(calming music)
- Hello, welcome to the Hill and Ponton video blog.
I'm Matthew Hill, this is Carroll Ponton.
We'd like to talk to you today about
service connecting PTSD.
There's a lot that goes into the service connecting
component for PTSD.
We're not really gonna touch on the rating,
but we just wanna focus on how you get the VA
to recognize that your PTSD is related to your service.
There are two different main ways to do this,
you've got what's called "direct service connection,"
and then "presumptive."
With direct service connection, you have to show
that something in service happened, that you have
a current diagnosis of PTSD,
and that incident in service, that stressor,
caused your PTSD.
For years, proving the stressor was the bane
of being of Vietnam veteran's existece, frankly.
They weren't able to show that their PTSD
was related to service, so they could never prove
their stressor.
The VA has taken that away now
for fear of hostile military action or activity.
That helps all veterans that are in a war zone.
And that's a presumptive way, so if you were in a war zone,
and the VA can say that you've had fear of military
hostile activity, then you do not have to show
that you had a stressor, you don't have to go
prove a stressor.
Now, going back to direct service connection,
what does it mean to prove a stressor?
To prove a stressor, you have to have independent
evidence of your own word.
So if you were hit by a car,
car accident, if you have a police report
showing you were in the accident,
that would be independent verification.
If you got into a fight, and you have a friend
fill out a buddy statement, that you were in a fight
and it occurred and you got hurt,
that would be verification.
So that's how you show direct service connection.
Back to the presumptive, this has made
combat veterans lives a lot easier, in that they don't
have to go out and find a buddy, find an after action report
of what happened to them, while they were in a battle.
Now what they just have to do is show that
their PTSD, their mental illness,
is related to that battle, is related to whathappened
in the service.
But of course, there are roadblocks on all of these.
- We are dealing with the VA.
- Exactly.
One of the roadblocks I see,
is again, I spoke to this, proving your stressor.
A car accident, if it was 30 years ago,
might be hard to find a police report,
or the people that you were with,
you might not longer know, or they might now
be deceased.
Those can all be problems in showing direct
service connection.
The theme or the re-occurrence I keep seeing on veterans
who are in a war zone
where they have the presumption that a stressor happened,
again and again, I see our veterans either don't meet
the criteria for PTSD--
- According to the VA.
- Exactly.
- The VA has a list of seven things that you have to show.
And they're seven different criteria.
If you meet all except one, you don't have PTSD
according to them.
And one of the problems is, when the veteran goes in
to have his compensation and pension exam,
a lot of times you're talking about the thing that
may be bothering you the most right now,
and you may forget that you get angry without any reason,
you may forget that you're hyper vigilant,
you may not even think to tell the person
how you get up and check the locks,
when I go some place I have to sit with my back
to the door.
You may forget, I can't be around people,
I don't have any emotional attachment,
I don't have nightmares, there's so many things
that each of these criteria address,
that you have to name one in each criteria in order
to meet their diagnosis.
- And you're not told what the criteria is,
and a lot of times it's even more deceiving than that.
Because most of the veterans we work with
treat for their healthcare at the VA.
And so we see veterans who are diagnosed
by their own VA doctors with PTSD.
And then for a compensation and pension exam,
they go in, and their doctor says
"no, you don't have PTSD."
And by "their doctor" I mean the VA benefits section.
- The examiner.
And this would be despite the fact that the veteran
has complained of each one of these criteria
to his own VA doctor.
- And so that is a big problem we're seeing,
that the veterans are not meeting all the criteria,
and the VA benefits section always takes the word
of the compensation doctor, and not the VA
treatment doctor.
So when you go to an exam for your PTSD,
you have to realize you need to talk about
everything that's going on.
You have to assume that the doctor you're seeing
is not gonna give any weight to your treating doctors.
I just had a case where the veteran was denied
service connection for PTSD, and he was in a VA clinic,
in-patient hospital for PTSD for 30 days,
but the VA would not recognize that.
The other thing we see on that is the VA
misdiagnosing the veteran, or saying
"no, you don't have PTSD, you have alcohol abuse,"
or "you're feigning your symptoms."
They like to use these tests that say
"the veteran is overreacting, he couldn't have had
"this bad of an experience."
It's almost a slap in the face to the veterans we see.
- It is a slap in the face.
- And it's a big problem, because the VA says
"well you're now a malingerer."
And that's what they're labeled with,
and if the veteran didn't have enough problems
already, dealing with the disability that the government
gave them, now they're called a liar on top of it.
It's really pathetic some of the times.
- It's very infuriating, it's not pathetic.
But you need to know that we can get beyond this,
that we see these cases all the time,
and don't leave it where it is.
Please file an appeal, please pursue this,
because you're entitled to these benefits,
and if you keep appealing, if you get the evidence
in the right way, you're going to win.
And you should win.
- And that's a great point that Carroll makes,
unfortunately the way that the system is set up,
it's always easier for the VA to deny
than to grant you benefits.
One person can always deny you the benefits.
To grant you benefits, sometimes it can take
two, three people, to actually sign off on the benefits.
So as Carroll says, keep appealing.
Don't just sit on the denial and think
the government's right.
You are entitled to these benefits.
- Figure out what it is that made them deny you,
so that you know how to...
Sometimes veterans just file an appeal,
and they don't give the VA what they're asking for.
For instance in this one case that I just reviewed,
the veteran needed to talk about one
of the A through F criteria,
that's what they were missing.
- Well in his defense, the VA doesn't make it clear.
- No, he didn't know, but that's why if you know
why you've been denied, it's easier to win.
- So this is our discussion on PTSD service connection,
stay tuned, we will be doing a video soon
on PTSD rating.
Thank you.