I'm feeling very upset and invalidated. For backstory I've been an E4 in the Air Force and been in for 6 years. My MST was in 2021 and I did an unrestricted report. The QTC psychiatrist had me go into detail and my trauma and how it affects me today. A couple weeks later I looked at the document in MHS Genesis and the doctor put that it sounds like "in their opinion, I have an adjustment disorder"... My medboard is on the basis of claiming PTSD (which is in my record) from my MST and they basically invalidated that in this VA document. I'm very scared that this could affect my medboard, or even stop it. I'll take any insight, thank you.
MST: QTC Doc says member does not have PTSD and in "their opinion" it sounds like an adjustment disorder. What does this mean for my med board?
- Thread starter taylorm2017
- Start date
All mental health conditions are lumped together so even if diagnosis changed from PTSD to adjustment disorder it wouldn't make any difference for the outcome. If your mental health condition is unfitting then you will be medically retired or discharged. I would focus more on making sure the QTC doctor checked the appropriate boxes corresponding to your symptoms since that is what will affect your VA ratings. The AF will mirror the VA ratings for any unfitting condition so if your VA % for mental health is 50% then the DOD% will be 50% as well.
This is very helpful, thank you. The QTC doctor seems to have downplayed my condition and it looks like it’s in the 30-50% range. Should I try for a new exam? I don’t feel like this exam was accurate at all
If the DBQ is inaccurate it's best to try to get the condition properly rated. You can go to this link: https://www.vba.va.gov/pubs/forms/vba-21-4138-are.pdf. The form is a statement in support of a claim. You can state that your symptoms reported during the exam were not not properly reported on the DBQ. The best thing is to have a DBQ filled out by your current doctor that you are seeing for mental health. Include it with the statement in support of claim doc. You can upload it to your claim at VA.gov. By doing this the VA has to consider both the QTC doc and your doc and they normally go with your doc since the evidence would be equal weighting for both DBQ's.
If you don't get the rating for the proposed ratings later on you can request if to be changed again through a VARR. Always try to get the correct rating first but know that you have a VARR as a backup to try to get it raised. Since you only have one chance for a VARR that is why I say to try to submit a statement in the support of your claim with a competing DBQ. If you wait until the end then you only have one shot. If you try now to get it correct you then have 2 shots at the same issue.
Thank you so much. I’ll try to have my mental health provider on base do this form. Much appreciated!