Common advice: Dress poorly and don’t shower, refuse to sit with your back to the door, and constantly scan the room.
Bva decisions on ptsd how to#
In online forums, veterans trade tips on how to behave in their disability evaluations. That’s PTSD.īecause the diagnosis relies mainly on what patients report, it is easy to exaggerate. In a minority of cases, certain combinations of symptoms persist. But the nightmares, concentration problems and heightened state of alert usually go away in a few weeks. In the aftermath of serious trauma, most people experience symptoms of the disorder. Other research has found little evidence of malingering. In one case The Times reviewed, a woman was awarded PTSD compensation based on breaking her leg in a fall walking to the mess hall.Īs the number of cases has climbed, so has debate over their legitimacy.Ī 2007 study of 74 Arkansas veterans with chronic PTSD, most of them from the Vietnam War, concluded that more than half were exaggerating symptoms. The VA has increasingly recognized non-war-related PTSD as well, extending monthly compensation to tens of thousands of veterans traumatized by accidents - both on- and off-duty - that occurred at the time they were enlisted. After decades of downplaying the psychological toll of war, the government has finally acknowledged the damage and boosted assistance to veterans in need. Though descriptions of the disorder show up in literature as far back as Shakespeare, it did not become a formal diagnosis until 1980, and even then remained controversial. In some ways, the explosion in PTSD cases is a sign of progress. The VA left his disability rating intact. Government policy in cases without a clear answer is to give the veteran the benefit of the doubt. “How can a disability rater honestly rate this veteran?” “This is the dilemma we face,” Moering said. Moering said he could not determine whether the veteran was feigning entirely or simply stretching the truth. The records were redacted to hide names and other identifying information. The case is one of eight that Moering opened to the newspaper. Three tests designed to detect dishonest patients by looking for highly unlikely response patterns strongly suggested that the veteran was exaggerating, according to disability records that Moering allowed The Times to review. The veteran Moering evaluated was already receiving $1,600 a month in disability pay for PTSD as well as various joint problems. Vietnam and the recent wars have fueled the growth in roughly equal measure.įrueh and other critics of the disability system have sparred in medical journals with senior VA mental health officials, who argue that the extent of malingering is impossible to know without more research. The number of veterans on the disability rolls for the disorder has climbed from 133,745 to more than 656,000 over the last 13 years.
Or you can find out more about the VA Legal Process by clicking here.Assessing PTSD becomes even more difficult in a VA system that gives veterans a financial incentive to appear as sick as possible, former and current VA mental health clinicians said. If you need help with claims at the BVA level, please call our office today. If you decide to re-open with new and material evidence the claim(s) effective date will be the date of the re-open and you will lose the original date that you filed along with your back pay.
Bva decisions on ptsd full#
Please note that a full grant, as opposed to a remand, is very seldom received.Īfter a denial you have three options: file a reconsideration with the BVA, go back to regional office and re-open your VA Disability Claim, or file an appeal with the CAVC, U.S. Once further action has been taken or evidence has been obtained, then a DRO will make a decision. When a Board Member issues a remand it is to obtain more information that the regional office failed to acquire or to fix an error made at the lower level. The Board Member may also remand it back to the Regional Office. It is pretty cut and dry you are either granted or denied based on the evidence. Once you get a decision, there are three outcomes from the Board of Veterans’ Appeals: a grant, a remand, or a denial. It can be up to one year after a hearing that a decision is made. First of all, I always like to let them know that it will be a while before the VA gets back to us on a decision. Veteran's Disability Blog What are the Outcomes of a BVA Hearing?Ī lot of Veterans call us after their BVA hearing wanting to know what the Board will decide.
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