What are VA Ratings and What’s up with the Way the VA Does Math???
When the VA grants service connection, they assign a rating to the health condition which will be how much the veteran gets paid every month. The ratings are intended to compensate a veteran for how severely a condition effects their ability to work. For example, if the VA rates a veteran at 50% for migraines, that’s their way of saying they think migraines impact work about 50% of the time.
The ratings are all contained in the Code of Federal Regulations and are divided by type of condition. In other words, all of the orthopedic ratings are in one section, mental health in another, and so on. If the VA assigns a rating that is too low, it can be appealed. To figure out how much a rating translates to in terms of a monthly benefit, you can consult the ratings table for whichever year we’re in, by following this link: https://www.va.gov/disability/compensation-rates/veteran-rates/ There are going to be variations in that monthly amount depending on if a veteran is married and has children.
Sometimes a veteran will say, “what the heck Catherine my ratings add up to more than 100 but the VA says I am only at 80% and I am getting the 80% amount each month?!?!” What I say to these kinds of questions is “yeah I know it’s because it’s the way the VA does math, which is not like normal human person math.” Instead, the VA combines numbers (ratings) and that’s how they figure out a veteran’s total rating. Say a veteran has the following ratings: 50% for headaches, 10% for tinnitus (ringing in the ears), 30% for depression, 50% for sleep apnea. If you did normal human person math, these ratings would add up to 140%. But the way the VA does it, the total rating here is 90%. Yeah I know it makes my head hurt too.
There are also maximum ratings for certain conditions such as tinnitus which, regardless of one or both ears or how bad it is, is 10%. The most anyone can get for migraines is 50%. There are many other examples. The goal is to get every veteran the maximum rating so they ultimately combine to 100%. Questions? Reach out to Catherine Cornell at the Veterans Practice.