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Fusco today we're going to be breaking down the five types of 100 VA disability ratings
in general VA will assign disability ratings to Veterans who have service-connected conditions
disability ratings are based on how severe the veterans condition is and how the disability
impairs their earning capacity VA will rate disabilities on a range from zero
to one hundred percent again just depending on how severe that rating is and they'll use the
schedule for rating disabilities or the VA SRD to assign those ratings if a veteran has multiple
service-connected disabilities each of those disabilities will receive their own rating and
then VA will combine them using what we refer to as VA math which can be a little bit complicated
um VA will use that combined disability rating to then determine what the monthly compensation
the veteran will receive is as of December 1st 2021 the VA disability rate for a 100 rating is
three thousand three hundred and thirty two dollars and six cents per month um and that
rate that rate usually does go up on a yearly basis so this December we you know can likely
expect to see it go up a little bit but Matt how does va actually go about assigning these ratings
so VA disability ratings are typically assigned by rating officers decision review officers or higher
level review officers at the regional office level however board members themselves will also issue
disability ratings if a veteran's case is before the board these adjudicators at VA use What's
called the VA SRD and select a specific diagnostic code that corresponds with the veterans condition
if a veteran's condition does not have a specific diagnostic code VA will rate it by analogy which
means that VA is going to look for a condition that causes similar symptoms and similar levels of
impairment and then assign a rating based off of that other condition and Veterans can pursue 100
ratings uh and they may pursue those ratings based on you know obviously the amount of compensation
that they would receive on a monthly basis the higher the rating the more compensation that
they would receive um and there can also be some additional benefits that are associated with 100
ratings like health care or education benefits as well as a host of others um so it's really
important to note that there are multiple types of 100 ratings that we can obtain so Alex can you
talk about kind of the most straightforward one the 100 scheduler disability reading yes so like
Kayla mentioned the most straightforward one is just getting a scheduler 100 reading overall so
this is the highest possible scheduler disability rating a veteran can receive a veteran may be
assigned a scheduler 100 reading in two different ways um the first being having one service
connected condition that's just rated at a hundred percent and the second is having multiple service
connected conditions where those individual disability ratings combined to a hundred percent
um it's important to note that even if a veteran is getting a 100 scheduler rating
this may not fully impact their ability to work as in there's no limitations in terms of employment
and something important to note with with the 100 rating is it can be difficult to
obtain sometimes even if you have a lot of service-connected disabilities
um just because of the way that the VA math Works um it can just be a little bit difficult to obtain
so there is another way that you can still get paid at the 100 rate even without having that
scheduler 100 combined rating and that's through a benefit called a total disability rating based
on individual unemployability or tdiu for short um so like I said it's just sort of
an alternative way to receive the maximum benefit without actually having that combined 100 rating
tdiu is going to be awarded in circumstances where veterans are unable to secure and follow
substantially gainful employment as a result of their service-connected conditions so essentially
you can't work because of your service connected disabilities VA refers to substantially gainful
employment meaning that the veterans annual income does not meet or meets or exceeds the
poverty threshold for a single person so if you are working but you're not receiving an
amount of money that's above that poverty threshold you may still be entitled to tdiu
there are some rating qualifiers for tdiu under the regulation 38 CFR 4.16a and that's what we
would refer to as scheduler tdiu those rating qualifiers are having one service connected
disability That's rated at 60 or higher or having two or more service connected conditions one of
which is rated at 40 or higher with a combined rating of 70 or higher now under the regulation
4.16 a there are some ways that you can combine your ratings to try to meet those scheduler
benefits if they're you know affecting the same body system your upper or lower extremities all
incurred in combat as well as a couple of other ways there's still you know some room to actually
get to those scheduler requirements even if your disability isn't necessarily rated at 60 or 40
for those requirements but even if you don't meet those requirements with combining ratings or even
if you don't you may still be eligible for tdiu we would refer to that as extra scheduler tdiu it's
just a little bit more difficult to obtain but it is certainly a benefit that's available if you can
still show that you're not able to work because of your service connected conditions um one thing
that's important to note is that tdiu in and of itself is not a permanent benefit necessarily
um so Matt can you talk about what permanent and total disability ratings are and how those work
yeah so uh permanent and total disability ratings refer to Veterans whose disabilities
are total or rated 100 disabling by VA and also permanent in nature meaning that there's zero or
very very little chance of improvement at all um permanent and total disability May
entitle veterans to additional additional VA benefits including VA Health Care in certain
state level benefits as well um permanent and total disability ratings are protected from
being reduced and those rated 100 permanent in total are no longer required to attend VA
compensation and pension examinations and if you believe and you have evidence showing that
you're 100 disability is unlikely to improve at any point in the future one thing you can
do is write a letter to your VA regional office requesting a permanent rating and within that
letter you should include medical evidence like treatment records or hospital records or anything
like that showing that your medical condition cannot be expected to improve in the future
um in order to determine if you have a 100 permanent and total rating it's good to check
your rating decision itself some of them actually have a permanent total box that will be checked
if your rating is determined to be permanent by VA and others might include language like
something eligibility to dependents chapter 35 DEA champ VA are established or another phrase
that might be in the rating decision is that no future exams are scheduled so it's a good thing
to check the actual rating decisions to see whether or not any of that language is used
yeah that's a really good point thank you Matt um and kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum
what would a total a temporary total uh VA disability look like Alex yeah so veterans
who are rendered temporarily incapacitated due to a service connected condition may be entitled to
receive temporary total disability compensation equivalent to the 100 VA disability rating
um so VA offers three forms of temporary 100 disability ratings
um so the first one is pre-stabilization um so this is temporary and an immediate disability
rating assigned to Veterans who have recently been discharged from the military with severely
disabling and unstable condition that is expected to continue for an indefinite period of time
um so these ratings can be assigned in increments of 50 and 100 over 12 months
following the veterans discharge date um to reduce this rating VA must conduct a reevaluation between
6 and 12 months following the separation um the second is hospitalization and this is assigned
to Veterans who have been hospitalized for over 21 days because of a service-connected condition
um they must be receiving treatment at a VA Medical Center or a VA approved Hospital
the rating for this will also continue until the last day of the month in which the veteran stopped
receiving treatment for their service-connected condition the last is a convalescence period so
this is assigned to Veterans who underwent treatment or surgery for a service-connected
disability at a VA Medical Center or VA approved facility veterans must meet certain requirements
to qualify for this and the effective date of the convalescence rating is that of hospital
admission or outpatient treatment and can continue for one two or three months from the first day of
the month following such Hospital discharge or outpatient release great thanks Alex um and then
the last type of 100 rating would be ratings for cancer and residuals of cancer um so the
rating schedule offers 100 disability ratings for service-connected cancers regardless of the
type generally speaking the way that this works is that you will you know obviously first be assigned
with an active form of cancer and VA will assign a temporary 100 rating while the cancer is active
once you enter into remission and your treatment ends you'll be re-evaluated six months following
the end of that treatment and then get rated on any residual symptoms that you may have so an
example of how that might work is if a veteran is diagnosed with prostate cancer they would be
assigned a 100 rating while that cancer is active after the cancer goes into remission they will
typically be rated on something like urinary or avoiding dysfunctions or erectile dysfunction
which you can still you know get increases for our tdiu if those conditions do prevent you from
working so even if it doesn't stay at 100 there are still ways to increase your ratings from there
um but Matt are there any other benefits that a veteran can receive above the 100 rating
great question so there is something called special monthly compensation which is awarded
to veterans in situations where their service connected condition is so severe that it warrants
something more than what's contemplated by the hundred percent rating in some cases
there are aspects of the condition for which the rating schedule does not account or take
into consideration uh for example one common form of SMC is warranted when a veteran may
require regular Aid in attendance of another person to do things like use the bathroom get
dressed bathe attend to other activities of their daily life and we do have a couple other videos
on SMC so feel free to check those out because it is quite complicated in and of itself so it's
a good idea to get learned up on that subject as well to learn about additional compensation
great thanks Matt um so there are like we said a lot of different ways that you can reach the
100 VA disability rating if you believe that your rating should be higher you can file a
claim for an increased rating or for something like tdiu um or if you have a decision where VA
has reduced your rating or they've denied you a higher rating and you're still within a year of
that decision being issued you do have the ability to file an appeal to seek an increase or to try to
get them to restore any reduced ratings keep in mind that having an attorney or an accredited
representative to assist with your appeal can be really helpful just in making sure that you
have all of the evidence that you need to help ensure that you get the highest rating possible
and then all other available benefits that VA may have to offer for your ratings but I think
that's a good place for us to end off today thank you so much for tuning in and be sure
to like this video And subscribe to our channel for more veteran related content and information
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