Can You Be Rated At 100% Comp And Still Have Be

[jecsb4]

All,

I have a question that I don't remember comming across. Can you be rated 100% by the VA and still allowed to have a job? Or do they expect you to not work, because you are rated at 100%

I am not sure what the other issues arise with 100% such as IU.

Thanks,

Joe

[Jay Johnson]

And none of that applies to mental illness because, as has already been listed, mental illness falls under its own guidelines. When an RO rates someone for PTSD they specifically cite that criteria (word for word) in their reasoning for denying/approving your claim and if you are not TOTALLY occupationally and socially disabled you DO NOT MEET THE 100% CRITERIA.

This is a well established precedent in the VA and I'm sure the other 99.9% of folks on hadit agree. If you work with a 100% PTSD rating consider that money gone upon the next evaluation, period.

Mental illness has its own ratings criteria and there is nothing in it about "averages", nor are there any exceptions (it does not say occupational *OR* social; it says occupational *AND* social).

I'll repost this for you since you seemed to keep missing the point:

100 %

Total occupational and social impairment, due to such symptoms as: gross impairment in thought processes or communication; persistent delusions or hallucinations; grossly inappropriate behavior; persistent danger of hurting self or others; intermittent inability to perform activities of daily living (including maintenance of minimal personal hygiene); disorientation to time or place; memory loss for names of close relatives, own occupation, or own name

Now, show me another ratings criteria that has such specific guidelines and includes the term "total occupational impairment"? Just one....anything? Please?

[timetowinarace]

I am rated under that schedual. 100% P&T. But I don't have PTSD. I have dementia, cognative dissorder due to brain trauma. I have average intelligence but think slowly. I do NOT have total social impairment. Social impairment is not even mentioned in my rating.

You are the one that does not get it. The schedual for rating mental dissorders is not limited to emotional dissorders. A person with dementia due to stroke or disease can be quite occupationaly impaired but very fun to be with. Or someone with an emotional impairment may be very hard to be around but quite intelligent.

the serial killer that kept women in his basement, I cannot remember his name, recieved 100% disability from the VA for schitzophrenia (spelling of course) yet made over a million dollors in the stockmarket. Many people questioned why he was recieving comp but he had been in and out of mental facilities often and had met the schedual for 100%. The serial killer part pretty much explains his social imariment.

You are very knowledgable but on this issue your refusing to see whole picture. I've shown you the codes. Another has said he has done it. Your version would leave brain damaged persons such as myself with no way to win. But we do. How is that?

Time

Edited June 17, 2007 by timetowinarace

[Jay Johnson]

Dementia and cognitive disorders are viewed as physical disorders by the VA and fall under a different ratings criteria. This thread is about PTSD (at least I thought it was) and, as such, you cannot work with that "mental" disorder. Also, schizo is a different beast as well and is deemed as chronic no matter what (whereas many would have us believe PTSD can get better). On top of that, gains in the market are not "gainful employment" no matter how much money you make, because one can earn 5 million one year and lose 6 million the next....it is NOT a fulltime job and is anything but secure employment.

I think you're trying to conflate a lot of different things into the typical category that folks with PTSD fall into. When someone gets an award (or denial) for PTSD they cite the ratings criteria word for word....it is followed to the letter.

Edited June 17, 2007 by Jay Johnson

[Stretch]

Common sense tells me that if I work in my present mental condition, at the type of work that I did, I would probably cut my hand half way off and rip my arm out of the socket.

Now you don't have to do this at home. I already did it on the job in 2001. Just take my word for it.

[Navy Spook]

Had I known such a fuss was going to be made I would have checked back sooner.

Here is my situation. I argued to the BVA that an "average person" would be "totally impaired", and they agreed with me. Then I showed that I had held multiple jobs since I was medically retired 18 months previously. I argued that this demonstrated a general inability to maintain employment. They agreed.

Now I couldn't get a DAV rep to assist me with my request for an increase from 70% to 100%. They told me to "leave well enough alone" and said I would "probably get a reduction". I was unemployed and in and out of hospitals at the time I filed my NOD.

My case didn't get to the Board (BVA) until approximately 5 years after I had been retired. At that time I had been employed almost 2 years at the same place. I wrote to the BVA and disclosed my employment. I argued that my employment was unique in nature, I showed repeated hospitalizations and continuous medications while employed. (I just had an employer that allowed me long absences from my job.)

Vincent van Gogh was a prolific painter during the period he sliced his ear off and was hospitalized, all the way until he shot himself in the chest. He was a total wreck "occupationally and socially" yet still very, very productive.

There are numerous "mental" disabilities, and an infinite number of job variations and possible accomodations. I was lucky to find employment at the time, but I haven't been able to work for over a decade and I am having real problems raising my children on what the VA pays in compensation.

(And 38 C.F.R. 4.1 does apply to mental disorders. search the BVA decisions.)

Also, 38 CFR 3.340 was part of my appeal:

(3) Ratings of total disability on history. In the case of disabilities which have undergone some recent improvement, a rating of total disability may be made, provided:

(i) That the disability must in the past have been of sufficient severity to warrant a total disability rating;

(ii) That it must have required extended, continuous, or intermittent hospitalization, or have produced total industrial incapacity for at least 1 year, or be subject to recurring, severe,

frequent, or prolonged exacerbations; and

(iii) That it must be the opinion of the rating agency that despite the recent improvement of the physical condition, the veteran will be unable to effect an adjustment into a substantially gainful occupation.

Due consideration will be given to the frequency and duration of totally incapacitating exacerbations since incurrence of the original disease or injury, and to periods of hospitalization for treatment in determining whether the average person could have reestablished himself or herself in a substantially gainful occupation.

Edited June 17, 2007 by Navy Spook

[timetowinarace]

Dementia and cognitive disorders are viewed as physical disorders by the VA and fall under a different ratings criteria. This thread is about PTSD (at least I thought it was) and, as such, you cannot work with that "mental" disorder. Also, schizo is a different beast as well and is deemed as chronic no matter what (whereas many would have us believe PTSD can get better). On top of that, gains in the market are not "gainful employment" no matter how much money you make, because one can earn 5 million one year and lose 6 million the next....it is NOT a fulltime job and is anything but secure employment.

I think you're trying to conflate a lot of different things into the typical category that folks with PTSD fall into. When someone gets an award (or denial) for PTSD they cite the ratings criteria word for word....it is followed to the letter.

Now I've lost faith in your advice.

ALL mental conditions, by INJURY OR DISEASE are rated under the rating scale for mental dissorders. The only reg you've quote from.

For rating purposes, Dementia of any kind, PTSD, Anxiaty, Depresion, Bi-polar, schizo, and a whole host of others are rated under the SAME SCALE.

Also, re-read the thread. The subject is can you be rated at 100% and still work. Some said for physical not mental problems. No one singled out PTSD.

I agree that it is VERY unlikely that someone with PTSD, Depression, Anxiaty will get a 100% award and keep it while working. But mental disorders of all kinds, even those that are physically caused, are rated under the same scale, and are no different to physical dissabilities under the Law.

Please read ALL of section 4. And show me the rating scale for dementia. After all it was psych C&P's that got me the rating. Nobody tapped on my leg with a little hammer and said 'your brains not working right'.

Time