
that's important uh to know uh just because uh typically if you do have more than one psychiatric
disability diagnosed you're only going to uh get one reading either way uh this is because
of pyramiding um so pyramiding is the VA term for reading the same disability or same manifestation
twice VA doesn't do that so for example a veteran who has a diagnosis of anxiety might also have a
diagnosis of PTSD and if VA has conceded that both of those conditions are attributed to the veterans
service the veteran is only going to get one reading for both of them and that's going to be
under the same reading criteria what we will just do is they'll just look at all of the symptoms
of both diagnoses and pick the reading that best approximates the severity of both of them combined
um overall VA doesn't consider the number of mental disorders uh so a veteran could
have a diagnosis of five different psychiatric disabilities and still only get a 10 rating uh
if that's what VA determines the severity of those disabilities uh correlates to uh what V is going
to look at is once they see the diagnosis they're going to look at that reading criteria and assess
the severity and impact of each disorder in order to assign a single comprehensive reading for both
disabilities so we have other cck lives on that reading formula because this reading formula does
correlate to every single um psychiatric diagnosis that you can get service connected for anxiety
disorder is just one of many great thanks Bethany and what happens if you get a decision Matt and
let's say a deny service connection or it Awards a rating that you think is lower than you know
the severity that you believe your condition deserves what are your options from there
veterans have the right to appeal unfavorable decisions from VA as we discussed in in a number
of other videos and blog posts in other words if your anxiety claim specifically is denied
or you receive a disability rating that is lower than what you think you deserve you can disagree
with the va's decision and continue to seek service connection or an increased rating for
that disability under the new VA appeals system veterans can choose from three different review
options or Lanes when filing an appeal those three lanes are the higher level review Lane
the supplemental claim Lane and the notice of disagreement Lane also known as an appeal to
the board of veterans appeals and continuing to pursue a claim through the appeals process
allows veterans to preserve their effective date and might even mean more retroactive benefits in
the future so again we have a lot of other videos and blog posts on those three lanes but just to
touch on it briefly those are your main options if you disagree with the decision from the VA
thanks Matt and as always if you're not sure which lane is the most appropriate it's always
a good idea to reach out for help um through veteran service organization organization or
an accredited representative or attorney they can always guide you in the right direction
and sort of let you know what appeal option might be best for where you are currently
um but I think that's a good place for us to wrap up today thank you both Bethany and Matt
for all of the helpful information as always you can check out our other YouTube videos or
visit our blogs for more information and thank you for joining us today foreign
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