Disability rating

A disability rating is the percentage the VA assigns to a service-connected condition to express how much it impairs earning capacity. Ratings are assigned in ten-point increments from 0 to 100 percent, and each comes from the criteria in the VA Schedule for Rating Disabilities at 38 CFR Part 4. A 0 percent rating records a condition as service-connected while finding that it does not currently meet the criteria for a compensable level.

A rating attaches to a condition rather than to a person, and it is assigned by applying the schedule's criteria to what the record documents. For most conditions those criteria are measurable: degrees of motion, the frequency and duration of episodes, the particular functional limits a clinician wrote down. Two veterans with the same diagnosis can receive different percentages, because the criteria read the documentation rather than the diagnosis.

Ratings can change over time. The VA can reexamine a condition where improvement is expected, and a veteran can ask the VA to review an evaluation through the decision review options. What a rating should be in a particular case is a claims question, argued by the veteran with an accredited representative or VSO. The record's job is separate: it documents what is actually there for the schedule to read.