IPEB and VARR (Navy, Hawaii)

E

elduerd

PEB Forum Regular Member
Registered Member
Hello everyone,

First off, thanks to everyone who regularly participates on the site. It has been a huge help and really eased a lot of my anxiety about the process. I don't think my PEBLO is bad, but I have had to be more proactive about reaching out to her than vice versa.

I am currently at the IPEB level (hopefully, if they accepted my case, which was signed by the CA and sent up on 3 Feb) and being med boarded for PTSD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Most of it is related to 2 tours I did in Afghanistan. I'm really grateful to the doctor of mine that took the choice from me and said "it's time, you can no longer perform in the way you need to" even though that's very hard to hear.

My question is about potentially submitting a VARR. I did manage to get someone at the VA to send me my proposed ratings which are at 90%. My PEBLO did say that it's pretty freaking likely that the DOD comes back at 30% or greater and that it's time to start preparing for all that retirement entails (we live in Hawaii, so it will be a big move back to the mainland, etc). So with the presumption I do get retired, I have some questions about submitting a VARR. I obviously can't yet see what the VA rated me for PTSD and GAD, but I did go through the mental health DBQ from my VA claim. The doctor diagnosed me with PTSD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Major depressive disorder, and alcohol use disorder. She listed out a lot of the stressors related to these for me (MST, seeing too much from missions like child exploitation, death, etc) but does note that it's essentially too difficult to determine if her diagnoses for all those conditions can be 'separated' since so many of the symptoms of each overlap with the other. However, I did go back in my actual medical record and saw that I was diagnosed with anxiety and panic attacks BEFORE I ever went to Afghanistan. Once I see what the VA actually rated me for all my mental health stuff, as I understand it, I can only request a VARR for whatever conditions I was being "boarded" for....so just the PTSD and GAD, right? I believe my argument would be, either that those conditions be rated separately but with the condition that they do aggravate each other, or that if all my diagnoses be lumped together than that they consider raising my rating as they compound. Additionally, I did not receive anything on my claim about insomnia, which I did claim as a condition, but was never addressed with a DBQ that I can see.

Any help or advice would be super appreciated, as well as opinions on if it is worth it to try to up the 90% to 100%. I am really struggling with feeling selfish thinking of asking for it, as I know there are people that abuse the system, and I've talked a lot about it with my doc. He said, yes there are people that do it, but you NOT asking for what you deserve doesn't fix any of that. I am married with 2 young kids and am very scared that my symptoms will stay bad enough that I will struggle to find and keep work and don't know how I would continue to support my family long-term, and I Know that's the point of disability and to get it up to 100% would be life changing. My doctor initially spoke about it like he couldn't see a way that I wouldn't get to that level, so, just putting this all out there for thoughts.

Thanks friends, stay safe.
 
Hello, sorry for the plain reply but the VA will not separate your mental health conditions. They will be roped together no matter what. Essentially you will always only get one percentage regardless of how many MH issues are claimed.

Edit: and Insomnia isn’t treated as a diagnosis but it’s treated as a symptom of the other conditions. If it can be proven it’s not from the other MH stuff it’s possible, but obviously extremely difficult since it’s a symptom of almost every MH condition.
 
SkylerS said:
Hello, sorry for the plain reply but the VA will not separate your mental health conditions. They will be roped together no matter what. Essentially you will always only get one percentage regardless of how many MH issues are claimed.

Edit: and Insomnia isn’t treated as a diagnosis but it’s treated as a symptom of the other conditions. If it can be proven it’s not from the other MH stuff it’s possible, but obviously extremely difficult since it’s a symptom of almost every MH condition.
Click to expand...
No worries, I appreciate the info as I am learning my way through all of this. If it's typical that they will rope 2/3/4/5 MH conditions altogether then I understand that, I would just be surprised if each of them were moderately severe (say around the 30-40% disabling rate) and yet overall all of the conditions together still only rated 30-50%.
 
elduerd said:
Hello everyone,

First off, thanks to everyone who regularly participates on the site. It has been a huge help and really eased a lot of my anxiety about the process. I don't think my PEBLO is bad, but I have had to be more proactive about reaching out to her than vice versa.

I am currently at the IPEB level (hopefully, if they accepted my case, which was signed by the CA and sent up on 3 Feb) and being med boarded for PTSD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Most of it is related to 2 tours I did in Afghanistan. I'm really grateful to the doctor of mine that took the choice from me and said "it's time, you can no longer perform in the way you need to" even though that's very hard to hear.

My question is about potentially submitting a VARR. I did manage to get someone at the VA to send me my proposed ratings which are at 90%. My PEBLO did say that it's pretty freaking likely that the DOD comes back at 30% or greater and that it's time to start preparing for all that retirement entails (we live in Hawaii, so it will be a big move back to the mainland, etc). So with the presumption I do get retired, I have some questions about submitting a VARR. I obviously can't yet see what the VA rated me for PTSD and GAD, but I did go through the mental health DBQ from my VA claim. The doctor diagnosed me with PTSD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Major depressive disorder, and alcohol use disorder. She listed out a lot of the stressors related to these for me (MST, seeing too much from missions like child exploitation, death, etc) but does note that it's essentially too difficult to determine if her diagnoses for all those conditions can be 'separated' since so many of the symptoms of each overlap with the other. However, I did go back in my actual medical record and saw that I was diagnosed with anxiety and panic attacks BEFORE I ever went to Afghanistan. Once I see what the VA actually rated me for all my mental health stuff, as I understand it, I can only request a VARR for whatever conditions I was being "boarded" for....so just the PTSD and GAD, right? I believe my argument would be, either that those conditions be rated separately but with the condition that they do aggravate each other, or that if all my diagnoses be lumped together than that they consider raising my rating as they compound. Additionally, I did not receive anything on my claim about insomnia, which I did claim as a condition, but was never addressed with a DBQ that I can see.

Any help or advice would be super appreciated, as well as opinions on if it is worth it to try to up the 90% to 100%. I am really struggling with feeling selfish thinking of asking for it, as I know there are people that abuse the system, and I've talked a lot about it with my doc. He said, yes there are people that do it, but you NOT asking for what you deserve doesn't fix any of that. I am married with 2 young kids and am very scared that my symptoms will stay bad enough that I will struggle to find and keep work and don't know how I would continue to support my family long-term, and I Know that's the point of disability and to get it up to 100% would be life changing. My doctor initially spoke about it like he couldn't see a way that I wouldn't get to that level, so, just putting this all out there for thoughts.

Thanks friends, stay safe.
Click to expand...
Its very much worth it to do a VARR on an unfitting condition to raise not only our DOD% but also to move your total VA%. My wife did that even when her DOD% was maxed out because she needed one condition to go from 30% to 50% to change her VA % from 90% to 100%. It helped a ton because that jump changed the amount she would have gotten for CRSC later after getting out.

Just remember that most that get out with mental health will be on TDRL. You can't act like your retired totally yet. Try to keep everything the same. Big improvements such as going to college or working a full time job will trigger the lowering of your mental health rating and then they change it to PDRL and its permanent. I see it all the time where a Soldier does this and at 6 month mark they are working a full time job or going to college. Life seems better. Then they get their rating lowered and put on PDRL. Then 6 months later after that things turn sour and they lose their job or some other major thing happens. Since you are PDRL by this time its tuff crap! Also, make sure to continue mental health sessions at VA. You are not safe when retired via TDRL. Try to keep meds, and everything the same until you get it changed to PDRL.
 
elduerd said:
No worries, I appreciate the info as I am learning my way through all of this. If it's typical that they will rope 2/3/4/5 MH conditions altogether then I understand that, I would just be surprised if each of them were moderately severe (say around the 30-40% disabling rate) and yet overall all of the conditions together still only rated 30-50%.
Click to expand...
Yeah I mean, you could always do a VARR, but there’s also always a chance you could already be sitting at 70% for your mental health conditions. Whatever else you claimed just might not be enough to push the 100% right now until you get out and a VARR might not solve that. Might not be the worst idea if perhaps it was a 50% but not sure if you can see the breakdowns just yet. Of course, you’d be taking the risk of potentially getting the 70% lowered to a 50% instead if they deemed it. The VA math is weird so like 70%+10%+10% isn’t 90%, it is 80% for the VA.
 
elduerd said:
Hello everyone,

First off, thanks to everyone who regularly participates on the site. It has been a huge help and really eased a lot of my anxiety about the process. I don't think my PEBLO is bad, but I have had to be more proactive about reaching out to her than vice versa.

I am currently at the IPEB level (hopefully, if they accepted my case, which was signed by the CA and sent up on 3 Feb) and being med boarded for PTSD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Most of it is related to 2 tours I did in Afghanistan. I'm really grateful to the doctor of mine that took the choice from me and said "it's time, you can no longer perform in the way you need to" even though that's very hard to hear.

My question is about potentially submitting a VARR. I did manage to get someone at the VA to send me my proposed ratings which are at 90%. My PEBLO did say that it's pretty freaking likely that the DOD comes back at 30% or greater and that it's time to start preparing for all that retirement entails (we live in Hawaii, so it will be a big move back to the mainland, etc). So with the presumption I do get retired, I have some questions about submitting a VARR. I obviously can't yet see what the VA rated me for PTSD and GAD, but I did go through the mental health DBQ from my VA claim. The doctor diagnosed me with PTSD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Major depressive disorder, and alcohol use disorder. She listed out a lot of the stressors related to these for me (MST, seeing too much from missions like child exploitation, death, etc) but does note that it's essentially too difficult to determine if her diagnoses for all those conditions can be 'separated' since so many of the symptoms of each overlap with the other. However, I did go back in my actual medical record and saw that I was diagnosed with anxiety and panic attacks BEFORE I ever went to Afghanistan. Once I see what the VA actually rated me for all my mental health stuff, as I understand it, I can only request a VARR for whatever conditions I was being "boarded" for....so just the PTSD and GAD, right? I believe my argument would be, either that those conditions be rated separately but with the condition that they do aggravate each other, or that if all my diagnoses be lumped together than that they consider raising my rating as they compound. Additionally, I did not receive anything on my claim about insomnia, which I did claim as a condition, but was never addressed with a DBQ that I can see.

Any help or advice would be super appreciated, as well as opinions on if it is worth it to try to up the 90% to 100%. I am really struggling with feeling selfish thinking of asking for it, as I know there are people that abuse the system, and I've talked a lot about it with my doc. He said, yes there are people that do it, but you NOT asking for what you deserve doesn't fix any of that. I am married with 2 young kids and am very scared that my symptoms will stay bad enough that I will struggle to find and keep work and don't know how I would continue to support my family long-term, and I Know that's the point of disability and to get it up to 100% would be life changing. My doctor initially spoke about it like he couldn't see a way that I wouldn't get to that level, so, just putting this all out there for thoughts.

Thanks friends, stay safe.
Click to expand...
At the IPEB stage a VARR is usually less about trying to separate every diagnosis and more about whether the evidence already supports the level of impairment you believe is not fully captured. VA almost always combines mental health conditions under a single rating because they are evaluated on overall occupational and social impairment, not each diagnosis individually, so arguing for separate ratings for PTSD, GAD, and MDD rarely changes the outcome. What can matter is whether the DBQ and record clearly describe the severity, functional limitations, and chronic nature of symptoms, especially if something like insomnia or another manifestation was not addressed. A VARR makes the most sense if there is missing evidence, an error, or something materially not considered, not just to try to move from 90 to 100 on principle. It is also not selfish to ask for a review if you believe the record does not reflect your actual level of impairment, that process exists for exactly that reason, but it is worth weighing whether there is new or clarifying medical evidence to submit so it helps rather than just delaying final disposition.
 
koxin222 said:
At the IPEB stage a VARR is usually less about trying to separate every diagnosis and more about whether the evidence already supports the level of impairment you believe is not fully captured. VA almost always combines mental health conditions under a single rating because they are evaluated on overall occupational and social impairment, not each diagnosis individually, so arguing for separate ratings for PTSD, GAD, and MDD rarely changes the outcome. What can matter is whether the DBQ and record clearly describe the severity, functional limitations, and chronic nature of symptoms, especially if something like insomnia or another manifestation was not addressed. A VARR makes the most sense if there is missing evidence, an error, or something materially not considered, not just to try to move from 90 to 100 on principle. It is also not selfish to ask for a review if you believe the record does not reflect your actual level of impairment, that process exists for exactly that reason, but it is worth weighing whether there is new or clarifying medical evidence to submit so it helps rather than just delaying final disposition.
Click to expand...

Thank you, that's a big help. Yes, I will wait to see if I feel like they properly captured the extent to which it affects me overall. I also was never directed to an IDES attorney and when I recently met with Navy Wounded Warrior, they were clearly very annoyed and said, well we really WISH you had been connected with one before your stuff went to the PEB, but you should still contact one now and have them go over the findings with you once those come in. They can also help determine if there's good justification to try to submit the VARR for reconsideration of missing evidence/something not considered. I appreciate you taking the time, and to all the other comments as well.
 
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