Veterans Disability Compensation: Proving the Veteran's Claim for PTSD

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition.  According to the DSM-IV, PTSD is "[T]he development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to an extreme traumatic stressor involving direct personal experience of an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury or other threat to one's physical integrity...[the response to which is] intense fear, helplessness, or horror."

Symptoms

Symptoms include general emotional numbness after a veteran experiences a traumatic event. The Veteran may have guilt about living when others did not. The veteran may have insomnia, flashbacks, depression, anxiety, nightmares or more.  Untreated, PTSD can lead to the heavy use or abuse of drugs or alcohol, and many Veterans with PTSD commit suicide.

PTSD may not appear immediately after the traumatic event.  In most situations, it doesn't appear for months or even years.   Avoiding medical help can also worsen the symptoms or lengthen the time it takes for the PTSD to be diagnosed.  However, whenever a Veteran is diagnosed with service-connected PTSD, he or she is entitled to disability compensation benefits from the VA.

For most Veterans, it can be difficult to prove that the PTSD is service connected. This article, hopefully, will help more veterans seek and receive disability compensation benefits when they have PTSD that results from military service.

Elements Required for a Successful PTSD Claim

As with all things involving the VA, claims for PTSD can be incredibly complex.  However, there are three (3) important things that a US Veteran must be able to show to secure service connection or an impairment rating or disability compensation for his or her PTSD:

1. PTSD Diagnosis

First and most important, the veteran must be diagnosed with PTSD.   Don't expect the VA to be in a rush to get you a mental health exam for PTSD, and even if/when they do, be forewarned that the VA often misdiagnoses or fails to diagnose, PTSD.   If you are experiencing symptoms of PTSD, you can always seek evaluation by a private psychiatrist or psychologist.  Ask the private psychiatrist or psychologist to provide you with a report explaining their diagnosis of PTSD using the criteria in the DSM-IV.

2. Link to Military Service

Second, the veteran will have to prove that the PTSD was caused by military service. This element is known as proving the "in-service stressor". There are two different standards for this element, depending on whether the veteran is a combat or non-combat veteran.   Regardless, the evidence that the Veteran needs to provide must be credible.  Though the VA often expects "corroboration" of the in-service stressor (the statement of a soldier who witnessed the event, for example), "corroboration" is most definitely not the only way to provide credible evidence.  This is where an experienced VA claims lawyer or VSO may be able to help you.

3. Connection Between Stressor and PTSD

The veteran must "connect the dots" between the PTSD and the in-service stressor.  This is the hardest element of the three, and is often the reason that claims for PTSD are denied.  To prove this element, the veteran will typically need credible evidence from a lay expert or medical expert to the effect that the in-service stressor was a "contributory factor" to the PTSD.

Lastly, if you are a soldier getting ready to deploy overseas to one of our many combat zones (Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere), it is reasonable to expect that you will return from combat with PTSD.   Before you leave to go overseas, visit with an independent psychologist or psychiatrist (i.e., not a military doctor, not your PCP at the base hospital,  but a doctor completely unconnected to the military).  

Ask that doctor to perform a baseline examination for the existence of PTSD.  Keep the report at home with your safe papers, and when you return from your deployment, if you are diagnosed with PTSD, this document will prove invaluable in proving to the VA that the combat service resulted in your diagnosis of PTSD.