so
hello everyone and welcome to today's cck live my name is elise phillips and i'm an
attorney with cck i'm joined here today with matt fusco he's a credit claims agent with
the firm and alex sacks another attorney with the firm today we'll be talking about ways to
obtain a 100 rating for your va disability um so these 100 ratings are absolutely beneficial
to obtain they are technically the highest scheduler compensation that you can get
apart from obtaining special monthly compensation so they're certainly beneficial and it will be
a good topic for us to discuss today so alec why don't you get us started and talk a little
bit about what a 100 rating for a disability means sure so va disability ratings are meant
to compensate veterans for the average impairment in their earning capacity that are caused by their
service connected conditions so generally the more severe disability the higher va will rate
that disability and the more compensation you can expect to receive from va so 100
rating has the highest monthly compensation rate based on a 5.9 percent cost of living adjustment
increase for 2022. veterans with 100 and no dependents can expect to receive three thousand
three hundred thirty two dollars and six cents per month starting december 31st 2021. great
so we've outlined four major ways to um obtain a 100 what rating the first way we're going to
discuss is just a regular general direct service connection so this means that you file a claim
for service connection and you actually obtain a rating of a 100 percent now three things to know
about service connection or three elements rather are first you have a current diagnosed condition
there are some exceptions to the diagnosis but it is definitely easier to have a diagnosis than
to not have a diagnosis to get service connection second you'll have an in-service event injury or
illness and third you'll have that connection between the two what we call a medical nexus
um here it's also definitely beneficial to have a doctor that's connected to you although there
are some exceptions where you don't need to have a medical examination in direct service
connected cases evidence that are going to help your case are going to be personal records
personnel records rather late statements opinions from doctors any of those sort of things can
all be submitted to help show that you have a condition that's directly related to your service
once something is service connected then you will be rated on a scale from zero to 100
depending on what the actual condition is you could receive a 100 rating for a single
condition or you could receive a 100 rating as a combined rating of all of your different um
all of your different conditions combined if you have a 100 rating whether it's just
based on one condition or multiple conditions it's still going to be that same compensation
that alex just told us about again with that exception of special monthly compensation
um to file for direct uh service connection what you're going to do is file a va form 21526ez
and that's going to be va's application for disability compensation
related to compensation benefits you can do this online through the ebenefits portal in
your local regional office or with the help of an accredited veterans advocate or an attorney
so matt why don't you tell us a little bit about secondary service connection and aggravation
sure so secondary secondary service connected disability is a disability that resulted from
a condition that is already service connected and similarly aggravation is when a pre-existing
condition was made worse or aggravated by military service um in these claims proving a nexus is
especially important and as at least previously mentioned a nexus is a medical opinion that
in cases of secondary service connection links a veteran's secondary disability to their disability
that's already service connected the link between those disabilities must be clearly established in
order to be granted secondary service connection for the secondary disability and some common uh
examples of secondary service-connected conditions include things like peripheral neuropathy
secondary to diabetes mellitus type two radiculopathy secondary to back or lumbar
spine disabilities depression secondary to things like parkinson's disease or cancer and depression
and anxiety uh secondary to orthopedic pain or orthopedic conditions that are service connected
filing a secondary va claim for service connection involves the same process as
filing any other initial claim so if you are granted service connection the secondary
condition will be rated in the same manner as any other service connected conditions
once again va math will be used to determine the overall combined rating
and this uh in and of itself may be another way for veterans to reach a 100 disability rating
great um alec why don't you tell us a little bit about tdiu sure so total disability based
on individual unemployability or tda for short it's a benefit that allows veterans to
be compensated at the 100 level even if their combined disability rating is less than that
so this is an alternative path to receiving the maximum benefits and it's awarded in circumstances
in which veterans are unable to either secure uh and follow substantially gainful employment as a
result of their service-connected disabilities there are two basic ways to achieve tdiu
on a scheduler or extra schedule or basis falls under regulation 38 cfr 4.16 a and b respectively
and for scheduler tdiu the veteran must have one service connected condition rated at 60 or higher
or two or more service connected conditions one rated at 40 or higher with a combined rating of 70
or higher so one at 40 and one or more other disabilities that through va math will get you to
70 or higher veterans who don't meet the schedule requirements for tdiu scheduler under 4.16 a may
still be considered for extra scheduler tdau under 4.16 b and extra schedule tdiu doesn't have any
rating requirement instead it simply looks at the veteran's inability to secure and follow
substantially again for employment like scheduler and we have several ctk lives as well as articles
on our website that talk about tdiu what it requires what are the best ways to go about
obtaining those benefits so i encourage you to check those out excellent yeah i
like to think of teiu as kind of a different road to get to the same destination of a 100
all right so the final way we're going to talk about today is increased rating claims matt
you want to take that one for us sure so um the disability rating that va assigns in its initial
rating decision might be satisfactory at that time but it's certainly realistic that your condition
or your disability may worsen years down the road so if you're outside of that one year period to
file an appeal with va's decision you will likely have to file a new claim for an increased rating
va is going to treat this as any other claim and issue a rating decision in response um you
as a veteran can submit any new documentation or evidence you have supporting that your service
connected connected condition has worsened um and in the legacy appeals system the evidence
that you're submitting must be new and material whereas under ama it must be new and relevant
veterans should be mindful of the applicable rating criteria for the service connect
connected condition for which they are seeking an increase because this can importantly determine
how their symptomology lines up and you can also have a private doctor or your treatment specialist
opine on the severity of your service connected conditions in
related in relation to what is listed on the actual reading criteria
excellent thank you so much so that's going to wrap up the four main ways uh to reach a
100 rating but we do want to hit on some other tips before we let you go today so um one tip is
that we would like you to use lay evidence such as buddy statements statements from family friends um
to bolster your claim the reason for this is this really fills the gap that some of those va exams
or medical records are going to miss you can really explain or your friends family that have
seen how this disability impacts you can really explain in a better way um more precisely why your
disability is preventing you from either working or how it's more severe than maybe a strict um
checkbox type exam might might show but with that said our next tip is to attend those cnp exams um
they va can deny your claims if you don't attend the exams while they're not always perfect you
absolutely should be attending them you should be honest during them um and um if there is an exam
that isn't favorable you can always introduce your own medical evidence or make your own challenges
to those exams uh but one thing is if you don't attend the exams then you can't challenge them
and we've seen that happen to a lot of a lot of veterans and it's an unfortunate situation so
you definitely want to attend them um when you are denied a claim if you're denied a claim make
sure that you're looking for um the reasons that va denied your uh when you're trying to spot any
error so um if for example they're denying your claim for a lack of medical nexus then
what you're going to need is a medical nexus it's not going to help if you continue to show
that you have a current disability just as an example um and if you believe your rating is
too low um continue your appeal and one thing that's definitely going to help you alec is
going to touch on but it's going to be seeking the assistance of an accredited rep or attorney
yeah definitely we know it can be challenging and confusing the whole
va benefits process filing for increased rating claims multiple claims or tdau
so it's we suggest that it's helpful seeking assistance from accredited representatives an
accredited attorney or representative perhaps from a veterans service organization can guide
you through va's complex processes uh and help fight for that highest possible rating
thank you so much um so that was a pretty general overview of some ways to obtain a 100
rating we do have specific blog posts on things we talked about like tdiu
special monthly compensation increased rating claims direct service connection
and secondary service connection so please feel free to check those out
and also please remember to subscribe to our channel thank you
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