Is Service Connected Disability Fraud A Problem

In order to receive Veterans' Administration (VA) compensation benefits for an injury or disability, you must evidence that your condition is service connected. In other words, your injury must have been either a direct outcome of your time in the service or significantly exacerbated by your time in the service.

Do You Authorize?

In order for yous to exist eligible for disability compensation from the VA, you must meet 3 qualifications. Specifically:

You must have served in the United States war machine.
Your injury must accept been caused or aggravated by your fourth dimension in the service.
Your separation or discharge from the service must have been nether conditions other than dishonorable.

Information technology's important to know just how your injury is connected to your service.

Four Ways Your Injury or Illness May be Connected to Your Service

The specific type of connection will largely decide the blazon of documentation you volition need to present to the VA. The four types of service connection include directly service connection, aggravated service connectedness, presumptive service connection, and secondary service connection.

Straight Service Connexion

A direct service connection injury (DSC) is an injury that was directly acquired past an incident that occurred while you were on active duty. An injury with DSC could include a gunshot wound obtained in the field, burn injuries resulting from an automobile blow, or hearing problems caused by an explosion, for example. To establish a DSC with the VA, you will need:

Documentation of the outcome that acquired the injury
A definitive diagnosis of the disability
Medical evidence linking the disability to the injuring event

A DSC tin can be i of the easier connections to prove, especially if the injuring result is documented in your records and y'all were initially diagnosed and treated while yous were yet in the service. Information technology gets more than complicated if yous weren't diagnosed until later on leaving the service or if there isn't a record of the injuring event. In the first case, you will need to work closely with your treating physician to establish the connexion. In the second, you also may need to gather testimony from associates who witnessed the incident.

Aggravated Service Connection

An aggravated service connection injury, or ASC, occurs when military service worsens a documented pre-existing condition. For instance, reinjuring a part of the leg where there had already been surgery to correct a prior injury is an example of an ASC. Even when the previous procedure is deemed to accept the most successful outcome possible, an injury involving this same role of the body is seen equally an ASC.

To establish an ASC with the VA, you lot will need:

Documentation of the pre-existing condition in your archway medical exam or thorough medical evidence of the condition'south pre-enlistment diagnosis and handling
Documentation of an event or events that aggravated the injury
Medical bear witness linking the worsening of symptoms to the injuring upshot

ASC may be the most hard connection to understand and found. That's because the VA automatically assumes whatever worsening of symptoms associated with a pre-existing condition to be a "natural progression" of the condition. The brunt of proof is on yous, the veteran.

Presumptive Service Connection

The police force requires that some medical conditions be assumed to exist the event of military service if the private has served for at to the lowest degree 90 days. Typically, an injury with a presumptive service connection, or PSC, is the result of exposure to toxins, carcinogens, and infectious diseases; nonetheless, some chronic wellness problems and brain injuries tin can also authorize. A POW bars for more than 30 days with certain health conditions is too eligible for PSC. To establish a PSC with the VA, yous will demand:

To have served in the military for at least 90 days
To evidence that yous have been diagnosed with a qualifying inability
To demonstrate that you take the disability to a pre-established standard of severity
To utilize for disability benefits within the window of time established by the military for the status

Even if y'all tin constitute a direct service connection, an aggravated service connection, or a presumptive service connectedness, there is 1 more type of service connected disability y'all should know about.

Secondary Service Connexion

A secondary service connection injury, or SSC, can happen in two situations:

When a disability already established as service-continued creates an boosted complication with your health; for example, depression resulting from severe and ongoing physical pain may be an SSC.
A pre-existing condition is complicated by an injury sustained in the service; for instance, hypertension developing into coronary artery disease significantly faster than it would take nether normal circumstances.

In both these scenarios, yous may be eligible for additional compensation for the related status. To found an SSC with the VA, you will demand:

Medical proof of the secondary diagnosis
The statement or testimony of a medical professional collaborating that the condition was caused or aggravated past an established service-connected disability

If you lot are a veteran with whatever of these types of service-connected disabilities, it is of import to protect your right to receive off-white benefits. Please showtime a alive conversation with us at present to learn more almost your rights and potential recovery.

Morgan & Weisbrod LLP

by Paul B. Burkhalter
Managing Partner of Morgan & Weisbrod, Board Certified in Social Security Disability Law.