70% PTSD VA Rating: What it Means and How to Qualify
CCK Law: Our Vital Role in Veterans Law
Video Transcription
Jenna Zellmer: Welcome to CCK Live Under 5:00. I am Jenna Zellmer. Today, we are discussing the 70 percent rating for PTSD.
PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder. It is a mental health condition that can occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a distressing, shocking, or otherwise traumatic event. Many veterans experience PTSD related to their military service, and their symptoms can often be very debilitating and have a negative impact on their individual or their daily life.
When rating PTSD, VA will consider the frequency, duration, and severity of their symptoms along with the resulting level of social and occupational impairments. VA uses something called the general rating formula for mental disorders. That rating scale ranges from 0 to 100 percent ratings with 10, 30, 50, and 70 as the in-between ratings.
A 70 percent rating is what we are talking about today. That is characterized as occupational and social impairment with deficiencies in most areas, including work, school, family relations, judgment, thinking, or mood. This rating is the most inclusive and it represents a wide array of symptoms, and it is a progression of the symptoms included in the lower ratings.
A veteran who receives a 70 percent PTSD rating suffers from similar symptoms to those that are included in the 50 percent rating, but at a higher frequency, severity, or duration.
For example, some 70 percent symptoms include a near-constant state of panic or depression that affects your ability to interact with others, trouble controlling your emotions in a way that leads to violent outbursts or conflict with others, occupational and social impairment causing an inability to hold down a job or complete classes for school.
It is important to note, though, that an inability to hold down a job is different than an inability to engage in substantially gainful employment, which is the key criteria for entitlement to TDIU. We find often that when the board or VA denies you a 70 percent rating for PTSD, they are actually employing a higher standard and they are applying that standard for TDIU. So, it is really important to keep an eye on that.
Other symptoms include engaging in obsessional rituals such as checking the locks on your doors multiple times at night. Neglect of personal hygiene and appearance is also one of the listed symptoms.
It is important to remember that these are all examples. You don’t have to exhibit all these symptoms or really any of them as long as you have similar symptoms that result in the same level of impairment. So, you can still receive a 70 percent rating if you don’t have those symptoms, and as I have mentioned before, entitlement to TDIU.
If your PTSD prevents you from working completely, you might qualify for TDIU. This is a VA benefit that allows veterans to be compensated at the 100 percent level if their service-connected condition prevents them from securing and maintaining substantially gainful employment. So, even if you are schedularly rated at 70, you can get paid at a 100 percent level.
A 70 percent rating for PTSD would qualify you for what we call schedular TDIU. TDIU is really its own separate topic, and I would encourage you to check out our blogs and our other videos about TDIU. But schedular TDIU for this video is necessary for you to know that it is just a little bit easier to get than what we call extraschedular TDIU.
As I have mentioned, for more information on PTSD ratings, TDIU, and a lot of other veterans topics, please make sure to check out our videos, visit our blog, and please subscribe to our channel. Thanks for watching, and I hope this helps.
