Our Nationwide Veterans Benefits Lawyer Explains the Details of Changing a Disability Rating From 90% to 100%
If you were diagnosed with a service-connected health condition, you’ll need to receive a rating before obtaining benefits. Your rating is, at least in theory, supposed to reflect the severity of your disability. However, symptoms and circumstances can change—sometimes much faster than anyone could ever expect.
You may have good options when it comes to raising a VA physical disability rating from 90% to 100%, but the best move may not be the most obvious. Read more to learn about rating re-evaluations or contact Sean Kendall, Attorney at Law, to schedule your initial appointment.
Making Sense of Disability Ratings
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) considers different forms of evidence when making determinations about your rating. Evidence that could affect your rating includes:
- Medical records
- The results from a diagnostic test or a laboratory panel
- Self-reported symptoms and medically-verifiable signs
- Testimony from friends, family members, or coworkers, who can submit statements detailing how a disability has affected and changed you
- Your service records, which can be used to establish whether a disability is service-connected or presumptive.
Before issuing a rating, the VA may pull records from other federal agencies or ask you to attend a compensation and pension examination. After it’s reviewed the evidence you’ve submitted and the evidence it’s obtained, the VA informs you of its decision.
The Department of Veterans Affairs Rating Scale
Every disability rating is expressed as a percentage, with values ranging between 0% and 100%. On the VA’s rating scale, lower percentages indicate lower levels of disability. Higher values, in contrast, indicate higher levels of disability. Ratings of 100% are sometimes termed “total disability ratings,” with recipients eligible for the highest rates of compensation.
Although the rating scale is supposed to be easy to understand, actually making sense of your rating—and corresponding benefits—isn’t always easy. Scores and rates of compensation can be affected by other variables, including whether you have:
- Multiple disabilities
- Preservice disabilities
- A very severe disability or loss of limb
- Dependents, including a spouse, child, or parent
If and when a Veteran receives ratings for more than one condition, their ratings may be expressed as a “combined rating.” Calculating your combined rating is never as simple as adding your percentages together. Instead, it requires either referring to a VA disability table or performing a series of basic mathematical operations in a very specific order.
In either case, the VA will never total ratings—meaning that moving from a 90% rating to a 100% rating could prove much more difficult than submitting a claim for a secondary service-connected condition.
Your Options for Increasing a Rating
At Sean Kendall, Attorney at Law, we want to ensure that Veterans understand all their options for receiving the benefits they fought for and deserve. When our clients say things like, “the long VA forced road march has now come to an end. Thanks again for your kindness, sound sage advice, and expertise in the convoluted VA disability maze,” then we know it was a successful mission. So if you’re trying to improve your rating, here’s what we recommend.
1. Apply for More Benefits
If your current disability rating is 90%, you may be able to increase it to 100% by submitting an additional disability claim or claims. Your claim can be for either of the following:
- Another service-connected condition
- A secondary-connected condition
Since the VA scales individual disability ratings rather than adding them together, a new claim would only increase your disability rating to 100% if it’s rated at 50% or more.
2. Increase an Existing Rating
Your current disability rating isn’t set in stone. If you believe your condition has progressed or that your symptoms have worsened, you can use VA Form 21-256EZ to apply for what the department terms an “increased evaluation of [a] service-connected disability.” You may not need to provide all of the same evidence as in your initial application, but the panel will ask to see compelling “medical or lay evidence” of deteriorating health to assign a 100% rating.
However—you should never rush into a re-evaluation, even if you need the money. If the VA misinterprets your evidence and determines that your condition has improved, your rating might be unexpectedly reduced.
3. Explore Your Eligibility for TDIU
You don’t need to have a 100% disability rating to qualify for “total disability based on individual unemployability.” Even though Total Disability Individual Unemployability (TDIU) benefits aren’t the same as a 100% disability rating, they still pay the same.
You may be eligible for TDIU if you have:
- At least one service-connected disability that is rated at 60% or higher.
- Two or more service-connected disabilities with a combined rating of at least 70%. Of these two disabilities, one must be rated at 40% or higher.
- Difficulty finding or maintaining gainful employment due to a service-connected disability.
Although applying for TDIU requires submitting an application and collecting evidence of unemployability, it’s often easier for veterans to qualify for unemployability-based benefits than to obtain another high-level rating. Trust the team at Sean Kendall, Attorney at Law, to provide you with the right guidance and support on the decision that makes sense for you.