Hey veterans.
Travis Studdard here again with another video regarding VA disability claims.
Today I want to talk to you about how to rate your VA disability for heart or also known
as cardiac conditions.
First off, let's go over exactly what that encompasses.
There's a lot of different diseases of the heart that are covered by what I'm going to
be tell you today.
I took a look, and there's about 13 different disabilities with distinct disability diagnostic
codes that the VA uses.
Some of those include Valvular heart disease, Endocarditis, Pericarditis, Myocardial infarction,
which is also what's commonly known as a heart attack.
Coronary artery disease.
Atherosclerotic disease.
Ischemic heart disease.
All of these plus several others.
Again, all use the same rating system that I'm about to explain to you.
Now why is all of this important information for you to know?
Well, various forms of heart disease and Coronary artery disease are presumptive diseases for
those who were exposed to Agent Orange or any of the other tactical herbicides used
in Vietnam, Korea, Thailand, and some other locations as well.
If you're one of those veterans, again, you would have presumptive service connection,
but here's the thing: The VA may not be able to deny you on that basis, but they may deny
you the true rating you should deserve, and instead grant you a lower rating that doesn't
pay you as much as you should be getting each month.
You have to know what the real rating should be, and that's what we're going to go over.
Now here's the basics, how it works: These diseases, they're rated at 0%, 10, 30, 60,
or 100.
Those are the five different levels of how these diseases are rated.
There's a few different ways you can qualify for a different rating, but one way that's
very common for that to be done is what I call the "Symptoms-based method."
Essentially what that means is the rating depends on the symptoms that you have as a
result of your heart condition.
What symptoms entitle you to a VA disability rating for your heart?
Again, using this method you have to know what those symptoms are, and again, anywhere
from 0 to 100 depending on Dyspnea, which is labored breathing.
If you have shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing, that's one symptom.
Fatigue with activities.
That's another symptom.
Angina, which is chest pain, which can also not just be in the chest, but also radiate
to the shoulders or the arms.
That's another symptom indicative of a heart condition that you may have.
Dizziness, which again, this goes with the shortness of breath and oxygen supply, but
if you get dizzy, again, that's another symptom that the VA will look at.
Syncope.
Syncope is a fancy word that essentially means fainting, passing out, or feeling faint, which
again is all related to the oxygen levels in the blood that your heart is able to pump.
Those are the key symptoms that VA will be looking at, and those are the ones that you
need to key in on when proving how severe your disability is, but they look at those
symptoms in connection with certain levels of activity, and how strenuous that activity
may be, so what I mean by that is everyone who experiences fatigue does not get the same
rating.
Everyone who experiences Syncope does not get the same rating.
Instead, it can be any mix of those symptoms, but it's more about what level of physical
activity cause you to experience those symptoms.
If you have symptoms with very mild physical activity levels, then your rating will be
higher, and vice versa.
I'll get into what those activities are in our next video, but again, those are the symptoms
that VA will be looking at, and those are the ones that you need to focus on when explaining
how your heart disability affects you.
Hope you found it helpful.
Give it a thumbs-up, and check out our next video on heart disability ratings and others
as well that you may find useful.
Thanks for watching.