Can You Get a 100% VA Rating for PTSD or TBI Alone?

Conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries can cause severe, debilitating symptoms in veterans that make it challenging to form and maintain relationships or hold a job. But can veterans severely disabled by service-connected PTSD or TBIs qualify for a 100 percent disability rating from the VA based solely on their PTSD or TBI?

What Does a 100% Disability Rating Mean?

The VA may assign a veteran a 100 percent disability rating for a single health condition or a combination of conditions whose symptoms cause total impairment of the veteran’s occupational and social functioning. Veterans with a 100 percent-rated disability usually cannot maintain steady employment or perform activities of daily living without assistance from others. A veteran who receives a 100 percent disability rating will receive the maximum monthly disability compensation from the VA, based on the veteran’s family size. Veterans with 100 percent disability ratings also become eligible for other VA benefits, such as no-cost healthcare through the VA, travel allowances for VA appointments, waiver of funding fees for VA home loans, and grants for modifying homes to install disability accommodations. 

Can You Get a 100% Disability Rating for PTSD Alone?

A veteran may receive a 100 percent disability for service-connected PTSD if the symptoms fully disable the veteran’s occupational and social functioning. Criteria for a 100 percent disability rating for PTSD under VA regulations include:

• Total occupational and social impairment
• Gross impairment in thought processes or hallucinations
• Grossly inappropriate behaviors
• Persistent danger of hurting self or others
• Intermittent inability to perform activities of daily living, including maintenance of minimal personal hygiene
• Disorientation to time or place
• Memory loss of own name, names of close relatives, or own occupation

A 100 percent rating requires total impairment due to PTSD. However, a veteran does not have to become hospitalized due to their PTSD to qualify for a 100 percent disability rating. 

Can You Get a 100% Disability Rating for Only a TBI?

A veteran can also receive a 100 percent disability rating for a service-connected TBI. The VA evaluates TBIs based on various facets of cognitive impairment. A veteran rated in the highest level of impairment – “total” – for any facet will receive a 100 percent disability rating. “Total” ratings for these facets include:

• Memory, attention, concentration, executive functions: Objective evidence on testing of severe impairment of memory, attention, concentration, or executive functions resulting in severe functional impairment
• Judgment: For even routine and familiar decisions, usually unable to identify, understand, and weigh alternatives, understand the consequences of choices, or make reasonable decisions (for example, failing to identify appropriate clothing for current weather conditions)
• Orientation: Consistently disoriented to two or more of the four aspects of orientation (person, time, place, situation)
• Motor activity (with intact motor and sensory system): Motor activity severely decreased due to apraxia
• Visual-spatial orientation: Unable to touch or name own body parts when asked, identify the relative position in space of two different objects, or find the way from one room to another in a familiar environment. 
• Communication: Complete inability to communicate either by spoken or written language or both, or to comprehend spoken or written language or both. Unable to communicate basic needs.
• Consciousness: Persistently altered state of consciousness, such as a minimally responsive state, vegetative state, or coma.

Common Challenges Veterans Face

Many of the challenges veterans face in having severe disabilities caused by PTSD or TBIs rated at 100 percent include a lack of medical evidence documenting the severity of a veteran’s condition, inconsistencies in the medical record, or the failure of the medical record to corroborate a veteran’s subjective complaints. Veterans may overcome these challenges with substantial medical evidence, including expert opinion letters from private evaluators and buddy letters from family members and friends. 

Contact a VA Disability Lawyer Today

When you experience severe symptoms due to service-connected PTSD or a traumatic brain injury suffered during military service, you might qualify for a 100 percent disability rating that can provide you with maximum benefits from the VA. Contact Veterans Benefits Law Group today for a free, no-obligation consultation with a VA disability benefits attorney to discuss the eligibility requirements for a 100 percent disability rating for PTSD or a TBI.