- Are you suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis?
Is it affecting your ability to provide for your family?
Rheumatoid Arthritis is an autoimmune disorder
that's characterized by joint inflammation.
My name is Zack Evans.
I'm a disability benefits attorney and
I do VA cases for Woods and Woods
in Evansville, Indiana.
It's really important to note that
Rheumatoid Arthritis is there's no cure for it.
The treatment is focused on symptoms management.
So the common functional problems that you see with
Rheumatoid Arthritis are painful, swollen joints,
stiffness, especially in the mornings.
Usually the symptoms present bilaterally.
So what that means is if you experience
it on your left hand,
you will commonly experience it
on your right hand as well.
This has some important implications for
unemployability benefits in terms of
the functional impact that it has on
someone's ability to maintain work.
Think about how much manual dexterity is required
to operate a keyboard or a mouse at a computer.
Similarly, if you're trying to operate heavy equipment,
you need your fine motor controls to be intact
in order to manually operate the joysticks.
So the cause is still subject of
ongoing medical research,
but it appears to be a combination
of genetic and environmental factors.
Some common conditions that co-occur with
Rheumatoid Arthritis are Cardiovascular disease,
Lung disease and mental health disorders.
Oftentimes, we see the mental health disorders
secondary to the limitations that
are caused by Rheumatoid Arthritis.
The ratings for Rheumatoid Arthritis
can be found in the diagnostic code,
which can be found at 38 CFR 4.71a,
the diagnostic code number you're looking for is 5002.
5002 basically, your ratings are in order of severity,
from most severe down to down to your lowest ratings,
it's going to be a hundred would be
essentially complete incapacitation.
An extremely severe case of
systemic Rheumatoid Arthritis,
down to minimal functional loss in joints.
And your ratings for your arthritic joints
are going to be per the diagnostic code numbers
that correspond to those individual joints.
So, if you have arthritis in your wrist,
you're going to need to refer to the
area of the diagnostic code that looks at
Alkalosis of the wrist.
If it occurs in your knees,
you're going to be looking at the knees and again,
the bilateral factor is very important.
It's a big deal.
And the reason that the bilateral factor is
so important is because as you have
disability that mirror on each side of the body.
When you combine those ratings together,
you also add an additional 10% of that combined value.
So your rating increases as you have
mirrored problems on each side of the body.
Additionally, another thing to consider is that
the common ideology rules for combined ratings,
according to the CFR allow you to combine
multiple related ailments to qualify for
TDIU consideration.
So that's your Total Disability.
Individual Unemployability.
So this can help you combine multiple
joint ratings into a single 60% or into a 40%
to qualify you for the 70/40 rule,
where you have to have a combined rating of at
least 70% with an underlying condition of at least 40.
So I have an example here,
that can help highlight the way that we work
these Rheumatoid Arthritis cases for our clients.
So a veteran has multiple joint impairments rated
separately and begins experiencing
chronic fatigue and mental fog.
The veteran went to his primary care provider
and was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis.
So we requested treatment records including
radiological imaging results that confirm the diagnosis.
We consulted an independent medical professional,
who was able to determine that Rheumatoid Arthritis
had been the culprit all along.
Ratings should have been considered due to common ideology.
So the Veteran qualified for TDIU with this new finding,
as long as we can corroborate that with
the testimony of a medical expert,
this can make a huge difference in your TDIU cases,
the same exact individual ratings for
those service-connected joints
can cross the TDIU plane by arguing the specifics
and specifics win the case.
The ability to strategically argue specifics
for your particular medical evidence is
what we pride ourselves on at Woods and Woods.
If you're suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis,
and it's affecting your ability to provide for your family,
give us a call.
We handle these cases all the time and
we'd love to help you out.
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