Rating schedule

The rating schedule, formally the VA Schedule for Rating Disabilities and often abbreviated VASRD, is the regulation the VA uses to assign percentage ratings to service-connected conditions. Published at 38 CFR Part 4, it organizes conditions by body system and states, for each, the documented findings that correspond to each rating level.

The schedule rates documented severity, not diagnosis alone. For most conditions, adjacent percentages differ by specific criteria: range of motion measured in degrees, the frequency and duration of episodes, the particular functional limits a clinician recorded. A record written in those measurable terms gives the schedule something to apply; a record that stops at the diagnosis leaves the severity question open.

The schedule is public. Any veteran can read the exact criteria for their condition and compare them against what their own medical record actually documents.