1. Understanding VA Disability Ratings
2. How the VA Calculates VA Disability Ratings
3. VA Combined Rating Table
1. How to Read the VA Combined Disability Table
4. How Bilateral Disabilities Affect Your Rating
5. How to Increase Your VA Disability Rating
6. Final Point

What if I told you that 30 + 20 equals 44. You’d clearly think I failed out of elementary school. We all know, the answer is 50! You’re right, but in the case of the Veterans living with multiple service-connected disability ratings, you’d actually be wrong. 

That’s because the VA math relating to disability claims relies on a unique formula, wherein 30 + 20 equals 44, which then actually equals 40. Confused yet? By the end of this article you won’t be anymore. 

If you’re looking at your VA disability ratings paperwork, and seeing each of your separate disability ratings not adding up, it’s because you have what’s called a “combined VA disability rating.” I’m going to go through step-by-step to show you how the VA came to your VA disability rating.

The VA uses disability ratings to figure out what benefits and compensation you should get. If your rating isn’t correct, you could miss out on hundreds or even thousands of dollars every year. That’s why it’s important to understand how your combined rating works.

Your disability rating shows how much a service-connected injury or illness affects your life. Ratings go from 0% to 100%, increasing by 10%. The higher the number, the more serious the disability.

Think of it like this: the VA looks at how your conditions affect your ability to work and handle daily tasks. They start by assuming you’re 100% efficient. Each disability lowers that efficiency. The VA uses that idea to figure out your combined rating when you have more than one disability.

The VA gives each injury or illness its own rating, without looking at your other conditions (unless one problem leads to another). It also checks if the condition affects both sides of your body, like both legs or both arms. That’s called a bilateral condition, and a little bit later I’ll explain how it can change how your rating is figured out.

All your ratings are listed from highest to lowest before the VA starts doing the math.

Example: Say you had knee surgery and still deal with pain and stiffness. The VA might give you a 10% disability rating for that. That means your overall efficiency drops to 90%. While you might think  the VA just subtracts 10% from 100%, you’d be wrong. It actually multiplies 100 by 10% and that total is deducted from 100%.

In this particular instance it just happens to be 10%, dropping your efficiency to 90%. This knee injury is the most basic situation, a single disability rating. Once you introduce multiple disability ratings, the math starts to get a little more complicated.

Calculating a Combined VA Disability Rating

When figuring a combined VA disability rating using multiple injuries with their own individual ratings the VA uses a descending efficiency scale. Basically it uses a disability rating to adjust the efficiency rating and then replaces the original 100% with the newly figured efficiency rating. From there, any additional VA disability rating will then be applied to the new effiency rating and the process will continue until all the disability ratings are accounted for and you have an overall rating. 

If that sounds confusing to read, don’t worry, I plan on using an example to walk you through each step so that you can walk way understanding each part of the process. 

Example: We’re going to expand off the example used above with the knee injury, but this time let’s use 4 disabilities. Here are the service-connected disability ratings our Veteran is living with that we will use on this example:

To determine the overall rating, the VA will start with the highest rating and then work its way down.

3. Subtract the result from your original rating. For the example, subtract 30 from 100 and come up with 70. 30% is your new disability rating, while 70% is your new efficiency rating.

4. Repeat the process for each additional rating.

5. In this example, you will eventually get to 45% after all the disability ratings have been applied. Take that 45% and subtract from 100% to get a combined disability rating of 55%, which the VA rounds to the nearest 10% meaning your final combined VA disability rating is 60%.

The math can be a bit confusing if you try to do it manually; that’s where this VA combined ratings table may be helpful.

Source: 38 CFR 4.25 – Combined ratings table.

First, list all your disabilities in descending order. To begin, take the highest disability rating and find that number in the left column. That is your starting point. Then, navigate across the row to the intersecting point with your next highest disability rating. This is your combined rating for these two disabilities.

If these are your only two disabilities, you can round to the nearest number divisible by 10. The VA rounds final ratings to the nearest 10 (ex: 56% disability would be 60%, 54% would be 50%).

If you have more than two disabilities, repeat this process until you have run the numbers for all disability ratings. 

Example: In the example listed above, since 30% is your highest rating, you start there. Then you find the intersection of 30% disability rating and 20% since that is your second-highest disability rating. On the chart that would be 44. After that, you take that intersection number of 44 and you find it on the left column. Then you find where it intersects with your third highest disability rating, which is 10%. That number is 50. Repeat the step of finding 50 in the left column, and find where it intersects with 10% to find 55%, which rounds up to 60%.

It’s great to know how to use the combined rating table so you can verify your disability rating for yourself. But it’s also nice to be able to use our VA Disability calculator that takes all these factors into consideration.

There is one more issue we need to consider that can greatly impact your rating: the bilateral factor.

What is the Bilateral Factor? The bilateral factor applies to veterans living with disabilities that affect corresponding body parts (for example, both eyes, both arms, both legs, etc.). The disabilities don’t have to mirror each other. The VA considers separate injuries affecting the left foot and the right knee, for example, to be bilateral.

For bilateral injuries, the VA combines the individual rates and adds 10% of the combined amount to the total percentage. It uses the new total as one rating when calculating the rest of your combined total.

Example: Continuing with the example profile from above, but let’s add another knee disability, one on each leg. In total, we’re working with:

The two knee injuries would qualify for the bilateral factor.

In this example, the disability rating for each knee is 10%, but when combined, they equal 21%, according to the combined rating table above. Here is how it works:

Using the combined rating table above, start with the 21% rating and the 30% rating. This takes us to 45. Follow the left column down to 45 and find where it intersects with 20. You get 56.

Repeat the process for 56 and 10, and you get 60. The overall service-connected disability rating for this veteran is exactly 60%.

The previous example using the table was 55%, rounded up to 60%, and this example was exactly 60% without rounding. As your disability percentage increases, it takes more disabilities with higher ratings to move the needle.

If you feel your VA rating does not accurately reflect the impact your service-connected disability has on your life, you can try to get the VA to increase your disability rating.

One way to do this is to file an appeal.

If you’re still within a year of the VA’s decision on your initial claim, you can file a Notice of Disagreement to kick off the formal appeal process. You’ll use the Notice of Disagreement form to declare what you disagree with and indicate how you’d like your appeal to proceed.

If you are outside of the one-year period for a notice of disagreement, you can file a new claim for an increased rating. Be sure to include any new evidence, medical opinions or documentation showing that your condition has worsened or is worse than what the VA previously rated it.

If your condition has worsened to the point that you can not work, you can file for TDIU or “total disability based on individual unemployability.” When in doubt, you can always reach out to a Veterans Service Officer at a Veterans Service Organization. VSOs will help you with your claim free of charge.

When you’re filing a VA disability claim, and have multiple service-connected injuries be prepared for your ratings to go through this process. If you’re waiting for your ratings decision, or if you’ve already received it from the VA, figuring your combined VA disability rating may seem overwhelming, but hopefully now you’ll be able to see how the VA got to the final overall rating it did. 

If you have any other questions, I encourage you to reach out to the VA and talk with a representative, contact a VSO to see if someone can go over your ratings and verify it for you, or reach out to fellow military colleagues and friends. Our community is passionate about make sure each other gets the benefits we’ve earned and deserve.

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