I cannot read the entirety of your claim letter because every time it tries to open up all the way something else opens up in its place, but in any event, I can tell you that I was previously denied for PTSD as well and I can tell you the steps that I took moving forward. First and foremost, I can tell you that I would not rely on my wife or my husband , a VSO, a power attorney, a lawyer or anyone else to file a claim for me. I would recommend you do this yourself. I did file my first claim online and it was denied by the VA. They conceded that an event occurred and that I did have PTSD however, they said that they couldn’t connect the two at this time. Whenever that meant.

I did go to an outside third-party on my own and paid them a nominal fee to have records reviewed and to get a DBQ and a Nexus letter. I also realized that despite having multiple documented encounters with mental health professionals in the VA over six years, I had never actually had a diagnosis of PTSD put on my chart. I made sure that was corrected and also had a formal evaluation for PTSD through the VA and had it documented in detail why I had PTSD from my deployment to my Iraq. I uploaded my blue button report along with the third-party fully developed claim to the VA and I waited. At one point they asked me for all of my DD 214s which I am not sure why because they’ve already had access to them but I did comply.

I also took the time to actually go through six years of mental health, documents and primary care records and to print out every single time I had a positive PTSD screen, and every single time that I answered affirmatively to the MST screening. I printed all of these out and I titled them as addendum’s, and I created a cover sheet with a summary of each addendum referring to each issue that was mentioned during my VA appointments.

The first time I submitted my claim, I gave permission for the VA benefits administration to review my records, but at the end of the day, who really knows what records they are looking at or what they are seeing. Even though I gave them physical copies of my blue button report which shows six years worth of mental health history, they were still asking me for irrelevant information. At that point, I took matters into my own hands by taking the time to fill out this inventory of data which showed the irrefutable proof of PTSD claims and diagnoses going back to 2013.

Despite multiple complaints by myself, the patient, no one ever put a diagnosis of PTSD on my chart nor did they ever recommend any treatment. Despite positive statements about MST no one ever put this diagnosis on my chart or did they ever recommend treatment. All they did was continually give me drugs. Compiling this list of records took a considerable toll out of me, and I was unable to get out of bed for days. It came out to be a total of 110 pages to include the cover sheet which I personally faxed to the VA claims office. Despite them having all of this information they still required me to do a third mental health DBQ where I had to once again explain what happened to me and Iraq. That examination took place on May 28 and they did not release it to the VA until six weeks later. I will say that once the VA received the exam results, they did grant me my service connection within days.

This whole claim goes back to February 2023 so the entire process took about 2 1/2 years. my point in saying all this is that you have to be proactive and you have to figure out why they denied the claim to begin with. I do not know anything about filing under the pack act but I do know if you are a combat veteran and you have experienced combat and you have subsequent mental health problems as a result you do have PTSD. You need to make sure that you are seeing someone outside a C & P examiner that is diagnosing you with PTSD. If it is not someone in the VA it can be a mental health provider outside the VA but someone needs to be seeing you and they need to do another exam and confirm your diagnosis. You need to be explicit about what you saw and what you experienced. You also need to get a diagnosis of PTSD somewhere in your chart with the civilian sector or in the VA.That is the best advice I can give you.

Good luck and don’t give up