Courts View On Gaf

[carlie]

A global assessment of functioning score represents "the

clinician's judgment of the individual's overall level of functioning" and

is "useful in planning treatment and measuring its impact[] and in

predicting outcome." Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental

Disorders 30 (4th. ed. 1994) [hereinafter DSM-IV]; see Richard v. Brown,

9 Vet.App. 266, 267 (1996).

carlie

Edited March 12, 2007 by carlie

[cloudcroft]

The VA needs to state in a denial letter or SOC why they deny a rating increase or whatever else a vet is after. Citing high GAFs is one piece of "evidence" they use. They do NOT give the same consideration to LOW GAFs as these are not cited.

As I said before, high GAFs will hurt your case, low GAFs will help your case but are ignored.

I have written on this issue extensively before.

And since I have not been diagnosed as a paranoid, I don't believe I am in error here or being unfair to the VA. I have seen CONSISTENT citing of high GAFs in my earlier denials yet no mention of low GAFs whatsoever, which has resulted in my coming to the conclusion stated above.

-- John D.

If the VA wants to low ball you on your claim they will find a way. They don't need a GAF to screw you. They are experts at it and have been for years.

Edited June 6, 2007 by cloudcroft

[Jay Johnson]

The VA needs to state in a denial letter or SOC why they deny a rating increase or whatever else a vet is after. Citing high GAFs is one piece of "evidence" they use. They do NOT give the same consideration to LOW GAFs as these are not cited.

As I said before, high GAFs will hurt your case, low GAFs will help your case but are ignored.

I have written on this issue extensively before.

And since I have not been diagnosed as a paranoid, I don't believe I am in error here or being unfair to the VA. I have seen CONSISTENT citing of high GAFs in my earlier denials yet no mention of low GAFs whatsoever, which has resulted in my coming to the conclusion stated above.

-- John D.

I'll have to dig it up, but I'm almost positive that the VA is *supposed* to use the lower GAF as they are assessing your low points and not your high points with mental disorders. However, the reverse almost always seems to be the case, as they routinely ignore low GAFs in favor of the highest reported GAF. I'll look around and get back to you....

[cloudcroft]

In my case I only saw my higher GAFs cited. It was kind of funny in that I told the docs that their high GAFs were going to cause me problems...they looked at me somewhat surprised, like a deer in headlights; either they were completely cluless re: the VA claims process or they were acting.

For example, my usual GAF was a 50 but one doc (a shrink) said, "Because you have a job, I'm giving you a GAF of 55." The thing is I hadn't been to work at that "job" for about 2 years or so, it was "a job" in name only...no benefit to me gainful employment wise or otherwise. So my GAF goes up 5 points just for that.

Later, and sure enough, my denial letters stated something like, "It is also noted that your GAFs were somewhat high, being assigned GAFs of xx and xx." No mention of the LOWER GAFs assigned.

So IME, and although I do agree that GAFs are only a part of the equation, high GAFs are not helpful...unless you really DO feel/act better which is a good thing. But if you're not, they are going to hurt your case.

I wasn't getting better or feeling better so the higher GAFs were IMO erroneous but the raters sure pointed them out to me in their denial letters/SOC as if they were deserved an "honorable mention" at the very least. In reality they were another reason to deny. There wasn't a whole lot of evidence to deny me so the VA seemed to be making the most of what was on the negative side.

This matter is ESPECIALLY important to vets whose cases are in a state of equilibrium -- the evidence for and evidence against a favorable decision is in relative equipoise -- where the benefit of the doubt comes in. In this context small items of evidence -- positive or negative to one's case -- become more noteworthy.

-- John D.

I'll have to dig it up, but I'm almost positive that the VA is *supposed* to use the lower GAF as they are assessing your low points and not your high points with mental disorders. However, the reverse almost always seems to be the case, as they routinely ignore low GAFs in favor of the highest reported GAF. I'll look around and get back to you....

Edited June 7, 2007 by cloudcroft