Sorry for jumping in so late, but I was away for awhile. I had originally been rated at 30% for my PTSD and then I appealed it. Once I was scheduled for a new outside appointment I decided to approach it a little differently than I had before.
I realized in my original exam that I had held back talking about certain things. I'm not sure if the rest of you can relate to this, but I usually don't want to sound as affected by my PTSD as I really am. Even in front of a therapist I tend to sugar-coat things. During my appeal exam I decided not to hold anything back.
I had found the same information that Grizzly posted above for the conditions that had to be in place in order to qualify for a higher rating (such as the 70% he mentioned.) I wrote down all of the things that had occurred, or were occurring, in my life that supported those conditions. And then I made the decision to talk about all of those painful things - the broken personal relationships (friends and family,) the jobs I had lost, all the times I was waking my bed partners up at night because of me shouting in my sleep, etc. Some of what I talked about brought me to tears right there in front of the examiner. For once I was being brutally honest about how my PTSD was affecting me. Following that exam my rating was increased to 70%.
If your goal is to somehow make it to 100%, I'll tell you how I accomplished that. You may or may not have heard of that thing called "Individual Unememployability." It's for veterans whose service connections add up to 60% or more and, even though their ratings don't add up to 100%, they still cannot work due to their service-connected disabilities. Here's a link to read more about it:
http://www.benefits.va.gov/COMPENSATION/claims-special-individual_unemployability.asp
Another thing I've learned is that it's very difficult to get our VA doctors/therapists to write convincing nexus letters attesting to our disabilities. I suppose they don't want to bite the VA hand that feeds them. To get around that I spent a year going to an outside therapist. Mind you, I had no insurance so I had to pay for it out of my own pocket. But then I considered it more of an investment than wasted money. Also, I was able to negotiate a sliding scale fee.
My initial application for unemployability was denied (as I had expected,) but by the time that decision arrived I had already been seeing my outside therapist for a year. It was at that point that I had him write a letter which fully supported my claim for 100% unemployability, which I submitted with my appeal. Another year went by and I submitted an updated letter from that same outside doctor. It worked and I was then awarded my 100%.
The difference here is that it was MY hand who was feeding my psychotherapist (doctor,) and not the VAs. Therefore, he was much more comfortable telling it like it is than a VA doctor would have been. If any of you decide to try this, be sure that the outside therapist is indeed a licensed doctor, and not just a counselor.
