New Requirements to Acquire VA Disability for PTSD

As many of you know, my retirement has been, well, interesting, and there has been nothing more interesting than dealing with the VA section for disability claims. They recently granted me a 10% for tinnitus, which got my medical benefits back which the VA tried to take away from me earlier in the year.

But they keep denying claims for hearing loss and PTSD. They are trying to schedule me for a sixth appt to see an audiologist, which I will absolutely not attend. They have all the evidence they need to process that claim, and all they should need to do is look at the fact that I have a 30% hearing loss in each ear to approve it. So far they have not.

The claim for PTSD, however, has gotten even harder to navigate, and that is now because the VA says your case has to fall within guidelines set forth DSM-5-TR, which is "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders." See link below. Basically, that's a book put together by over 100 psychiatrists that provide guidelines for what is PTSD and what is not. Yep, you heard that correctly. The VA is now outsourcing who tells them what is PTSD and what is not.

To say I am angry, befuddled, outraged, etc, is an understatement. I remember when there were only two criteria used to diagnose PTSD. Then it jumped to five. Now we are up against 100 psychiatrists and a book in order to prove our claims.

I plan on filing an appeal, and when I do it will not be kind. Of that I guarantee you. But I wanted to put this out to all of you so you will be "forewarned and forearmed" if/when any of you decide to file a disability claim for PTSD.

I admit there’s fraud. No doubt. I think the VA does a tremendous amount of screening in recent years to filter that out.

I knew a LTC who, for his three last years on active duty was on sick call or at appointments nearly every workday. He printed out all of his documentation after each appointment. By the time he retired, his medical file was a measured 13” tall, stacked. I think he had one short deployment early in Iraq. His main issue was arthritis, otherwise generally healthy. He pored through the VA disability manuals one by one and made claims for darn near everything in the book short of traumatic amputations. 100%.

On the other hand, I worked with a dozen or so Soldiers, especially NCOs, who had limbs blown off in combat, burns, missing eyes, missing ears, who declined medical discharge and continued to serve in non-deployment roles in the rear. There was a special Army program Around ‘08 to allow wounded troops to continue to serve. Don’t know if that’s still around or if other services had same? High honor for those Patriots!

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