Veterans who have disabilities caused by injuries or illnesses resulting from their military service may qualify for disability benefit payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs, with those payments based on a veteran’s disability rating. However, veterans who have two or more qualifying conditions will receive a combined rating, which may increase their benefit payments and give them access to additional services.
What Are VA Disability Ratings?
VA disability ratings represent a numerical assessment of the severity of a veteran’s service-connected medical condition(s). the VA rates a veteran’s medical condition from 0 to 100. These ratings determine the amount of disability benefits a veteran receives and may also qualify veterans for other disability-related services and benefits offered by the VA and other government agencies. For example, veterans with a sufficiently high disability rating may be eligible for total disability individual unemployability if those veterans cannot work due to their medical conditions. The higher a disability rating that a veteran has, the higher their monthly disability benefit payments.
How VA Combined Disability Ratings Work
Some veterans may have more than one service-connected disabling medical condition. When veterans have two or more qualifying disabilities, the VA must calculate their combined disability rating to ensure they receive benefits that reflect their overall medical condition. However, calculating a combined disability rating involves more than simply adding up the disability ratings for each of a veteran’s conditions since a person cannot have higher than a 100 percent disability rating. Instead, the VA uses a unique formula for calculating the combined disability rating for a veteran with two or more qualifying conditions.
To determine a combined disability rating, the VA will assign disability ratings to each of a veteran’s service-connected conditions. When a veteran has two service-connected conditions, the VA uses a table that provides the combined disability rating for two individual disability ratings. For example, suppose a veteran has one condition rated at 50 and another at 30. Based on the VA’s combined disability rating chart, the veteran will have a combined rating of 65, which the VA rounds up to 70.
When a veteran has three or more service-connected conditions, the VA uses a slightly different combined rating process. For example, suppose a veteran has one condition rated at 70, a second condition rated at 40, and a third condition rated at 20. First, the VA will take the veteran’s two highest-rated conditions – 70 and 40. Based on the VA’s combined rating charge, those conditions have a combined disability rating of 82. The VA then compares that combined rating of 82 against the veteran’s third condition – rated at 20 – to achieve a final combined disability rating of 86, which the VA rounds up to 90. The VA would repeat this process for each of a veteran’s conditions until they have factored all those conditions into the veteran’s combined disability rating.
The Rounding Rule
The VA always assigns individual disability ratings or final combined disability ratings at a factor of 10. However, the combined rating chart can produce numbers not divisible by 10. Thus, the VA rounds the final combined disability rating to the nearest 10, rounding down for numbers ending in one through four and rounding up for numbers ending in five through nine. For example, a combined disability rating of 62 would result in an official rating of 60, while a combined rating of 77 would result in an official rating of 80.
Contact a VA Disability Lawyer Today
When you’ve developed multiple disabling medical conditions due to your military service, you may qualify for increased VA disability benefits under a combined disability rating. Contact Veteran’s Legal Center today for a free, no-obligation consultation with our VA disability lawyers to learn more about the VA’s disability rating process for combined ratings and discuss what benefits you may qualify for.