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welcome to cck live my name is AlysePhillips and I'm joined today with my colleagues Matt
Fusco and Sam Augustine today we are going to be talking about VA ratings for depression and
PTSD so let's get started by just talking a little bit about what depression is depression
is a mental health condition for which many people including veterans suffer it is going
to affect the way that people think feel act and Associates with common symptoms such as
feeling sad worthless hopeless it can cause a lack of motivation or interest in activities
that usually would bring a person pleasure it can cause a difficulty with sleeping and
concentrating it can cause a change in appetite it can even bring about irritability and fatigue
on the flip side Matt can you tell us a little bit about what PTSD is sure so PTSD
or post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental health condition that occurs as a result of
experiencing a distressing shocking or otherwise traumatic event unfortunately many veterans do
develop PTSD from events they witnessed or experienced during their military service
and some symptoms and severity of PTSD can vary from person to person but they do commonly include
things like re-experiencing the traumatic event through intrusive distressing Recollections of the
event flashbacks and Nightmares emotional numbness and avoidance of places people and activities that
are reminders of the trauma or the traumatic event increased arousal such as difficulty
sleeping and concentrating feeling jumpy and being easily irritated and angered as well
veterans may be eligible to receive VA disability benefits for PTSD if the experienced a traumatic
event during service and now have symptoms as a result this traumatic event or incident that
caused the veterans PTSD is known to the VA as a stressor veterans can have multiple stressors
which can come in various forms to provide some examples something like exposure to Great Peril
such as death or injury the threat of great Peril or sexual trauma or threats of sexual
trauma we do have a lot of other in-depth videos and information about PTSD and depression so
feel free to check those out on our blog and our website as well thank you yeah so that stressor
piece is really one of the biggest distinguishing factors I think between depression and PTSD but
Sam let's talk a little bit about that how they are can be similar can you tell us about
how it's they're both rated sure so although the requirements for service connection as you
mentioned at least in that are slightly different when it comes to PTSD and depression the way event
the way the VA evaluates the conditions for rating purposes is exactly the same specifically aside
from eating disorders VA rates all mental health conditions using the same diagnostic criteria
so for example mental health conditions can be rated as at zero percent 10 30 50 70 and
up to 100 using va's general rating formula for mental health disorders now those can be found
under title 38 of the code of federal regulations and that's under Section 4.130 now these ratings
are based on the level of Social and occupational impairment at the mental health condition results
in as well as the frequency duration and severity of those mental health symptoms and also for your
reference the diagnostic code for PTSD is numbered as 9411 and the diagnostic code for depression is
typically you know listed under 94 or 34. now it's important to remember that a veteran does
not need to have every symptom listed in each of the rating criteria in order to receive that
rating so for example a veteran doesn't need to have every listed symptom and say the 50
rating to be entitled to a 50 rating and that's because a court of appeals for veterans claims
case called Mauerhan v. Principi established that the symptoms listed in diagnostic code 9411 are
not intended to constitute an exhaustive list but just rather serve as an example
of the type and degree of symptoms or their effects that would justify a particular rating
thank you and because of these similarities we really do see an issue with what's something
that's called pyramiding which means that if you have both a diagnosis for depression and for PTSD
you're likely not going to get separate disability ratings for both of these conditions since there
are so many overlapping symptoms VA regulations do strictly prohibit being basically compensated
twice for the same symptom so if your PTSD causes insomnia and your depression also causes insomnia
you're not going to get two different ratings for those that said you can still file two separate
claims for depression and PTSD there might be some symptoms that are not contemplated by both
conditions but usually we do see those conditions kind of combined and rated all as one psych
disability and looked at under that regulation 4.130 so let's talk about some other ways that you
can get rated for PTSD and depression Matt can you tell us a little bit about temporary total ratings
yeah so if a veteran is hospitalized for 21 days or more due to their PTSD or depression
they may be eligible to receive a temporary total rating of 100 percent in order to qualify for
a temporary hospitalization rating veterans must be receiving treatment at a VA Medical
Center or another VA approved Hospital now if a veteran is assigned a temporary hospitalization
rating their effective date will be that of when continuous hospitalization began so the
day that you were admitted into the hospital benefits will continue until the last day of
the month in which the veterans stop receiving treatment for their service connected condition
thanks Matt and Sam that's going to wrap up what we have for you today on VA ratings for
depression and PTSD to learn more about VA claims for mental health conditions including the type of
evidence that you need to submit and how mental health CMP exams work check out our other videos
be sure to like this video And subscribe to our channel to stay tuned thanks for watching [Music]
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