Sleep apnea is a common but serious condition.
It affects millions of Americans, but disability filings show us that it impacts veterans at
a higher rate and that they're diagnosed at a higher rate than the general population.
I'm Krystal Lechner, an attorney at Woods and Woods, LLP, and today I'm going to be
talking to you about sleep apnea and how the VA looks at sleep apnea and how it rates sleep
apnea.
Sleep apnea impacts your ability to sleep, and your ability to sleep impacts everything
that comes after that - your ability to function and your ability to work.
Because of this, sleep apnea, if this is a condition that you have, getting service connected
can be an important part of your path to individual unemployability.
First of all, what is sleep apnea?
It's a common condition.
If you have it, you know it better than anyone that it impacts your breathing while you're
sleeping.
Sometimes you cease to breathe or your breathing is interrupted during the course of the night.
Symptoms include snoring, choking, sometimes breathing pauses, and it's an obvious ... in
an obvious way so that someone you're around will notice this.
Untreated, sleep apnea can lead to serious health problems.
Over the past decade, the VA has seen a spike in claims for sleep apnea.
Now that there's a greater awareness of this condition, veterans who are previously untreated
are getting diagnosed and getting the treatment that they need for it.
If you think that you may suffer from sleep apnea, for VA rating purposes, it's really
important that you go to a medical professional and you get a diagnosis and you have that
documented and you get a sleep study conducted.
If you've been diagnosed with sleep apnea, you may be entitled to veteran's disability
benefits.
If the condition developed while you were in active service, then you may have a path
called direct service connection.
This can often be difficult to provide documentation of if you didn't get a written diagnosis from
a medical professional while you were in service.
However, this is a challenge that can be overcome if you can provide evidence of symptoms that
you had while you were in service.
If someone that you served with witnessed your breathing patterns, witnessed you having
trouble sleeping interrupted, waking up often - the symptoms that we talked about
before - and they can provide a statement to that effect, that can help document that
you had those symptoms in service.
If you can combine that with a medical opinion that connects your current diagnosis of sleep
apnea to those symptoms that you had in service, then you may be able to overcome those challenges.
Service connection can also be granted on a secondary basis, so secondary to a condition
that you're already service connected.
Common conditions that can cause or aggravate your sleep apnea would be chronic rhinitis,
sinusitis, asthma, just to name a few.
How does the VA rate sleep apnea?
Pursuant to the diagnostic code 6847, sleep apnea syndromes are obstructive, mixed, or
central, are rated on a scale from 0 to 100%.
At the lowest rating, at a 0%, it's non-compensable.
These are when you have a documented sleep apnea disorder, but you don't have symptoms
of it.
This is the lowest possible rating, and, while you can't get benefits for this on a monthly
basis, you may be entitled to other benefits, such as VA healthcare.
The next rating is the 30% disability rating, and it's warranted when there's persistent
daytime hypersomnolence.
That's just a fancy way of saying excessive daytime sleepiness.
So if you're waking up in the middle of the night several times, you're not getting a
good night's rest, and that's causing you to need to take several naps during the day,
not to feel well-rested, to have other signs of constant sleepiness, then you may fit into
this category.
A 50% evaluation is assigned when the condition requires breathing assistant device, such
as a continuous airway pressure machine, known as a CPAP machine.
If you have a CPAP machine, you're very familiar with this and how it can cause additional
difficulties that may further contribute to your inability to sleep and additional struggles.
If you fall into this category, the 50% rating can have a big impact on your overall combined
rating.
The highest rating, the 100% disability rating, is assigned for chronic respiratory failure
with carbon dioxide retention or cor pulmonale or for cases where the veteran requires a
tracheostomy.
In these cases, it is the most severe, and it's a little less common.
But if you have any of these conditions, it's pertinent that you get medical documentation
of these diagnoses.
If you have any questions about where you may rate due to your sleep apnea, feel free
to give us a call anytime or check out our website.