good afternoon everyone and welcome to cck live my name is nicholas briggs and i'm joined today
by elise phillips and rachel foster in today's video we will be discussing whether va can reduce
a 100 disability reading now before we get to the subject of the 100 rating itself we thought
it would be helpful to provide a brief overview of how disability ratings work generally so with that
in mind a va disability rating is a percentage assigned for a service-connected disability
based on the severity of that condition disability ratings are meant to compensate veterans for the
average impairment in earning capacity caused by that particular service-connected condition
va uses a general schedule for rating disabilities to assign diagnostic codes and disability ratings
for individual conditions and each rating criteria describes the certain symptoms or treatments for a
specific condition based off of a particular level of severity these individual ratings can range
from zero percent to 100 percent and generally the more severe a disability is the higher rating
will be assigned for that individual condition the specific rating assigned is also important
obviously because while a zero percent rating affords no additional monthly compensation a 100
percent rating allows for the maximum scheduler benefit which is currently 3 32 per month
so with that in mind elise could you tell us a bit more about what's important about the 100
rating in particular absolutely so a 100 percent disability rating also known as a total disability
rating is going to be the highest percentage that can be given for a service connected company uh
condition under the schedule rating criteria and so it's really a rating that's reserved
for veterans that are extremely debilitated it's typically someone who's not able to work
and sometimes also not able to care for themselves so some examples of what a 100 rating could
actually manifest as it would be a 100 scheduler rating an award of tdiu or total disability um
an individual unemployment compensation and then permanent and total va ratings temporary total
ratings and then va ratings for cancer great thanks elise so with that in mind and moving
on to the topic of today's discussion rachel can you tell us a bit about the circumstances under
which va can reduce a disability rating in general yes so a va finds that a veteran's condition has
improved and if the condition is not considered permanent va can reduce their disability rating
and they can do this according to title 38 of the code of federal regulation
section 3.105 b as well as further there's also further guidance given in a presidential case
called brown v brown where a writing reduction may only take place in certain cases where one ba
has reviewed the veterans entire medical history two the veteran undergoes a thorough examination
that is adequate for rating purposes so what that means is that an inadequate exam where the
examiner maybe didn't review the relevant evidence the exam was incomplete or internally inconsistent
that should not be the basis for reduction and three we find sustained improvement and
the veteran's ability to function under the ordinary conditions of life and work
so with talking about what sustained improvement means it means that it's essentially improvement
in the condition or the symptoms the veteran is experiencing that are not purely circumstantial
or attributed to mitigating factors so examples of what is not considered sustained improvement
is a disability that has a predisposition to temporary or episodic improvement so something
like bronchial asthma which can be triggered by environmental factors something that is also not
considered sustained improvement is a temporary alleviation of a disability by prolonged rest
so essentially because veteran is resting they're no longer putting stress on that disability and
the symptoms do improve but if that rest were removed the symptoms would return and what is
not also considered sustained improvement is a less thorough or complete mode of examination
so what this would actually mean is that there's no actual improvement that has been shown for
that disability but instead that exam fails to fully capture the veterans disability picture
um i think elise mentioned earlier reductions for cancers those are slightly different so if
a veteran is service connected for an act of cancer va should automatically assign a 100
rating in most cases this rating continues for as long as their cancer is active and then for
another six months following the successful completion of a treatment program but after
six months of sustained remission the cancer is then rated based on the remaining residuals
one thing to note any time that va does believe a reduction is warranted they must afford the
veteran due process and issue notice of the proposed reduction along with an explanation
and give the veteran 60 days to submit evidence and 30 days to request a hearing
the one exception to this rule is that if the reduction would not change the actual
amount of compensation that a veteran is receiving so in these cases va would not
have to issue notice of the reduction they could just go ahead and issue a
finalized decision if that doesn't change the total combined rating great thanks rachel
so with that in mind we know a bit more about how ratings work and when a rating can be reduced so
now we get to sort of our question of the day which is can my 100 permanent rating be reduced
so first it's important to know when and if a condition is considered to be permanent in va's
case it deems a disability permanent when it's reasonably certain based off of medical evidence
that the level of impairment currently existing is going to continue for the rest of the veteran's
life and once va makes that determination a veterans service connected condition
is considered permanent and they're no longer required to submit to regular re-examinations
however just because you have a 100 rating does not automatically mean that the rating
is permanent but there are certain protections that kick in over the course of several years
that may grant permanent status depending on how long the particular rating has been in place for
example a rating is considered stabilized after five years of continuously being rated at the same
level and at that point va is only going to reduce the condition if multiple examinations and all of
the medical evidence support that sustained improvement that rachel talked about earlier
we also have the 20-year rule for continuous ratings meaning if the same rating has been in
place for 20 years or more va can't reduce that rating unless there's evidence of fraud and then
finally specifically with 100 total ratings va can only reduce those if there's material improvement
in the veterans condition demonstrated both in examinations and other medical evidence
but if at the end of the day a condition is considered to be both permanent and total
va perceives that there's no chance of improvement regardless of what happens then they'll grant that
permanent in total status unfortunately it can be a bit tough to determine exactly when you've
been determined to be permanent in total on some rating decisions it will say there's a permanent
total box that's checked off if you have a 100 disability that's considered permanent
um other decisions may say that you've been granted eligibility for dependents chapter 35
dea benefits or champ va benefits and if those are established you have permanent total status
and then finally the decision might simply say no future examinations are to be scheduled
those are also good indications of your conditions being considered permanent
however if the va letter clearly states that future exams are going to be scheduled
that means you're not considered permanent and va will do exactly what the letter says
um two to three years from now they'll schedule you for a review examination and then determine
what your current reading is or should be so with that in mind elise can you tell us a bit uh just
go through an example of you know a 100 rating that might be protected yeah so one good example
is um if you've had 100 rating in place for 20 or more years va is not going to be able to
reduce that unless there is actually evidence of fraud in the initial rating assignment which
is really hard to show um if it's been less than 20 years though va can pursue a rating reduction
but there needs to as we've been saying needs to be both material improvement and improvement
under ordinary conditions so just keep that in mind that 20-year number is pretty significant
also va cannot simply rely on just like one examination for example uh when issuing a
rating decision it's going to have to be something that's really shown throughout
now having a rating of 20 years or more does not mean that it automatically becomes permanent
but if va does determine that you can't be subject to a rating after 20 years then your 100 rating is
going to remain the same or be permanent perfect thanks elise now we've up to this point we've
mostly talked about combined ratings and scheduler 100 um but obviously many veterans are in paid at
the 100 rate through unemployability benefits so rachel can you tell us a bit more about how
unemployability benefits works with the concept of permanence sure so unemployability benefits
or total disability rating based on individual unemployability tdiu for short is not always
permanent for veterans that have been granted entitlement to tdiu va can only revoke tdiu status
if actual employability is established by clear and convincing evidence that standard is given
under title 38 of the code of federal regulation section 3.343 c so in other words va can only
sever your tdiu status if you have been found to be capable of substantially gainful employment
it's important to note here that in order for the employment to be considered substantially gainful
the veteran would have had to have been employed for at least 12 consecutive months
and earning over the federal poverty threshold perfect thanks rachel so again we've gone through
what disability ratings are how reductions tend to work and when and if a 100 rating is considered
permanent however va might make that determination and it might not be the correct determination
so just like with a typical reading decision or seeking an increased rating
if va does propose to reduce your condition you do have certain rights to include appealing that
decision um to determine to have higher level adjudicators determine whether
the reduction is proper so with that in mind it can be helpful to reach out to
an experienced attorney like those here at chisholm chisholm and kilpatrick to see if
they might be able to assist you in fighting this reduction if it's something that va goes through
elise rachel anything else to add that we haven't covered already today
no um we certainly have some blogs on the topic on our website so feel free to check those out um and
i think some more related to reductions as well perfect yep as always we have plenty of resources
available on these and other subjects so with that in mind we'd like to thank you for watching be
sure to subscribe to our channel and check out our blog for more information on this and other topics
you