Secret to Passing Your VA Mental Health C&P Exam

Secret to Passing Your VA Mental Health C&P Exam

in today’s video we are going to demystify CMP examinations for mental health conditions and I’m going to essentially give you the secrets to how I prepare my clients for their own mental health CMP examinations my name is attorney Greg Raa I’m joined by my wife attorney Raa let’s get into it all right let’s go ahead and start with the purpose of a CMP exam yeah so CMP stands for compensation and pension examination and the purpose kind of depend depends on if you’re already service connected for something and you’re just trying to get a higher rating or if you’re making your claim for service connection but generally a CMP exam is going to involve three things one The Examiner is going to confirm whether you have a diagnosis of the disability you’re claiming they’re going to then assess the severity of your symptoms and then three if you’re claiming service connection they’re going to give an opinion as to whether your disability is related to military service who gives the CMP exams as far as like are they doctors no they’re not always doctors so for mental health it’s it’s always going to at least be a psychologist probably 99% of the time they could also use a psychiatrist but psychiatrists don’t make enough money doing C CMP exams so usually it’s a psychologist and traditionally these exams were performed by VA psychologists people that worked at VA treatment centers and over the past couple years va’s moved almost EX exclusively to using third-party contractors a lot of us will be familiar with like VES or QTC or lios these are giant Government Contracting companies they do a lot of work in the defense industry and so they’ve contracted with VA and these Contracting companies employ private psychologists to do these exams do you think that shift is positive or negative I am not a fan of it it’s turned into how can these Contracting companies make as much money as possible and like any giant Corporation the way they do that is they pay their employees as little as possible and so the examiners that are doing these exams now you know they may be making $150 and they’re incentivized to work as quickly as possible and so I I hate to say this but a lot of these examiners are kind of bottom of the barrel examiners you know they’re they’re the cheapest people out there that these Contracting companies can get I’ve heard horror stories so I just had a client tell me that one of her CMP exams was like in the back of a tattoo parlor so yeah I’m not a fan of it I I personally preferred when you wouldd go to the VA Medical Center and You’ talk with a VA employee some people thought you know VA employees are biased because you know they’re being paid by the VA right but so are contractors they’re paid by the VA True um and at least you’re not getting your CMP exam in the back of a tattoo parlor okay so the idea that you’re treating physician or your primary care physician is the one who’s performing this exam is completely false well yeah even when the VA was doing it it would have never have been your treating provider doing that it that’s never been the case yeah no they get they get someone who doesn’t know you who’s not been treating you that’s who conducts the examinations sometimes psychologists sometimes psychiatrists almost always third-party contract employees yep and they’re this this is somewh new too but they’re doing them now over the telephone and video so 5 years ago you would always do an in-person exam often times mental health CMP examinations now are being conducted over video and telephone not a huge fan of the telephone because I think you can tell a lot through body language and if you’re just on the phone the examiner can’t see you so generally and sometimes you have options so if if you want to do it remotely I would I would at least do the video I I think it’s important for the person to see you I think they can appreciate your symptoms more andan you can you can see someone’s anxious through their body language or just watching them sit silent versus hearing them on the phone silent you don’t know if they’re distracted or if they’re nervous or angry or whatnot yeah okay so in the exam what would you say as far as ratings go so the veteran going to the exam what are the most important areas to focus on that the examiner should bring up but if they don’t that you should bring up as always with any disability but especially with mental health you know the rating schedule is designed to compensate you for loss of earning capacity one of the most important areas is how your mental health condition impacts your ability to work and that doesn’t mean that it makes you unable to work just means that it might cause issues and they don’t they don’t have to be crazy issues you don’t have to have assaulted your boss it can be it can be as minor as your supervisor gives you feedback and because of your PTSD you get irritable when you get feedback and you don’t even say anything but in your head you’re like thinking about it and that’s distracting you from work and maybe you’re only doing 80% as good as a job and no one even notices like your bosses don’t notice that’s still an impact on your work so it could all be in your head not that it’s fake it’s just that no one else sees it but your work output is less it’s not as good because you know someone gave you feedback and now you have anxiety and you’re thinking about it and you’re distracted really take a hard look at work and be like you know is every day perfect or does my PTSD sometimes make me a less effective worker you need to explain that to the examiner you know like I said these these examiners are somewhat motivated to go as quickly as possible don’t let them just have you give like one sentence like oh you know sometimes I have issues at work that’s not good enough you you want to go into detail you want to give examples you want to give context yeah context is really huge with you and you always recommend that people if they’re explaining a symptom give an actual example of when that happened so if they’re explaining that they’re irritable at work like you want them to go into a time that their irritability was demonstrated in front of other people or or they themselves felt it and by describing the incident right yeah exactly you don’t want to just say sometimes I’m irritable at work the examiner is probably not even going to write that down you want to say that and follow it up you know two months ago this happened and tell them exactly what happened and how it affected work and so let’s say somebody has a ton of examples because they get into some almost daily at work or weekly at work how much it’s too much I mean yeah you can’t you’re not going be able to tell them everything but you know pick significant two or three events you know the more recent the better uh when you know for mental health exams you know symptoms wax and Wayne some days are good some days are bad it’s not it’s not about how you’re doing at the moment of the exam so I I generally tell our clients to think back over the past year onto some of your worst days because because VA is supposed to rate you based on how bad it gets how good you are on your best day how you’re doing on the day of the exam but how bad it gets so a good exercise to think back over the last six months to a year pick that day when your symptoms were just terrible kind of pretend like it’s that day when you’re at the exam you talk about this a lot too just the importance of openness and honesty when you’re dealing with your CMP examiner but I want to talk about the importance of like not painting yourself in the best light everyone’s natural tendency especially when you’re talking with a stranger someone you’ve never met before is to kind of shade things in the best light and if if you do that at a CMP exam for your mental health condition you’re just going to sabotage yourself because VA is not going to know how bad your symptoms are if if you don’t tell The Examiner how bad it gets VA is not going to assume it on your behalf and these exams are tough you know I’ve been through three or four PTSD CMP exams and you’re in a room talking with a stranger uh about embarrass intimate parts of your life you know it’s almost like you’re going through a laundry list of how you’re a failure in your life and you’re it’s not fun and people don’t like doing that you have to do it that’s the purpose of the exam if you don’t tell The Examiner again they’re not going to assume it on your behalf and it’s not going to make it into the report and you’re going to get a rating lower than what it should be and there’s also this Natural Instinct with a lot of people who if they’re only talking about the negatives and where they have challenges or complications they feel almost like it’s untruthful if they also have good days or they also have successes at work and so you have to just mentally prepare yourself for the reality that the successes aren’t discounted because of these challenges that you have but that’s not the point of the exam and it’s not relevant for the exam yeah that’s great advice because you you feel like why am I just talking about all these bad things and it feels like you’re like trying to cover up the good things exactly like you’re try you’re like purposely omitting it or you’re trying to hide the fact that you also do a good job sometimes yeah that’s hard to get over because it feels unnatural it feels like you’re just like I’m just focusing on the bad things but that’s literally the point of the exam exactly that’s what that’s what it has to be and you can mention the good things but again you have to talk about the bad things should you mention the good things I I think so I have I have a wonderful wife she’s very supportive those are good things but then you follow it up with these are the problems you know I I snap at her or you know you can say you know good thing and then follow it up with examples of how bad it gets on the bad days all right I wanted to talk a little bit about the concept of suicidal ideation it’s um it’s something that I personally was really confused by and just had a misunderstanding of what it means as I understood it that meant someone intended to follow through or had a plan um and it’s it’s a lot bigger than that so will you talk about it at least in terms of the VA world what suicidal ideation means as far as ratings is concerned yeah and this is really important because in a in a court case called Bankhead V schulen courts held that the symptom of suicidal ideation alone can support a 70% rating so if that’s the only symptom you had you could still get a 70% rating and most people like you think that suicidal ideation has to be severe that you’ve made an attempt or you have a plan or you’re calling the hotline and it doesn’t uh you know what I tell my clients is it’s any thought of suicide or death at all no matter how minor how fleeting that still counts you know I tell my clients like you know example use you get in a fight with your spouse and the next day you’re feeling bad and you have a two-c thought that she’d be better off if I were dead that’s suicidal ideation and when the examiner asks you if you ever have those thoughts you should say yes now people’s concerns are that it potentially may get Baker acted which means you get put on a psychiatric hold that’s not going to happen unless the examiner thinks you are a imminent threat to yourself that you know you’d have to convince the examiner that you’re going to get off the exam and harm yourself as far as weapons and guns that’s a more difficult issue you know a lot of that’s regulated by States you mean your access to them so if you were to have firearms at home and you’re concerned that could be taken and locked up I’ve never heard of that happening you know I don’t think there’s any mechanism with any state where VA would report the results of your CMP exam to the state for that to happen but you know state laws change all the time you know I can’t really give advice on that you know I guess I guess the question people ask to ask themselves is you know Firearms or financial well-being what’s more important to them and that you know that’s everyone’s personal choice but don’t discount suicidal you can tell The Examiner it’s not serious I have protective factors I’m religious I have kids I would never do it but yeah you know when things get bad the thought pops into my head for a few seconds you know I’ve I’ve had suicidal ideation and I wrote it off as I don’t know five or 10 years ago telling you you don’t have those thoughts and you’re like no that stresses me out still to this day I just I’m like I everyone has that thought once in a while but when we get into a fight I don’t think I’m the problem I think you’re the problem so I don’t have those thoughts so yeah so don’t discount that it’s a very important symptom if you ever have the Thought You Should report it that can get you a 70% rating last thing I want to touch on is you go into the exam and you think you have a bad examiner they say something that offends you they gloss over a question that you are trying to give more information you’re super frustrated you fight with them probably not a good idea talk about that in my opinion the worst thing you can do is to like get into it with the examiner and some people might pick the position that like oh well if you have your PTSD that’s going to show like your irritability it just never works out that way like examiners are people they’re biased they get their feelings hurt they can get angry at people and not like you and so my Approach is to try and avoid that as much as possible I don’t see really much to be gained by getting into it with the examiner and some of the examiners suck they don’t look at you at the entire the entire time or they just ask like a list of like yes no questions that seem completely disinterested and and you get pissed but I’ve ju I’ve just seen the way they write these exams when that happens and you can tell like they don’t like the veteran and they’re like kind of writing this exam reflecting that I mean at the end of the day at a c exam you are not the one with the power the odds are against you if you end up getting into it with them and my you know with with our clients I tell them I’m like this this exam is not the end all be all if we get a terrible examiner we’re going to go out and hire an expert and the experts that we use are wonderful um so don’t worry about it you know if you get a bad exam fine we’ll get our own all right what would you say to um a veteran who wants to bring in a family member to the exam with them yeah I get this question a lot from our clients whether they can bring their spouse or parents sometimes so family members people who actually witness your symptoms and deal with it on a daily basis can be extremely helpful and they can remember things and provide a perspective from the outside that you can’t provide and most examiners are okay with that some examiners are not and so I would say if you want to do that ask the examiner like hey I have my husband here you know do you mind if he comes in it’ll just make me more comfortable and he might be able to provide you know some more context about how this impacts my life if they say no back to this thing with don’t fight with them you know accept it and do the best you can but you know like our experts they do collateral interviews with family members so there’s a ton of good information that can be gained from family members it’s just I don’t know some examp ex miners are against it so ask and if they say no you know just move on hire an attorney if you get a bad exam all right so that’s my tips uh for mental health CMP examinations I’ve gone through them myself and this video was essentially how we prep our clients for their exams uh each one of our clients anytime they have a CMP exam we prepare them over the telephone like this whether it’s for mental health or back condition whatever it is but we walk through exactly what the examiner is going to be asking what what’s important for the veteran to focus on and so hopefully you all found this helpful and we’ll help you get through these CMP exams for mental health conditions so if you have a CMP exam coming up just remember use context give examples be open honest willing to share things that are challenging and difficult for you and don’t fight with the examiner thanks for watching today

In this video, Greg and Victoria provide essential tips for veterans preparing for mental health C&P exams, focusing on how to effectively communicate symptoms and maximize VA disability ratings. They cover key topics such as the purpose of a C&P exam, the role of examiners, and how to use context and examples to explain the impact of mental health conditions. If you’re scheduled for a mental health C&P exam, this video offers valuable advice on how to approach the process, stay honest, and avoid common pitfalls.

00:00 – Intro
00:20 – Understanding the Purpose of a C&P Exam
00:58 – Who Conducts C&P Exams?
01:25 – The Role of VA’s Third-Party Contractors
03:30 – Remote vs. In-Person C&P Exams
04:09 – Key Points to Address During Your C&P Exam
06:23 – How to Use Examples Effectively: Finding the Balance
07:15 – Why Honesty is Crucial in Your C&P Exams
09:22 – Should You Also Mention Positive Aspects?
09:43 – Suicidal Ideation and Its Impact on VA Ratings
11:16 – Suicidal Ideation, Firearms, and VA Regulations
12:43 – The Biggest Mistake to Avoid at Your C&P Exam
14:02 – Can You Bring Family Members to Your C&P Exam?
15:06 – Outro

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Gregory M. Rada, Attorney at Law, specializes in VA disability compensation appeals for disabled veterans and Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) appeals for surviving spouses. Mr. Rada gives legal counsel to veterans who are unable to work due to injuries and disabilities sustained while on active duty.
As a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, Mr. Rada, can relate to his clients, and as a disabled veteran, he also has special insight into the disability claims process. His experience was a drawn-out ordeal that took eight years from initial claim to completion, so he understands the consequences of filing a VA disability claim without adequate preparation or legal counsel. In fact, Mr. Rada eventually hired a fellow VA benefits lawyer to bring his appeal to a successful conclusion.
With this unique experience, Mr. Rada sympathizes with those who have to wait years and even decades for their claim to be approved – and strives to help expedite those claims to get disabled veterans the financial support they deserve.