If you served on active duty in the military, your lungs may have been exposed to potentially harmful gases and particulates at some point. Such exposure can lead to a variety of respiratory conditions, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD.
COPD is a debilitating condition that can qualify you for benefits through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA). If you develop COPD in connection with your past military service, the veterans’ benefits attorneys of Stone Rose Law can help you obtain VA disability benefits, including monthly compensation benefits.Call us at (480) 498-8998 to talk with a veterans benefits specialist and to set up a consultation with an experienced VA disability benefits attorney to evaluate your claim. You can reach us anytime during the day or night, every day of the year.
COPD is an inflammatory lung disease that obstructs airflow into and out of the lungs. It is considered a progressive medical condition, meaning that it generally gets worse over time.
COPD manifests in two ways:
In the United States, most people with COPD will experience both of these conditions.
COPD is the product of your respiratory system’s reaction to irritation caused by inhaling toxic air or particulates like dust and sand over time.
For veterans, especially those who served in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, a common cause of COPD has been burn pit exposure. These pits were used to get rid of refuse materials, which often released toxic fumes when burned.
Other causes of COPD include:
More than one of these can contribute to COPD simultaneously.
The symptoms of COPD are generally those that you would expect to experience from a lung disease. The early signs of COPD include:
As COPD gets worse, you can experience additional symptoms acute respiratory failure symptoms that include:
The longer you live with COPD, the more it will affect how you live your life as more and more activities like walking, climbing stairs, or even doing simple household chores become harder to do.
Until recently, most veterans with COPD had to prove a service connection to claim VA benefits.
Since October 1, 2023, however, the VA now recognizes burn pit exposure as a ground for presumptive disability for veterans suffering from chronic bronchitis and COPD. This presumption can apply if you served in the following places and dates.
If you served in any of these locations, including the airspace above them, you have a presumption of exposure to burn pits or other toxins:
If you served in any of these locations, including the airspace above them, you have a presumption of exposure to burn pits or other toxins:
If you have a COPD diagnosis but do not qualify for a presumptive service connection, you can still make a benefits claim. However, you will need to establish that connection.
To make a service connection, you will need to show that you have a current COPD diagnosis and that your COPD either began or became worse because of your military service. You will also need to establish a medical nexus connection between an event or condition of your service and your current COPD condition.
Your doctor who treats you for your COPD symptoms is often the person you will rely on to write a nexus letter to make the service connection.
In addition to a medical nexus letter, proof of a service connection for COPD can include:
Cigarette smoking is a major contributor to COPD. In fact, there’s a reason the persistent, hacking, mucus-filled cough that COPD sufferers experience is called a “smoker’s cough.“
Although it is discouraged today, cigarette smoking was once accepted and commonplace in all branches of the military. The VA used to use a veteran’s history of smoking as grounds to deny claims.
Still, the VA does not automatically deny COPD claims because of past or present cigarette smoking. You can receive COPD-related VA benefits—even as a smoker—if you qualify for a presumptive service connection.
Even if you smoked cigarettes and cannot receive benefits through a presumptive service connection, you may still be able to qualify for a COPD VA rating and VA disability benefits. The key is that you must convince the VA, with medical evidence, that it is at least as likely as not likely that your military service caused your COPD.
In other words, you must persuade the VA that the non-smoking contributors to your COPD were as likely as smoking cigarettes led to the condition.
How can you improve your chances of the VA accepting your COPD benefits claim if you are or were a cigarette smoker? Here are a couple of things you can do:
Sometimes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease can be considered a primary condition in combination with a secondary condition that the VA recognizes. If the COPD condition had a medical nexus to another medical condition, this additional disability is based on a secondary service connection.
Examples of disabling conditions that can be at least made worse by COPD include sleep apnea, chronic bronchitis, depression, anxiety, asthma, allergic bronchospasms, and lung cancer.
Sometimes the VA will schedule you for a C&P examination as part of your application for COPD VA benefits. The purpose of the exam is for the VA to gather any additional information it needs to decide whether to give you a VA disability rating for your condition and to help assess what your VA disability rating percentage should be.
During a C&P exam, a VA examiner will review your records, ask questions, and possibly have you undergo tests.
A C&P exam is a serious matter. If the VA sets one up for you, you must attend it. Missing a C&P exam can at least delay the VA’s consideration of your application and could even lead to a claim denial.
Sometimes, the VA examiner might draw conclusions that do not support your COPD benefits claim. For example, the VA examiner may believe that you do not have COPD but another respiratory system condition instead, like pulmonary hypertension.
Or, the VA examiner may decide that the evidence you have provided is insufficient to establish a service connection to COPD, presumptive or otherwise.
If this happens, remember that an unfavorable C&P exam is not necessarily the end of your benefits claim. An experienced VA disability benefits attorney can guide you on your options, including having another qualified examiner review your evidence or making a supplemental claim to provide more new and relevant evidence.
If the VA accepts your application for COPD disability benefits, the next step will be for the VA to assign you a disability rating. You can receive one of six disability ratings, from as low as 10 percent to as high as 100 percent.
The VA rates COPD based on test measures that measure how much air is in your breath capacity and any cardiac or respiratory limitation. These tests include Forced Expiratory Volume, Forced Vital Capacity, and Diffusion Capacity of the Lung for Carbon Monoxide by the Single Breath Method.
You can also be tested for your maximum exercise capacity, like the six-minute walk test. Another factor in the calculation is whether you need outpatient oxygen therapy.
It is important for you to know that, as a veteran with COPD, your VA disability rating will be assigned based not on subjective criteria, such as how short of breath you are or how often you experience coughing episodes, but on graduated calculations that use multiple data points from your tests.
Simply put, the worse your calculated scores are, the higher your disability rating will be.
The specific VA disability ratings that you can receive for COPD are:
In a situation where COPD contributes to keeping you from being able to gain or hold substantially gainful employment, you might still qualify for 100 percent total disability based on individual unemployability, or TDIU, even if you do not have a 100 percent VA disability rating (individual or combined).
There are three ways you might receive TDIU benefits. All require you to be unable to get or keep substantially gainful employment.
It is an unfortunate truth that the VA does not always approve benefits claims the first time around. The VA actually denies almost one-third of the claims it receives.
The good news is these denials are not final in many cases. Often, the difference between an accepted benefits claim and a denied one is simply correcting an error in the original application or providing additional medical evidence for the VA to reconsider.
The VA has established ways for you to appeal a denied benefit claim. These can be informal, like making a supplemental claim, or they can include a request for reconsideration and a formal hearing before a VA judge.
Although it is possible to prepare and submit a claim for VA benefits on your own, the VA appeals process can be confusing to navigate on your own. If you need to appeal a denied claim, it is a good idea to work with an experienced VA appeals attorney.
Our Stone Rose Law military lawyers help military and veterans from all over the nation receive the VA disability compensation they need. We help our clients with all kinds of VA claims, including for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. When you choose Stone Rose Law, you aren’t just assigned a lawyer. Our entire legal team and support staff will care for your legal matter.
At Stone Rose Law, we make sure you receive legal counsel and representation you can trust. Call us at (480) 498-8998 or contact us online if you’d like to set up a confidential, complimentary consultation with a veterans law attorney.
Initial case evaluations are always free, and we are more than happy to answer any questions you have about our history or legal process.
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