VA PTSD Claims
A diagnosis proves you have PTSD. It does not prove where it came from. This page explains what the second half of that sentence actually takes — the stressor rules, the diagnostic criteria, and the reasoning the VA weighs when two doctors disagree.
By Jessica R. Allen, M.D. — licensed psychiatrist and former VA Compensation and Pension examiner
Direct answer
A PTSD nexus letter is an independent medical opinion stating whether a veteran's PTSD is at least as likely as not — a 50 percent probability or greater — related to military service or to a service-connected condition. You do not always need one. If your service records document the stressor, the diagnosis has been continuous since separation, and no examiner has disputed it, the file may already carry the claim. A nexus letter matters when something in the record is missing or contested: an unverified stressor, a gap of years before symptoms surfaced, or a C&P examiner who reached a different conclusion. What decides those cases is not the credential on the signature line by itself. It is whether the opinion walks through the diagnostic criteria and the evidence in the file, one at a time, and shows its reasoning.
What the VA actually requires
Who this page is for. U.S. veterans and service members pursuing a VA disability claim for PTSD or another trauma-related condition, and the representatives who work with them. Brightview Psychiatry Solutions provides independent medical opinions only. We do not diagnose for treatment purposes, prescribe, treat, obtain records, file claims, or represent veterans before the VA.
Why we wrote this, and what we provide
Brightview writes nexus letters. That is the practice, and it is worth naming before you read a word of the rest.
Our position is not that every PTSD claim needs a medical opinion. A meaningful number do not, and Dr. Allen turns those cases away at the consultation rather than taking the fee — if your record already establishes the connection, an additional letter adds cost and very little else. This page is written to help you tell the difference, including in the cases where the answer is that you do not need us.
Definitions
A nexus letter is a medical opinion on causation. In a PTSD claim, it addresses whether the veteran's current condition is at least as likely as not related to a traumatic event that occurred during military service, or to a condition already service-connected.
It is not a diagnosis certificate. It is not a treatment record. And it is not a character reference. The document has one job: to answer an etiological question that a rating specialist is not qualified to answer on their own, and to answer it in a way that survives review.
That distinction matters because of who writes what. A treating therapist's notes are evidence of what a veteran has experienced, how severe it has been, and how it has changed over time. Those records should always be submitted. But treatment notes are written to guide care, not to resolve a legal question about origin, and they rarely walk through the diagnostic criteria element by element or address the alternative explanations a VA examiner will raise. The two kinds of evidence are complementary. Neither substitutes for the other.
In plain terms
The VA is not asking whether you have PTSD. In most contested claims it already accepts that you do. It is asking where the PTSD came from, and whether the record connects it to something that happened while you were in. Those are two different questions, and a diagnosis only answers the first one.
Decision
Not always, and any provider who tells you otherwise is selling. The question is not whether you have a document titled "nexus letter." It is whether your file already answers all three required elements clearly enough that a rating specialist reading it cold would reach the right conclusion.
One further note on the left column. "The record may be enough" is a judgment about your specific file, not a category. A consultation that reviews the actual decision letter and the actual exam report will tell you more than any checklist can, including this one.
The regulation
38 C.F.R. § 3.304(f) sets them out directly. Service connection for PTSD requires medical evidence diagnosing the condition in accordance with § 4.125(a); a link, established by medical evidence, between current symptoms and an in-service stressor; and credible supporting evidence that the claimed stressor occurred.
Three elements, three different kinds of proof. The diagnosis is clinical. The stressor is evidentiary, and it is the element with the most rules attached to it. The link between them is medical opinion. A claim can be denied on any one of the three while the other two are beyond dispute, which is why denial letters so often confuse veterans — nobody said you were not sick.
Two more provisions do most of the remaining work. Section 4.125(a) requires that the diagnosis conform to the DSM-5. Section 3.102 supplies the benefit of the doubt: where the positive and negative evidence on a material issue is in approximate balance, the question is resolved in the veteran's favor.
That is the minimum a nexus opinion has to reach — at least as likely as not, meaning a 50 percent probability or greater. It is not a ceiling. Where the record supports a stronger conclusion, an examiner may properly state that a relationship is more likely than not. What does not belong in a VA opinion is a standard borrowed from somewhere else. "To a reasonable degree of medical certainty" comes from tort litigation; it sets a bar the VA does not apply, and it is not what § 3.102 asks for.
In plain terms
You are not being asked to prove your PTSD came from service beyond doubt. Where the evidence for and against sits in approximate balance, the regulation resolves the question in your favor. An opinion that claims more certainty than the record can sustain is not stronger for it — it is easier to challenge.
Probative weight
This is the part most pages skip, and it is the part that decides contested claims.
When two medical opinions in a file disagree, the VA does not count them. It weighs them. The Court set out the framework in Nieves-Rodriguez v. Peake, 22 Vet. App. 295 (2008): the probative value of a medical opinion comes from the reasoning the examiner gives, whether the examiner was informed of the relevant facts, and how thoroughly those facts were considered. A bare conclusion, the Court said, carries no weight — the guiding factors are the factual premises underlying the opinion and the soundness of the reasoning used to reach it.
Two consequences follow, and they cut in both directions.
First, credentials alone do not win. An M.D. after a name does not make a two-paragraph letter probative. Second, and more usefully: a C&P examiner's unfavorable opinion is not automatically superior to yours. If it rests on a twenty-minute interview, an incomplete records review, and a conclusion without stated reasoning, it is vulnerable on exactly the grounds Nieves-Rodriguez identifies. That is a specific, arguable weakness — not a matter of one doctor's word against another's.
Exhibit A — What separates a weighted opinion from a discounted one
| Factor | Opinion the VA credits | Opinion the VA discounts |
|---|---|---|
| Records | Identifies what was reviewed and integrates it into the reasoning | References records generically, or reviews none |
| Diagnosis | Each DSM criterion addressed against specific evidence in the file | Diagnosis asserted as a label |
| Stressor | Ties the claimed event to the correct § 3.304(f) pathway | Treats all stressors as requiring the same proof |
| Alternatives | Addresses competing explanations and says why they do not account for the picture | Ignores them, and reads as one-sided |
| Standard | At least as likely as not, 50 percent probability or greater | "Reasonable medical certainty," or no standard stated |
| Impairment | Occupational and social functioning described in rating-criteria language | Silent on functioning |
In plain terms
The format of the document carries none of the weight. The reasoning inside it carries all of it. A well-built opinion is not one that sounds more certain than the other one — it is one that shows its work, so the reader can check it.
Dr. Allen offers a free consultation to review your decision letter, C&P exam, and service records, and tell you whether an independent medical opinion would help your claim.
Diagnostic standards
Section 4.125(a) requires that a mental disorder diagnosis conform to the DSM-5. In practice that means a PTSD diagnosis is not a judgment call about whether someone seems traumatized. It is a set of criteria, each of which either is or is not met, and each of which a strong opinion addresses on its own.
Exhibit B — PTSD diagnostic criteria and what the record may show
| Criterion | What it covers | Where the evidence usually comes from |
|---|---|---|
| A — Exposure | Exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence, directly or as a witness, or through repeated exposure to aversive details — the pathway that reaches roles such as mortuary affairs and drone and RPA crews | Service and personnel records, unit records, buddy statements, the veteran's own account |
| B — Intrusion | Unwanted memories, nightmares, flashbacks, distress and physical reactivity to reminders | Clinical interview; treatment notes; family statements about nightmares and startle |
| C — Avoidance | Effortful avoidance of internal reminders, and of external people, places, and situations | Interview, and behavioral history — what the veteran stopped doing and when |
| D — Cognition and mood | Negative beliefs, distorted blame, persistent negative emotion, detachment, anhedonia | Interview; treatment records; collateral report |
| E — Arousal and reactivity | Irritability, recklessness, hypervigilance, startle, concentration and sleep disturbance | Interview; sleep and work history; disciplinary or performance records |
| F, G, H — Duration, impairment, exclusion | More than one month; clinically significant distress or impairment; not attributable to a substance or another medical condition | Longitudinal records; work and relationship history; medication and substance history |
If a veteran’s symptoms are clearly related to a service trauma but do not satisfy every DSM-5 criterion for PTSD, that does not necessarily end the psychiatric claim. Another diagnosis may better account for the presentation, including depressive, anxiety, or other trauma- and stressor-related disorders. This issue frequently arises when a C&P examiner concludes that the veteran has depression rather than PTSD; see what to do when the C&P examiner records depression instead of PTSD.
The key is accurate diagnosis, not forcing the facts into a PTSD framework. When the full PTSD criteria are not met, a clinician should consider whether the symptom pattern is better explained by another condition within the trauma- and stressor-related spectrum. See PTSD versus other trauma- and stressor-related disorders.
Stressor evidence
The evidence needed to prove a PTSD stressor depends on what happened during service.
For many non-combat stressors, the event must be supported by credible evidence such as service records, personnel records, unit records, incident reports, contemporaneous documents, or statements from people who served with the veteran.
This commonly applies to claims involving witnessing a death or catastrophic injury, serious vehicle and aircraft accidents, disaster and humanitarian response, and other traumatic duty-related events.
But VA regulations also recognize several situations in which the veteran’s own statement may be enough, or where different types of evidence can be used. This includes: PTSD diagnosed during service, combat (This issue frequently arises in Iraq and OIF PTSD claims and Gulf War PTSD claims), Fear of hostile military or terrorist activity, Prisoner of war, or Personal assault or MST.
In plain terms
Before anyone argues about whether your stressor is corroborated, the first question is whether one of these five provisions applies to you at all. Veterans routinely set out to prove an event the hard way when a different paragraph of the same regulation would have accepted their own statement — and others assume they have no claim because none of the five fits, when the general rule was available to them the whole time.
Dr. Allen reviews your decision letter, your exam report, and your service records, and tells you directly whether a medical opinion would help — including when the answer is that it would not.
The direction most guidance omits
Almost every article on PTSD nexus letters addresses whether a physical condition can cause PTSD, concludes correctly that it usually cannot, and stops there. It leaves out the other direction, which is governed by 38 C.F.R. § 3.310: a service-connected condition may cause, or aggravate beyond its natural progression, a condition that follows from it.
The mechanism these claims tend to share is not mysterious. PTSD is, among other things, a disorder of a stress-response system that does not switch off. Sustained sympathetic activation, disrupted hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal regulation, and chronically fragmented sleep are closer to a description of the condition than to side effects of it, and the systems downstream of those three are where most of the physical claims come from. The effects of psychotropic treatment are a separate consideration and have to be reasoned through on their own terms rather than folded in.
Whether any of that operated in a particular veteran is a question about that veteran's record, not about the literature in general. Secondary claims fail most often because an opinion asserts a mechanism without running the physiology in the correct direction, or cites studies whose findings point the other way. Under McCray v. Wilkie, an examiner is expected to engage the literature candidly, including the parts that cut against the conclusion. An opinion that quietly omits contrary evidence is easier to discount than one that addresses it.
Each of these pathways has its own evidentiary demands, and each is covered separately:
Chronic sleep fragmentation, nocturnal hyperarousal, and disrupted sleep architecture, with treatment-related weight change reasoned separately.
Sleep apnea secondary to PTSDCentral sensitization, disrupted sleep as an established trigger, and shared neurotransmitter systems.
Headaches secondary to PTSDSustained sympathetic tone and neuroendocrine dysregulation, with the veteran's independent risk factors addressed candidly rather than omitted.
Discuss a hypertension pathwayGut-brain axis disruption and altered autonomic regulation, where the temporal and clinical picture fits.
Discuss a GI pathwayAutonomic dysregulation and psychotropic medication effects, reasoned separately rather than blurred together.
Discuss an ED pathwayA recognized coping response following trauma, claimable secondary to a service-connected psychiatric condition where the record supports it.
Discuss a substance use pathwayTimeline
No. But it is the single most predictable place an examiner will push, so it has to be addressed head-on rather than waved past.
The DSM recognizes a specifier for cases where the full criteria are not met until at least six months after the event. The precise term is with delayed expression, not delayed onset, and the difference is not pedantry — it reflects what usually happened. Symptoms were generally present earlier in some form. What arrived late was the threshold, or the recognition, or the willingness to name it.
A credible explanation of a long gap usually rests on some combination of the following, documented rather than asserted:
There is also a rule worth knowing when the record is simply quiet. In Buczynski v. Shinseki, 24 Vet. App. 221 (2011), the Court held that the absence of evidence may not be treated as substantive negative evidence, and silence counts against a veteran only where the fact would ordinarily have been recorded. Buchanan v. Nicholson, 451 F.3d 1331 (Fed. Cir. 2006), separately holds that lay evidence may not be found incredible merely because it lacks contemporaneous medical corroboration.
In plain terms
Delayed presentation requires more explanation, not less. An opinion that states the delay does not matter and moves on has left the examiner's best argument standing untouched.
Conflicting evidence
An unfavorable C&P opinion does not end a claim. It creates a conflict in the evidence, and the VA must weigh both sides rather than defaulting to its own examiner.
What determines that weighing is the framework above: scope of the records reviewed, depth of the interview, clarity of the diagnostic reasoning, and whether the opinion engaged the full file including the parts that cut against it. A brief examination that produced a conclusion without rationale is exposed on every one of those factors.
The rebuttal has to be specific. "The examiner was wrong" is not reasoning. "Avoidance was never inquired about, and here are the avoidance behaviors already documented in the service treatment records and the spouse's statement" is. The strongest rebuttal opinions read the unfavorable report closely and answer it point by point, rather than restating the veteran's position at greater length.
One structural note. PTSD, major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, and most other psychiatric conditions relevant to these claims are evaluated under the General Rating Formula for Mental Disorders at 38 C.F.R. § 4.130, and § 4.126 directs the VA to consider the frequency, severity, and duration of symptoms along with the resulting occupational and social impairment. A fight over whether the label reads PTSD or major depressive disorder therefore often changes the payment not at all. Before spending months on the diagnosis, it is worth asking whether the real problem is that nobody documented how much the condition affects your work and your relationships. Those are different problems with different fixes.
Failure modes
Rarely because the veteran does not have PTSD. Here is what actually goes wrong, in rough order of frequency.
Two paragraphs, a confident sentence, a signature. This is the template letter, produced at volume, and it is precisely what Nieves-Rodriguez says carries no weight. Length is not the issue; shown reasoning is.
Naming PTSD is not establishing it. An opinion that never walks the criteria gives an examiner who reached a different diagnosis nothing to answer, and gives the rating specialist no basis to prefer it.
"To a reasonable degree of medical certainty" is imported from tort litigation and sets a bar the VA does not apply. The threshold here is at least as likely as not — a 50 percent probability or greater. An opinion may state a stronger conclusion where the record supports one, but it should name the standard it is applying and should not claim a degree of certainty the evidence cannot carry.
Arguing a deployment-related claim under the combat standard when § 3.304(f)(3) would have accepted lay testimony. Treating an MST claim as an ordinary non-combat stressor and never reaching the marker analysis.
General medical literature establishes that a mechanism exists in a population. It does not establish that it operated in this veteran. An opinion built mostly of citations, with the individual's facts thinly attached, reads as a template with a name inserted. We explain why medical literature alone is not enough in a nexus letter.
Service connection and the percentage are separate questions. An opinion that wins the first and says nothing about work reliability, concentration, relationships, or daily functioning leaves the rating to be guessed at — usually low.
On a supplemental claim or appeal, a general opinion about PTSD and service is not responsive. The denial gave a reason. The evidence has to answer that reason.
Qualifications
Diagnosis and differential diagnosis in PTSD are specialized mental health questions, so the training and expertise of the clinician matter. There is no single credential rule that governs private medical evidence, but there is a useful reference point: the standard the VA applies to its own examiners.
The VA's Disability Benefits Questionnaires for PTSD and for mental disorders provide that an initial examination must be conducted by a board-certified or board-eligible psychiatrist, a licensed doctorate-level psychologist, or a trainee under close supervision. Licensed clinical social workers, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, and physician assistants may conduct review examinations only, under that same supervision.
Those rules govern the VA's examiners. They do not impose an identical restriction on every piece of private evidence, and the VA cannot reject an opinion solely because of the author's specialty. What they reflect is the level of training the VA itself treats as necessary to diagnose and opine on these conditions. Under Nieves-Rodriguez, an examiner's education, training, specialty, familiarity with the relevant facts, and the quality of the reasoning all bear on how persuasive the opinion turns out to be.
Exhibit D — The VA's own examiner standard
| Credential | Initial exam | Review exam |
|---|---|---|
| Board-certified or board-eligible psychiatrist | Permitted | Permitted |
| Licensed doctorate-level psychologist | Permitted | Permitted |
| Psychiatry resident or doctoral psychology trainee | Under close supervision | Under close supervision |
| LCSW, NP, clinical nurse specialist, physician assistant | Not permitted | Under close supervision |
What you receive
Free, by phone or secure video. Dr. Allen reviews what you have and tells you directly whether an opinion would strengthen your claim. If the record already carries it, or if the evidence does not support a defensible connection, she says so rather than taking the case.
Service treatment records, personnel records, VA and private treatment notes, prior C&P reports, decision letters, and lay statements — read by Dr. Allen personally. No case is delegated. We do not obtain records or file claims on your behalf.
A structured psychiatric interview conducted by secure video, covering the stressor, symptom onset and course, current symptoms against each diagnostic criterion, medication history, and occupational and social functioning.
The medical opinion stated at the outset; causation and aggravation addressed as independent theories where both apply; each diagnostic criterion tied to specific evidence; the correct § 3.304(f) pathway identified; alternative explanations addressed; and functional impairment described in the language the rating criteria use. Typically 7 to 10 business days.
Written by Jessica R. Allen, M.D., a licensed psychiatrist and former VA Compensation and Pension examiner. One clinic. One psychiatrist. One standard.
Our position
No medical opinion can guarantee a rating, a percentage, or an approval. Any provider who suggests otherwise is describing something they do not control. The VA decides service connection and assigns every evaluation.
What a well-built opinion can do is put a complete psychiatric review in front of the VA where before there was a short appointment and a checklist. That is the whole of the offer. Dr. Allen declines cases where the record does not support a medically defensible connection, because an opinion that overstates what the evidence shows damages the claim it was meant to help.
Common questions
A PTSD nexus letter is an independent medical opinion stating whether a veteran's PTSD is at least as likely as not related to military service or to a service-connected condition. It is an opinion on causation, not a diagnosis certificate or a treatment record. A strong one addresses the diagnostic criteria against the evidence in the file, identifies the applicable stressor pathway under 38 C.F.R. § 3.304(f), addresses alternative explanations, and describes current functional impairment.
Not always. Where service records document the stressor, the diagnosis has been continuous since separation, and no examiner has disputed the connection, the record may already establish service connection. A nexus letter matters most when the claim was denied for lack of a nexus, when a C&P exam was unfavorable or reached a different diagnosis, when symptoms surfaced years after separation, when a non-combat stressor is uncorroborated, or when a physical condition is being claimed as secondary to PTSD.
Under 38 C.F.R. § 3.304(f): medical evidence diagnosing PTSD in accordance with § 4.125(a); a link established by medical evidence between current symptoms and an in-service stressor; and credible supporting evidence that the stressor occurred. A claim can be denied on any one of the three while the other two are undisputed.
It means a 50 percent probability or greater. Where the positive and negative evidence on a material issue is in approximate balance, 38 C.F.R. § 3.102 resolves the question in the veteran's favor. That is the minimum threshold rather than a ceiling — where the record supports a stronger conclusion, an examiner may properly state that a relationship is more likely than not. What does not belong in a VA opinion is "to a reasonable degree of medical certainty," a phrase borrowed from tort litigation that sets a bar the VA does not apply.
The VA weighs opinions rather than counting them. Under Nieves-Rodriguez v. Peake, 22 Vet. App. 295 (2008), the probative value of an opinion comes from the reasoning behind it, whether the examiner knew the relevant facts, and how thoroughly those facts were considered. A bare conclusion carries no weight regardless of who signed it. This works in both directions: an unfavorable C&P opinion based on a brief interview and no stated rationale is vulnerable on the same grounds.
Yes. Combat is only one of five special provisions in 38 C.F.R. § 3.304(f); there are also relaxed evidentiary paths for PTSD diagnosed in service, for stressors related to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity, for prisoner-of-war experience, and for in-service personal assault. Where none of the five applies, the general rule still does: the stressor must be supported by credible evidence, which can come from service and personnel records, unit records, incident reports, or statements from those who served alongside you. Training accidents, vehicle and aircraft incidents, disasters, handling human remains, and medical trauma all support valid claims when the record is developed.
Under 38 C.F.R. § 3.304(f)(3), where a claimed stressor relates to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity and a VA psychiatrist or psychologist, or a contract equivalent, confirms the stressor is adequate to support a PTSD diagnosis and that symptoms are related to it, the veteran's lay testimony alone may establish the stressor — provided it is consistent with the places, types, and circumstances of service. It reaches support and sustainment roles that would not satisfy the combat standard, and it is the provision most often overlooked.
Not from the chronic presence of the condition itself. PTSD requires a qualifying traumatic exposure, and living with tinnitus or orthopedic pain is not one. The event that caused the physical disability may be a different matter — a catastrophic injury or life-threatening medical emergency can itself involve actual or threatened death or serious injury, and may qualify where the DSM criteria are met. Short of that, two things can happen. A service-connected physical condition may aggravate existing PTSD beyond its natural progression, which is compensable under 38 C.F.R. § 3.310(b) and Allen v. Brown. Or the physical condition may cause a separate mental health condition such as major depressive disorder or an anxiety disorder, which is a distinct claim with its own nexus requirement.
Obstructive sleep apnea, headache and migraine disorders, hypertension, gastroesophageal reflux and irritable bowel conditions, erectile dysfunction, urinary frequency, and substance use disorders are among those commonly claimed under 38 C.F.R. § 3.310. The mechanisms most often at issue are sustained sympathetic activation, disrupted neuroendocrine regulation, and chronic sleep fragmentation, along with the effects of psychotropic treatment. Each pathway requires an opinion that runs the physiology in the correct direction and addresses the veteran's independent risk factors candidly.
Yes, and there is no time limit. The DSM recognizes a "with delayed expression" specifier where full criteria are not met until at least six months after the event. A credible opinion explains the gap rather than dismissing it: earlier symptoms present but unrecorded, military or occupational structure holding symptoms below threshold, avoidance suppressing help-seeking, and a later trigger producing escalation. Under Buczynski v. Shinseki, the VA may not treat the absence of records as substantive negative evidence where the fact would not ordinarily have been recorded.
The claim is not over. PTSD and major depressive disorder share most of their symptoms; the two that separate them — intrusion and avoidance — are the two a veteran is least likely to describe to a stranger in one appointment. A criterion-by-criterion review can address that. It is also worth asking whether the label matters in your case: PTSD, major depressive disorder, and anxiety disorders are all evaluated under the General Rating Formula for Mental Disorders at 38 C.F.R. § 4.130, so the diagnosis often does not change the payment. Where service connection turned on the diagnosis, it matters a great deal.
A treating therapist's records are valuable evidence of symptoms, severity, and course, and should always be submitted. But the VA's own Disability Benefits Questionnaires permit only psychiatrists, doctoral-level psychologists, and supervised trainees to conduct initial mental disorders examinations, and an opinion written at that level is harder to set aside. A physician in any specialty is legally competent to opine, and the VA cannot reject an opinion solely because of specialty — but the Board routinely assigns less weight to opinions on matters outside the author's field.
No, and you should be wary of any provider who implies otherwise. The VA decides service connection and assigns every rating. A well-reasoned opinion can strengthen a claim where one is clinically appropriate; it cannot promise a result. Dr. Allen declines cases where the evidence does not support a medically defensible connection.
Brightview works with veterans in many locations throughout the United States and overseas. Whether a records-review opinion, a live psychiatric evaluation, or both are available may depend on your physical location and applicable professional licensure requirements. We will confirm what we can offer for your location during the consultation, before you commit to anything.
By deployment and duty assignment
Most of what is on this page applies to any PTSD claim. But the evidence available to you, and the provision your stressor falls under, depend heavily on where you served and what you did there. A convoy gunner and a mortuary affairs specialist both have valid claims, and almost nothing about how they are documented is the same.
It also matters that a stressor does not require a deployment. Trainees die on ranges and drop zones, ordnance kills on flight decks, and the veteran who was never overseas is frequently the one who assumes, wrongly, that they have no claim at all.
These pages cover the stressor patterns, the records that tend to exist, and the arguments that tend to work for specific deployments and assignments.
Not listed? The absence of a page for your MOS says nothing about your claim. See everything Dr. Allen writes, or raise it at the consultation.
Where to go next
About the author
Licensed psychiatrist and former VA Compensation and Pension examiner · Brightview Psychiatry Solutions PLLC, Wake Forest, North Carolina
Dr. Allen spent three years conducting Compensation and Pension examinations for the VA, and has spent the six years since writing independent medical opinions for veterans. She writes every opinion the practice produces herself, across PTSD, MST, depression and anxiety claims, and the physical conditions that arise secondary to them.
Her work centers on the part of a claim that decides it: whether the diagnosis is demonstrated rather than asserted, whether the stressor is argued under the right provision, and whether the reasoning is laid out clearly enough that a rating specialist can follow it and a Board member can rely on it.
Free consultation, no obligation. She will tell you directly whether a medical opinion would help — including when it would not.
Veterans Crisis Line — dial 988, then press 1, or text 838255. DoD Safe Helpline — 877-995-5247. Both are available 24/7, and you do not need to be enrolled in VA care. More options are on our crisis resources page.
Educational information only. This page is provided for general educational purposes and does not constitute medical advice, legal advice, or a treatment relationship. Reading it does not establish a physician–patient relationship with Dr. Allen or Brightview Psychiatry Solutions PLLC. No outcome in any VA claim is promised or implied; the Department of Veterans Affairs determines service connection and assigns all disability evaluations. Veterans should consult their own treating providers regarding medical care, and an accredited representative, agent, or attorney regarding claims.
Get Started
Share your name, email, and phone. We'll take you straight to the calendar to pick a time.
