Did you know the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has specific rules in place to protect disability benefits for veterans? Thankfully, there are certain time limits when it comes to the VA's ability to change, reduce, or terminate a veteran's VA disability benefits or rating for service connection. These legal requirements are important for veterans to be familiar with, especially once they have been granted benefits for their condition(s).
The VA has outlined three different rules: the 5 year rule, 10 year rule, and the 20 year rule. Here's what they mean for veterans:
What is the VA's 5 year rule?
After a 5 year period, a veteran's disability rating is considered stabilized. So what does this mean? Basically, after 5 years, the VA's 5 year rule is enacted – protecting veterans' rating for service connection by stating that it cannot be reduced unless there is significant or sustained improvement in the veteran's health.
This usually applies to benefits that have been given for a specific service-connected condition, providing stability so that veterans don't have to worry about losing their benefits if there was a one-off moment of improvement. In order for there to be a change, it must be proven that the symptoms have consistently improved over a long period of time.
What is the VA's 10 year rule?
After 10 years of a veteran holding VA disability benefits for a service-connected condition, the VA is no longer allowed to terminate that service connection unless fraud is found. The VA can still reduce the rating if there is evidence of the condition improving consistently, such as in the 5 year rule, but they can no longer completely terminate the benefits.
The following are examples of fraud that could result in a termination:
Exaggerating symptoms
Falsifying symptoms
Using false documents
Not receiving medical treatment for claimed conditions that any reasonable person pr medical practitioner would deem necessary during treatment
What is the VA's 20 year rule?
After 20 years, the VA can no longer lower a veteran's disability rating for their service connected condition. This protects veterans who have had continuous ratings (and therefore symptoms) of a service-connected condition for two decades, ensuring that they won't lose any degree of their benefits, not even a small reduction. Similarly to the 10 year rule, if a discovery is made about any fraud, that's the only way that the benefits could be terminated. Otherwise, the veteran will not receive any changes whatsoever.
Get medical documentation for your VA disability benefits claim
Gathering your own documents can be stressful and downright confusing. That's why we started MRPY Professional Services to help veterans get expertly-crafted documents for their VA disability benefits claim. If you're ready to get started, sign up for a chart review or view other services here – we also do Nexus Letters, DBQs, and more.
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