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When you were serving in the US armed forces, you lived in a culture based on values like cooperation, teamwork, loyalty, and trust.
Now that you have left the service with a disability, you might be expecting the US Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA) to have you covered in a similar way. And most of the time, when it comes to receiving the compensation you deserve for a service connected injury, illness, or medical condition, the VA will be there for you.
But not all the time.
In fact, for veterans living in San Antonio and the rest of Texas, the VA declines about one of every three veterans’ benefits claims that it receives. If this has happened to you, or if you need help putting together your initial claim package for veterans benefits or you need to make a supplemental claim to an existing one, our San Antonio VA lawyers can help you.
Our VA disability attorneys at Stone Rose Law have decades of experience and have helped thousands of veterans to receive all the financial benefits they deserve from the Federal government. We offer free support for claims and supplemental claims, and handle VA denied claims appeals on a contingency fee basis.
Call (480) 498-8998 today to receive a free consultation with an experienced Texas VA disability lawyer.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA) manages the system of benefits available to US active duty military veterans. When you apply for VA medical treatment or for monthly compensation for a service-connected disability, you will be dealing with VA representatives throughout the process.
Sometimes, applying for VA benefits is a straightforward process that goes smoothly. But on too many occasions problems can develop, starting with preparing your claim and possibly continuing into how the VA reviews it.
Texas is one of the top three states where US military veterans live. Thousands of Texas veterans in San Antonio and elsewhere receive monthly payments from the VA for long-term service connected injuries and disabilities, including:
All of these injuries and conditions, and many others, can qualify you for Texas VA disability benefits.
VA disability benefits provide financial compensation if you have suffered an injury or disabling medical condition while serving in the military, or if your military service made an existing injury or condition worse.
The VA calculates the amounts of these benefits using a special equation that determines your percentage of disability, from 0 percent (non-compensable) to total disability at 100 percent.
This is your VA disability rating.
Although it may seem counterintuitive for the VA to assign a zero percent VA disability rating to you, there is a reason why it exists. Even though a zero percent disability does not qualify for monthly VA disability compensation, it can still make you eligible to receive other valuable VA benefits including medical benefits, mental health counseling, and even VA home loan eligibility.
How the VA calculates your disability rating is a complex subject. Many factors go into determining your rating, including whether, like most veterans who file VA benefit claims, you have multiple disabilities.
The VA calculates a combined disability rating using a formula that is informally known as, “VA math.” Meaning, your combined disability rating is not simply a sum of your individual disability ratings. Our VA Disability Calculator can help you to estimate how much you may receive in monthly disability payments if you have multiple disabilities.
The amount of VA disability benefits you can receive depends on your specific circumstances. You can use our VA Disability Calculator to get an estimate of what your disability benefit amounts can be.
One of our Stone Rose VA lawyers can help you prove the extent and degree of your disability to achieve the amount of disability compensation that you need.
If the VA approves your disability benefits claim, then depending on the nature and extent of your disabilities—most military veterans who have service-connected disabilities have more than one—you could qualify for the following kinds of VA assistance.
These are payments the VA makes directly to you. How much you receive in monthly benefits will depend on your combined disability rating. The higher your disability rating, the more you are able to receive.
Next, the VA matches your disability to a benefit amount that is based on the rates for the current year.
As of 2024, the pay rates for VA disability benefits are:
These monthly payments increase for disabled Texas veterans who have dependents.
For 2024, the VA has approved a 3.2 percent cost of living increase for the above disability payments. This is the same cost of living increase the Social Security Administration uses for Social Security disability benefits.
If you have a spouse, dependent children, or one or both parents who depend on you to take care of them, then you can receive additional compensation benefits for them in Special Monthly Compensation for aid and attendance services they perform.
In some situations, your dependents can continue to receive monthly payment VA benefits after you pass on. These benefits include coverage of burial costs and Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC benefits) for your surviving family members.
There are many kinds of special VA veteran benefits you might be eligible for. For example:
A veterans disability attorney can help you to learn which ones may apply to you.
The VA supports veterans with more than compensation amounts.
As we mentioned above, even if your disability rating is 0 percent, you can still receive other Veterans’ health services the VA offers through the VA healthcare system.
The VA offers several ways for Texas disabled veterans to file for VA disability claims benefits.
The easiest way is to file online. But you can also submit an application to your local VA Regional Benefit Office by mail, fax, or in person.
No matter which way you submit your benefits claim to the VA, to receive disability compensation you must prove three things: that you qualify as an eligible veteran, that you have a current disability, and that this current disability has a connection to your military service.
The VA decision on whether you are an eligible veteran takes into account multiple factors. The main things the VA will look at are your dates of active duty service to make sure they fall within a recognized time period, along with your military records like your DD-214.
Most of the time, this proof of service is all you need. But there are a few automatic disqualifiers. For example, if you received a dishonorable discharge, or in some cases an other-than-honorable discharge, these can keep you from receiving disability benefits if you cannot resolve them favorably.
A disability is a current physical or mental illness or impairment that your active duty military service either caused or made worse.
VA benefits are meant to compensate you to the extent that your service-connected disability renders you less than 100 percent able-bodied today. Usually the best way to show a disability is to provide medical records showing your ongoing treatment for it.
Proving a service connection is one of the basic requirements to qualify for disability compensation. Your current disability symptoms must relate to one or more disabling events that happened to you while you were a military service member.
Proving a service connection to your disability is something that the VA considers on a case-by-case basis. Your service medical records will be part of the claims evidence the VA will consider, along with any records of post-service medical treatment you have received.
Although some medical conditions do not require you to prove a connection to military service—these are known as presumed disabilities—most require you to prove a service connection.
The VA rejects many veterans disability claims because they lack sufficient evidence to create a service connection. One of our San Antonio VA disability attorneys at Stone Rose Law can help you to gather all the documents and other forms of support you need to clear this potential obstacle to your benefits claim approval.
Below are some specific kinds of medical conditions that the VA will consider in addition to disabilities that arose directly because of a service-connected disabling event.
A latent condition is a medical condition that you have when you enter military service, but which has not yet become disabling. If your latent condition worsens after you leave the service, then the VA will consider whether something happened to you while serving to aggravate it.
If that is the case, then you may still qualify for disability benefits even though your service activity was not the original cause of your condition.
Another way you can receive a service-connected disability is if it comes from a different disability that is service-connected.
For example, your doctor might diagnose you as having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after leaving the service based on a traumatic event you experienced while in service. If your PTSD treatment includes drugs that have a side effect of contributing to significant weight gain, this additional weight could ultimately lead to you being diagnosed later on with Type 2 Diabetes.
In this instance, although your diabetic condition arose after your discharge and is not itself a symptom of PTSD, you could still be able to trace a secondary service connection by showing that the PTSD treatment caused your diabetes.
Another factor the VA will evaluate is if your disability is related to your military service. If your injury, illness, or disabling condition comes from doing something that has nothing to do with a service connected condition, this can lead to a VA denial of your claim.
For example, if you are injured during the commission of a crime, or your injury is the result of an untreated substance abuse behavior, these are acts that the VA will conclude have no connection with your military service.
At Stone Rose Law, our San Antonio VA disability lawyers begin with a systematic approach to your specific VA claim. After consultation with an accredited VA disability benefits attorney, and with your permission, our attorneys will obtain a copy of your VA claims file. Because our attorneys have access to the same systems the VA uses to maintain claims files, we can get your claims file very quickly.
After obtaining access to your claims file, we do a thorough and comprehensive review of everything contained in it. That means we review all your service treatment records, your VA records, any previous claims for benefits, and any rating decisions. We meticulously scour the record looking for:
After reviewing your file and creating a plan for your initial claim, we will then discuss with you our findings and recommendations.
If you have never applied for VA benefits before, then we will assist you at no cost to you in preparing and filing a claim. 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.
Part of your VA eligibility evaluation can take the form of a Compensation and Pension (C&P) Examination. This is an examination the VA schedules for you to meet with a VA claims examiner.
Not every benefits claim will receive a request for a C&P exam. The VA requests them when it needs more information about your disability and to help it to assign a disability rating to it.
Our attorneys have experience working with medical doctors, psychologists, and vocational examiners to obtain favorable opinions. Many times, C&P examiners contracted by the VA are not qualified, don’t listen to the veteran’s symptoms, or render medically unsupported opinions. In these cases, our attorneys have the experience necessary to combat these harmful examinations and to counter them with better medical evidence.
VA denials of initial application claims come from two fundamental sources: problems with the claim, like not having enough supporting evidence to establish the existence of the disability or its service connection, and mistakes the VA can make when it is considering your claim.
Some of the most common problems we see in Texas VA benefit claims include:
When it comes to making a disability appeal, you have three options to challenge an initial VA decision:
Appealing to the Board comes with its own set of choices and options. These include:
To present a compelling appeal to a denied veterans disability claim, it is extremely important for you to have a thorough understanding of VA regulations and procedures, how the VA applies them, and the time limit you must work within. This is what a Stone Rose disability claim denial lawyer will do for you.
Appealing a claim denial is something that we strongly recommend you do with the extensive experience of a Stone Rose Texas VA claims appeal attorney on your side. One of our experienced attorneys at Stone Rose Law can guide you through the Texas veterans disability appeal process until the matter is finally resolved.
Our expert veterans attorneys at Stone Rose Law are VA disability claim advocates. They have many years of experience in helping San Antonio clients with their VA appeals, they understand veterans disability law, and they know how the VA application or appeal process works.
A Stone Rose veterans disability lawyer will know what goes into making the strongest and most persuasive possible appeal on your behalf, so you do not have to.
Our law firm is accredited to represent veterans by the Department of Veterans Affairs. We are admitted to practice VA disability law before the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. 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 and aggressively fight for your claim throughout the VA appeals process.
If we are unable to win your appeal, we only charge a reasonable, one-time contingency fee from your award from the VA.
If we do not win your appeal, then you owe us nothing.
Going up against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is not easy.
You have the best chance of winning a VA disability benefits appeal with legal help from an VA disability advocate.
At Stone Rose Law, our legal team of Texas veterans benefits lawyers are dedicated to representing veteran service members with disability claims like you so you can receive the compensation to which you are entitled for your service-connected disabilities. We have successfully represented many veterans claims in the San Antonio area with service related federal benefits claims.
We can help you prove that your injury or medical condition is connected to your time in service, or that your disability has worsened since the time you first started receiving veterans disability benefits.
We know how to collect and present compelling medical evidence needed to make the most persuasive case in support of your VA claim.
Discuss how our law firm and our veterans lawyers in Texas can help you with your veterans claim or appeal today.
Schedule a free case consultation with a San Antonio veterans benefits lawyer at (480) 498-8998, or contact us online and we will get back to you as soon as possible.