“Today we’re going to be talking about common combinations of benefits that add up to 100% or TDIU.
“My name is Zack Evans, I am a VA disability benefits attorney with Woods and Woods, a nationwide VA disability benefits firm.
“I highly recommend this company. They were able to get my husband the disability rating the VA kept denying.”
L.C., an Army veteran’s spouse in California
From a Google review for Woods & Woods
Understanding the VA combined ratings table
“First things first, if you haven’t watched our video, ‘How the VA Combined Ratings Table Works for Disability Claims,’ I encourage you to do that now and then come back to this video. I spent a lot of time in that video breaking down the mathematics of how the VA will combine your conditions so you can understand how different numbers will work together to give you your combined rating.
“Unless you understand what components comprise your combined rating and exactly how that’s calculated, it’s tough to understand the rest of the content in this video.
Once you’ve done that, you should have an idea of how steep the combined ratings climb gets as you approach CR 100, or a 100% combined rating. It’s so difficult in fact, that I rarely see it in my practice. If you’re familiar with TDIU payment scales, you know that a TDIU finding pays at exactly the same [rate] — 100%.”
Common VA ratings that add up to 100%
“Even so, here’s an example of a combination of ratings that will get you to a combined rating of 100%. Let’s say you have a mental health condition at 70% for social and occupational deficiencies in most areas, and a headache rating at 50%, with characteristic prostrating attacks, productive of severe economic inadaptability.
“Thirdly, let’s say you have an obstructive sleep apnea rating for 50%, with a prescription for a CPAP device.
“And then finally, you’ve been assigned a degenerative disc disease rating of 40%, with a forward flexion of 30 degrees or less.
“So, we have four significant ratings — 70% for mental health, 50% for headaches, 50% for sleep apnea, and 40% for your back.
“But remember your TDIU rules. You don’t have to have all of these severe ratings to get to 100%. You can have one rating at 60%, or you can meet the 70/40 rule with a combined rating of 70% and an underlying condition of at least 40%.
“If you have multiple ratings for separate ailments that are all part of the same body system, those ratings can be combined to meet your 70/40 rule. They can also be combined to meet the single rating for 60% requirement.
“I have an example of this. Let’s say you have a 40% rating for your lumbar spine for degenerative disc disease, and then you have radiculopathy down both sides of your legs. Your left lower extremity is rated at 20%, your right lower extremity at 20%. If you add those ratings together with your bilateral factor, your 20s combine to 40%, and then you combine that 40% with the lumbar spine. And that comes to a 60% combined rating together.
“Because the radiculopathy conditions are caused by your degenerative disc disease in your lower spine, it’s all one condition and all qualifies for the TDIU rating.”
How Woods and Woods can help
“If this all sounds like a foreign language to you, that’s okay, because your attorney speaks that language. Give us a call. We’d love to help you.”
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Zack Evans
VA disability attorney
Woods & Woods
Zack is a former prosecuting attorney. He received his law degree from Southern Illinois University. He joined Woods & Woods in 2017.
