The VA claim process, in plain English
Forty guides covering the parts of a VA disability claim that people most often get wrong, in plain English, with the regulations cited so you can check the work.
Before you file
The steps that protect your effective date and your evidence, in the order they happen.
How to file a VA disability claim, step by step
The whole process in order: Intent to File first, naming conditions so they get rated, and what to attach.
Intent to File: how one form protects your back pay
Ten minutes of paperwork that can be worth months of retroactive pay, and the mistakes that waste it.
Benefits Delivery at Discharge: the 180-90 day window
Filing before you separate: eligibility, the month-by-month timeline, and why preparation starts a year earlier.
What counts as evidence, and what a nexus actually is
The four buckets every claimed condition needs, and the one that decides most claims.
Presumptive conditions: when you do not need a nexus
PACT Act, Agent Orange, Camp Lejeune, Gulf War illness, the lists that skip the medical link entirely.
Preparing for a C&P exam
It is not treatment. It is scoring. What the examiner is filling in, and how to answer it accurately.
Personal statements and buddy letters
Lay evidence is real evidence. What it can prove, what it cannot, and the details that carry weight.
Nexus letters, and what makes one persuasive
The element that decides most denied claims. Why rationale beats a confident conclusion.
Getting your records, and your C-file
Three separate files, three ways to request them, and why the C-file changes how an appeal is argued.
How ratings and pay work
The arithmetic, the rules that add ratings most people miss, and the routes to the 100% rate.
Why 50% + 30% is not 80%
Combined rating math worked through step by step, plus the bilateral factor and why the last 10% is so hard.
Secondary conditions: the ratings most veterans leave behind
Conditions caused or worsened by ones you already have, claimable without a single new page from your service records.
TDIU: paid at 100% without a 100% rating
The unemployability thresholds, what "substantially gainful" really means, and the evidence that decides it.
Special Monthly Compensation: the money above the schedule
SMC pays on top of your rating for specific losses, including the award most veterans never claim.
Effective dates, and the back pay they control
The rating sets the monthly cheque. The effective date sets how many months you are owed.
Adding dependents to your rating
At 30% and above a spouse or child raises the payment. The simplest money in the system, routinely unclaimed.
CRDP and CRSC: getting your retired pay back
Retired pay is offset by VA compensation. Two programs restore it, and only one is automatic.
Condition by condition
How the rating schedule treats the conditions veterans claim most, with the actual criteria, the thresholds, and the evidence each one turns on.
Mental health and brain
How the VA rates PTSD and other mental health conditions
The six tiers of the mental health formula, why the symptom list is not a checklist, and the stressor rules.
Depression secondary to chronic pain
A service-connected back or knee that has worn you down is a mental health claim. Most veterans never file it.
How the VA rates traumatic brain injury
Ten facets, one of which sets the rating, and the residuals that are rated separately on top.
How the VA rates migraines
The word "prostrating," the log that proves frequency, and what severe economic inadaptability actually requires.
How the VA rates sleep apnea
Four tiers, one of which turns entirely on a CPAP prescription, and the secondary route most claims take.
Back, joints, and nerves
How the VA rates back and neck conditions
The spine formula in degrees, the painful-motion rule, and the radiculopathy rating most veterans never claim.
How the VA rates radiculopathy and nerve damage
Nerve ratings stack on top of the spine rating, one per limb, with the bilateral factor. Most veterans never claim them.
How the VA rates knee conditions
Motion, instability, and cartilage are separate codes, and one knee can legitimately carry all three.
How the VA rates shoulder conditions
Ratings measured in degrees of arm motion, why your dominant arm rates higher, and the codes that stack.
How the VA rates plantar fasciitis and flat feet
Two codes, one added in 2021, and the treatment-response test that decides most of the ratings.
How the VA rates scars
Four codes, a tape measure, and the 10% most veterans with a surgical scar never claim.
How the VA rates eczema and other skin conditions
Body surface area, or weeks of systemic therapy. Two routes to the same rating, and the one people forget to document.
Hearing
Heart, digestive, and endocrine
How the VA rates hypertension
Four tiers set by blood pressure numbers, a medication floor at 10%, and the PACT Act presumption for Vietnam-era veterans.
How the VA rates diabetes
Five tiers, one phrase that blocks the 40%, and a list of complications each worth its own rating.
How the VA rates GERD
The 2024 rewrite moved GERD from symptoms to stricture. What the new tiers require and where older ratings stand.
How the VA rates IBS and functional digestive disorders
Three tiers that turn on frequency, and the Gulf War presumption that skips the nexus entirely.
Erectile dysfunction and SMC-K
The schedule rates it at zero. The statute pays for it anyway, every month, for life.
Exposure-related
How the VA rates asthma, rhinitis, and sinusitis
The three burn-pit presumptives, their rating tiers, and why the presumption is only half the claim.
How the VA rates fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and Gulf War illness
Three conditions presumed for Southwest Asia veterans with no nexus required, and the tiers each is rated on.
After the decision
Reading what you got, asking for more, and the one-year clock on disagreeing.
How to read your VA rating decision
The parts nobody reads, where SMC, effective date errors, and missed TDIU consideration hide.
Clear and unmistakable error
The only way back into a decision that went final years ago, and a deliberately very high bar.
Filing for an increase, and the reduction risk
How increase claims and their retroactive effective dates work, and the real protections against a cut.
The three lanes after a decision
Higher-Level Review, Supplemental Claim, or Board, how to pick, and the one-year clock on all of them.
Why these exist
Everything a VA claim turns on is technically available already, scattered across regulation text, VA pages, and forum posts of wildly varying accuracy. None of it is in one place, in order, in words a tired person can read at 2200 after the kid goes down.
These guides are that missing version. They point at the actual regulations and at VA.gov rather than replacing them, and they are honest about the limits: nothing here promises a rating, and none of it is legal or medical advice. Where a guide and VA.gov disagree, VA.gov is right.
The rest of READY214 is the working version of the same idea, a free organizer that turns the process into a checklist with deadlines attached.
Alongside these guides, READY214 has a free combined rating calculator, a condition library with diagnostic codes and rating criteria, a plain-English glossary of VA terminology, and a TDIU threshold check. All free, all usable without an account.
Where to get official help
- VA.gov disability compensation, the authoritative source for forms, eligibility, and current rates.
- Find an accredited representative, VSO help is free; verify accreditation before signing anything.
- 38 CFR Part 4, the rating schedule itself, including the criteria every rating decision is measured against.
- Veterans Crisis Line, dial 988 then press 1, or text 838255. Confidential, 24/7, unconnected to your claim.