With almost one million residents and appealing locations like the German Village, the Short North Arts District, and the Scioto Mile, Columbus is the most populous city in Ohio and home to many veterans from all branches of the United States military.
Stone Rose Law firm’s experienced attorneys assist disabled veterans in Columbus, Ohio, and nationwide to ensure they receive all the benefits they are entitled to. These include initial, additional, and supplemental claims for Veterans Affairs (VA) monthly disability compensation.
If you live in Columbus and need help accessing disability, healthcare, or other veterans benefits, call us at (480) 498-8998 to speak with and schedule an appointment with one of our veterans’ benefits specialists.
If you have suffered an injury or disabling medical condition because of your time in military service or if your service worsened an existing injury or condition, VA disability benefits can provide you with monthly financial compensation and other helpful benefits.
Depending on how serious your service-connected disabilities are, you could receive up to 100% or total disability-based compensation.
The VA makes many other kinds of benefits available to disabled veterans. Even if you receive a 0% disability rating with no monthly compensation payment, you might still be eligible for services like medical benefits, educational benefits, mental health counseling, and even VA home loan eligibility.
There are multiple ways for disabled veterans to file for VA disability claims benefits.
The easiest way is to file online. You can also submit your completed application to the Cleveland VA Regional Office by mail, fax, or in person. The Columbus has a VA benefits office is located at the Chalmers P. Wylie Ambulatory Care Center, Room 1A–052, 420 North James Road, Columbus, OH 43219. This local VA office is not a VA regional office for claim application purposes.
When you submit your benefits claim to the VA, you must prove three things to receive disability compensation:
The VA considers multiple factors when deciding whether or not you are eligible for benefits. This includes your dates of active duty service to ensure that they fall within a recognized time period and your military records.
Proof of active service is typically all you need to prove eligibility for benefits. However, there are a few automatic disqualifiers, like servicemembers who received a dishonorable discharge or an other-than-honorable discharge.
If you need help upgrading your military discharge, an experienced Stone Rose Law VA attorney can help you with an appeal to the appropriate Discharge Review Board.
For VA purposes, a disability is a physical or mental illness or impairment that your active-duty military service either caused or made worse.
VA benefits compensate you to the extent that your service-connected disability renders you less than 100% able-bodied. Usually, the best way to show a disability is to provide medical records showing your ongoing treatment.
You can supplement your medical records with your military health records if you were being treated for the condition while in service. Also, written statements by others who know you and have witnessed your disabilities (also known as “buddy letters”) can help the VA assess whether your disability and the extent of its effects.
Proving a service connection is essential to qualify for disability compensation. Your disability symptoms must relate to one or more disabling events that happened to you while you were an active military service member.
The VA considers whether you have proven your present service-connected disability on a case-by-case basis and is based on proof of being service-related. However, some medical conditions are presumed disabilities by the VA that do not require you to prove a service connection.
Of course, the VA does refuse disability claims that lack evidence that connects a disability to service. Your claim may be denied if your injury, illness, or disabling condition comes from doing something that does not have a service connection.
The VA disability attorneys at Stone Rose Law can help you gather all the documents and other forms of support you need to clear this potential obstacle.
In addition to direct service connections, the VA also takes indirect service connections into consideration for approval.
A latent medical condition is one that you had when you entered military service but was not disabling at that time. If a latent condition becomes worse after you leave the service, the VA will consider whether something happened to you while serving to aggravate it.
In this case, you may still qualify for disability benefits for your veterans service despite your service activity not being the original cause of your condition.
Another way you can receive a service-connected disability is if it arises from a different disability that is service-connected.
For example, your doctor may diagnose you as having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) based on a traumatic event you experienced in service. If the PTSD treatment you receive includes drugs that lead you to gain weight, which in turn contributes to a Type 2 Diabetes condition, you could possibly trace a secondary service connection by showing that the PTSD treatment caused your diabetes.
If the VA approves your initial or additional disability compensation claim, it will assign you a VA disability rating. Your rating will range from 0% (non-compensable) to 100% (total disability).
The VA calculates your disability rating using a complex algorithm that includes many factors. For example, your rating may be based on whether you have multiple disabilities (most veteran claims for benefits include more than one disability) and the severity of each disability you can prove.
If you have multiple disabilities, the VA will use a formula to arrive at a combined disability rating. This formula is complex and can be difficult to calculate on your own.
Our Stone Rose Law, VA lawyers can help prove the extent of your disability to ensure that you receive the disability compensation you need. We can also help estimate how much you may receive in monthly disability payments if you have multiple disabilities.
Some veterans may qualify for monthly disability compensation. The amount of these monthly payments is based on your combined disability rating. The higher your rating, the more you receive.
The VA also matches your disability to a benefit amount based on the current year’s rates, which are adjusted annually.
For 2024, the VA disability rating compensation for an individual veteran is as follows:
These monthly payments increase for disabled veterans with dependents, including a spouse, dependent parents, and dependent children.
Monthly compensation is just one type of veterans’ benefit. Here are some additional compensation benefits for veterans.
Special Monthly Compensation and attendance services are provided to those with a spouse, dependent children, or parents who depend on you to care for them.
In some cases, surviving spouses or other dependents can continue to receive monthly VA benefits after a veteran dies. These surviving spouse benefits include coverage of burial costs and Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC benefits) for your surviving family members.
There are several special VA veteran benefits you may be eligible for.
For example, if you cannot find or keep gainful employment, you may be able to receive additional VA benefits, like total disability, based on individual unemployability.
The VA also provides allowances for transportation and clothing and compensation for costs associated with hospital or convalescent care.
A Stone Rose Law veterans’ disability attorney can help you learn which of these special benefits may apply to you.
In addition to the federal veterans’ benefits that the VA provides, Ohio offers many state-level veterans’ benefits that Columbus veterans may be eligible for.
The Ohio Department of Veterans Services administers benefits and services to Columbus veterans. Eligibility for some benefits may depend on residency, military component, and Veteran disability status.
Here are some of the Ohio state benefits available to Columbus veterans:
Some of these benefits may have specific eligibility requirements or application processes, and not all benefits may be available to all veterans. An experienced veterans’ disability benefits lawyer can help you know which state veterans benefits you may be eligible for.
At Stone Rose Law, our VA disability lawyers begin with a systematic and methodical approach to your specific VA claim. After your initial consultation with an accredited VA disability benefits attorney, we will conduct a comprehensive review. This means we review all your service treatment records, your VA records, any previous claims for benefits, and any rating decisions.
We thoroughly scour the record to look for:
If you have never applied for VA benefits before, we will assist with your claim at no cost to you. We will monitor your claim, assist you with preparing for C&P examinations, and advise you of any VA decisions as part of this free service.
VA denials of initial application claims have two main causes: problems with the claim, like insufficient evidence to establish the existence of the disability or its service connection, and errors the VA can make when considering your claim.
Some of the most common issues we see in VA benefits claims include:
When making a disability appeal, you have three ways to challenge an initial adverse VA decision:
Appealing to the Board of Veterans Affairs comes with its own set of choices and options, including:
To make a convincing appeal for denied benefits, you need to have a thorough awareness of VA regulations and procedures, how the VA applies them, and the time within which you must make the appeal. These services are what a Stone Rose Law VA claims appeal attorney thrives in providing. One of our experienced veterans’ appeals attorneys can guide you through the veterans’ disability appeal process until the matter is resolved.
Our expert veterans attorneys at Stone Rose Law are VA disability claim advocates. They have many years of experience helping Columbus veterans with their VA appeals, understand veterans’ disability law, and know how the VA application or appeal process works.
A Stone Rose Law veterans’ disability lawyer knows what goes into making the strongest and most persuasive appeal on your behalf. When you hire our law office to represent you in your VA claim, you can be confident that your VA disability lawyer will have the experience, competence, and resources to aggressively fight for your claim throughout the VA application process so you can receive the disability income and other benefits you deserve.
And, of course, we will only charge a reasonable, one-time contingency fee based on your VA award if we win your appeal.
Our legal team of veterans’ disability attorneys provides legal assistance to Columbus clients with service-connected disabilities.
Contact us today to discuss how our law firm and our veterans’ lawyers can help you with your VA claim or appeal by scheduling a free case review with an experienced veterans’ benefits lawyer at (480) 498-8998 or contact us online and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
