VA Rule Shift Penalizes Medicated Veterans

The Department of Veterans Affairs has implemented a new rule that recalculates disability compensation based on a veteran's functional ability while taking medication, a significant departure from previous methods that focused on the underlying disability.

This policy change, effective immediately, means that if medication successfully manages symptoms, a veteran's disability rating may be lowered. This could lead to reduced monthly payments for potentially millions of disabled veterans nationwide.

Veteran advocates express strong opposition, asserting that the VA is now treating symptom suppression as a form of recovery. They highlight that this "recovery" often relies on long-term medication regimens with potential side effects and costs, which VA compensation was intended to help cover.

Financial experts caution that conditions such as chronic pain, seizures, mental health disorders, high blood pressure, and migraines are particularly at risk. The new rule fundamentally alters the starting point for disability evaluations, where "the veteran on medication" will now represent the assessed disability level, rather than the unmedicated severity of the service-connected condition.