Hi, I'm Cecilia Ton. I'm an attorney at Woods and Woods.
I'm going to talk to you today about the different types of
service connection available for VA Disability Benefits.
When VA grants service connection for a disability,
it's acknowledging that that condition is related to a
veteran's time in the military. Let's start off by discussing
the most common type of service connection which is direct
service connection. To prove a claim for direct service
connection, a veteran will need to show three elements. First,
that they have a current disability. Second, that there
an in-service injury, event, illness, or incurrence and
third that there's a nexus between the two. Often times, a
veteran will submit evidence of a proof of a diagnosis to
satisfy the current disability element. The second element of
direct service connection is often referred to as the
in-service element. Many times, VA will look to a veteran
service records, both the personnel records and the
treatment records to look for evidence of a disability during
service. In the service treatment records, these are
often notations of pain or an accident that incurred during
service and in the personnel records, sometimes they'll note
limited duty profiles that can help show that a veteran was
suffering from a disability during service. However, if the
service records are silent as to any notations of a
disability, lay evidence can also be helpful to satisfy this
element through statements from the veteran and others
corroborating that in in-service event occurred.
Finally, the nexus element is typically established by
medical evidence linking the current disability to whatever
happened during military service. These statements can
be obtained from a veteran's treating physician who's
familiar with their condition or from a VA examiner following
a compensation and pension examination. The next type of
service connection available is presumptive service connection.
Here, the VA presumes that certain conditions are related
to a veteran's military service. For example, if a
veteran is diagnosed with one of the presumptive conditions within
one year of military discharge and it also manifests to a 10%
rating or higher during that time. VA will grant presumptive
service connection without requiring the veteran to submit
evidence of nexus. More recently, VA has added
presumptive conditions for Gulf War Era Veterans who were
exposed to various toxins like burn pits as well as those
veterans who were stationed at Camp Lejeune where they were
exposed to contaminated drinking water. Another area
where we often see Presumptive Service Connection is for
Vietnam War Era Veterans. Once VA determines that a veteran
has been exposed to herbicide agents in Vietnam, it will
grant presumptive service connection if the condition
that the Veterans files for is on the list of presumptive
conditions set out by the VA. For a full list of the
presumptive conditions, you can visit our website at
WoodsLawyers.com. The third type of service connection is secondary
service connection. Here, instead of linking a current
disability to military service, a veteran is able to get
service connection for a non-service connected
disability. If it has been caused by a service connected
condition. Here's a common example that we see at Woods
and Woods. If a veteran is service connected for diabetes
and later on, she develops peripheral neuropathy in her
extremities or diabetic retinopathy in her eyes, VA
will grant secondary service connection for those conditions
if she can submit nexus evidence proving that they were
caused by the service-connected diabetes. Causation is not
always required though which brings us to the fourth type of
service connection, aggravation theory. If the evidence shows
that a non-service connected disability has been aggravated
by a service connected disability, then service
connection can be granted in those cases. What VA is going
to want to know here is that the aggravation was the result
of the service connected disability as opposed to the
natural progression of that non-service connected
disability. Even if a disability is clearly
documented on it Veterans entrance examination, VA has a
duty to prove that the condition was not aggravated by
military service. If your condition is service connected
on a basis of aggravation, please note that your condition
will be rated a bit differently than normal. What VA is going
to have to do is establish a baseline rating for your
condition which looks at the severity of the condition
before the aggravation occurred. Then, it's going to
assign a rating for the severity of the condition after
the aggravation. It'll then compare the ratings take the
difference and that will be the rating assigned. The last type
of service connection available is often referred to as an 1151
claim because the rules are laid out in section 1151 of the
United States code. Rather than linking a claimed disability to
military service or another service connected disability
under section 1151, a veteran is able to be service
connected for a disability that arose as a result of negligent
VA care or treatment. Medical evidence is extremely important
in the 1151 cases because the veteran has to show that the
disability that they developed was unforeseeable from the type
of care that they received at the VA facility. Regardless of
the type of service connection that will work for your case,
all claims for service connection can be filed on the
VA form 21-526EZ, or the supplemental claim form
depending on whether you filed for service connection for that
disability in the past. Filing these claims and appealing
denied decisions is a large part of what we do on a
day-to-day basis at Woods and Woods. If you need help
navigating the claims process, filing a claim, or an appeal,
give us a call for a free consultation.