One of the most common disability claims the VA sees is hearing loss. Working around loud machinery and in combat zones can damage your ears, leaving you unable to distinguish what people are saying or to hear faint noises. In some cases, your service may leave you entirely deaf before the end of your life.
However, while hearing loss is one of the most common disability claims, it is also one of the most complex to understand. Read on to learn more about how to understand your VA disability rating for hearing loss and to find what you’re owed.
What We Cover In This Article About Veterans with Hearing Loss
- There are 2 Types of Hearing Loss
- Causes Of Hearing Loss in Veterans
- Risk Factors of Hearing Problems
- Getting Diagnosed
- How to Prepare for Your Appointment
- What to Expect at Your Exam
- Establishing a Service Connection
- Creating a Medical Nexus
- Basics of Hearing Loss Ratings
- Getting Your Roman Numeral
- Getting Your Overall Rating
- Rating Codes
- Compensation Amounts
- What to Do If Your Claim Is Denied
- Learn More About Your VA Disability Rating for Hearing Loss
There are 2 Types of Hearing Loss
Hearing loss affects about a third of U.S. citizens between the ages of 65 and 75. About half of adults over 75 have some form of hearing loss. People with hearing loss may notice that speech seems more muffled, they have trouble hearing consonants, they have trouble understanding words, and they have to turn up the volume on the television or radio.
There are two main types of hearing loss: conductive and sensorineural. Conductive hearing loss involves your outer and/or middle ear and may be caused by everything from excessive earwax to abnormal bone growths. Sensorineural hearing loss involves damage to the inner ear, and mixed hearing loss involves a combination of the two.
Causes Of Hearing Loss in Veterans
There are a number of things that can cause hearing loss, with exposure to loud noises being at the top of the list. As you age or are exposed to loud sounds, the hairs or nerve cells in your inner ear responsible for sending sound signals to your brain can start to wear down. Those signals don’t reach your brain as effectively, and you experience hearing loss.
If your body produces too much earwax, it can begin to build up in your ear canal and block sound waves from ever reaching your inner ear. Ear infections, abnormal bone growths, and tumors can also block your ear canal and stop sound waves from reaching your inner ear. Loud blasts of noise, sudden changes in pressure, infection, or physical trauma can cause your eardrum to rupture, affecting your hearing.
Risk Factors of Hearing Problems
Aging increases your chances of developing hearing loss, but certain genetic properties may also place you at higher risk for hearing loss even from the time you’re born. Certain diseases that produce a high fever can also cause damage to your inner ear, leaving you susceptible to hearing loss. And if medications like Viagra and specific antibiotics can cause damage to your inner ear.
Loud noise exposure can come from either professional or personal noises. It will come as no surprise to you that veterans, who are exposed to everything from gunfire to explosions, often with no hearing protection, are at higher risk of hearing loss. Hobbies like carpentry, motorcycling, snowmobiling, and listening to loud music can also cause damage to your inner ear.
Getting Diagnosed
When you go to get diagnosed with hearing loss, your doctor will need to perform two specific tests in order for the VA to grant you disability compensation. These tests are the Maryland CNC test and the Puretone Audiometric test.
The Maryland CNC test measures hearing loss based on how well you recognize speech. The test is fifty words long and should be administered on both ears in order to determine your full disability rating.
The Puretone Audiometric test measures the faintest tones you can pick up on to determine your overall hearing loss. During this test, you’ll wear a set of headphones and raise your hand whenever you hear a beep.
How to Prepare for Your Appointment
Before you go for your doctor’s appointment, it’s a good idea to write down all the symptoms you’ve been having and how long they’ve been going on. In addition to overall hearing loss, you may have experienced a ringing in your ears known as tinnitus or pain in your ears. Even if a symptom seems unrelated to you, jot it down and tell your doctor about it.
You may also want to write down a complete work and medical history to take with you. Be sure to include a list of any supplements, vitamins, or medications you’re currently taking, as well as any previous history of illness or injury. Make sure you also tell your doctor about any regular exposure to loud noises you’ve had, whether that be during your military career or in your personal life.
What to Expect at Your Exam
In addition to the two tests we discussed, your doctor may also want to perform a few additional tests to determine the exact extent of your hearing loss. They’ll likely begin by asking you about your medical history and your history of noise exposure. They may also perform a physical exam to check for built-up earwax or unusual growths in your ear canal.
Your doctor may do several screening tests, including having you cover each ear and determining at what volume you can begin to hear sounds. They may also check if and how you respond to various other sounds. They might also use tuning forks, simple, two-pronged instruments, to determine which tones you can and can’t hear.
Here one of our VA disability lawyers gives you tips as you’re going in to your C&P exam.
Establishing a Service Connection
Once you get an official diagnosis of hearing loss, your next step in qualifying for VA disability compensation will be to establish a service connection. This is the specific event in your service record that caused your condition. Any time in your service career when you were exposed to noises louder than a motorcycle for more than four hours a day could qualify you for disability compensation.
If you ever served in a combat zone or were exposed to artillery fire, you are likely entitled to hearing loss compensation. Exposure to small arms fire and certain military occupational specialties are also common acceptable service connections. People who did mechanical work on vehicles or aircraft are often approved for hearing loss compensation.
Creating a Medical Nexus
After establishing a service connection, you’ll need to prove that the event you pointed to in your service record is what caused your hearing loss. For instance, if you spent your teenage years attending live rock concerts and then worked a desk job in the military, it will be hard to claim VA disability compensation for your hearing loss, but not impossible. This is the last qualification you’ll need to meet to apply for VA disability.
Your doctor will be able to provide the medical nexus linking your hearing loss to your service record. They will need to confirm that it is “at least as likely as not” that your military service is what caused your hearing loss. Make sure you check with your local VA office to make sure you get the proper form from your doctor providing this nexus.
One of our VA disability lawyers explains the importance of the Nexus Letter for your claim in this video:
Basics of Hearing Loss Ratings
Once you’ve applied and been approved for VA disability compensation, you’ll receive your disability rating that will determine how much money you’ll get every month. We’ll talk more about these ratings and compensation in a moment. But first, hearing loss ratings have some odd rules that we need to review.
Your hearing loss will be rated as only one disability, even if you have bilateral damage to both ears. The results from both your Maryland CNC and Puretone Audiometric tests will be used to determine a Roman numeral that represents your hearing loss in each ear. These Roman numerals will then be combined to determine your overall disability rating.
Getting Your Roman Numeral
In order to get your Roman numeral for each ear, you’ll need to know your scores for each ear on the two hearing tests the VA requires. This is why it’s so important that you make sure you have both tests performed on both ears. Once you have all four scores, you’ll take a look at the VA’s appropriate rating table.
Roman numerals ratings run from I through XI, with I being least severe and XI being most severe. If your left ear had a speech discrimination rate of 46 percent and you scored a 60 on your Puretone test for that ear, you would receive a Roman numeral of VIII for your left ear. However, if your right ear had a speech discrimination rate of 62 percent and you scored a 60 on your Puretone test in that ear, your right ear would receive a VI rating.
You can download the latest hearing loss rating calculator tables directly from the VA here.
Getting Your Overall Rating
Once you have the Roman numeral ratings for each of your ears, you’ll combine those to get your overall disability rating. This system is designed to account for the ways you can compensate for hearing loss in one ear with your other ear. You’ll refer to another VA rating table to determine what your disability rating is.
Using our example from before, you would begin with the rating for your right ear, which is your better ear. You would locate the VI row on the left-hand column and then find the rating for your worse ear in the top row. Our hypothetical patient with the VI right ear and the VIII left ear would receive a disability rating of 40 percent.
Rating Codes
When you get diagnosed with hearing loss, you’ll also get a code that goes with your diagnosis. This is how the VA keeps track of the different conditions they offer compensation for. This code will not impact your compensation.
The VA hearing loss diagnostic code is 6100. This refers specifically to hearing loss that is not caused by other conditions. For instance, hearing loss caused by a bone growth has a diagnostic code of 6202, and tinnitus has a diagnostic code of 6260.
Compensation Amounts
Once you have your overall disability rating, you can use that to determine how much compensation you’ll get every month. This money is tax-free, and the VA considers whether you have a spouse, children, or parents who are financially dependent on you. The more dependents you have, the more compensation you’ll receive each month if you have a rating of more than 30 percent.
If you have a disability rating of 10 percent, you’ll receive $171.23 per month, no matter your number of dependents. If you have a 100 percent disability rating you would receive $3,737.85 month (more with dependents).
Here one of our VA disability lawyers talks about common disabilities that add up to 100%.
What to Do If Your Claim Is Denied
If your VA disability claim is denied, don’t worry – you still have a lot of options for getting the compensation you’re owed. You can appeal the VA’s decision all the way up to the BVA in Washington, D.C., if need be. Don’t give up, and don’t take no for an answer if you believe you are entitled to more compensation. We’ll try every angle we can for you case, just like we’ve done for thousands of other veterans.
If your claim is denied, it may be a good idea to hire a lawyer who specializes in veteran law to help you with your claim. We can help you navigate deadlines, filing requirements, and loopholes to get your claim approved. We can also help you get every penny of the compensation you’re owed.
Learn More About Your VA Disability Rating for Hearing Loss
Hearing loss is a common VA disability claim, but the system used to manage it can be confusing. Understanding your VA disability rating for hearing loss will help you ensure that you get all the compensation you’re owed. Remember to have your doctor run both tests on both of your ears so you can accurately calculate your disability rating.
If you’d like help submitting a claim or appealing a ruling, get in touch with us at Woods and Woods, The Veterans’ Firm. We fight for veterans every day, and you don’t pay unless we win. Contact us today to get help with your VA disability claim.
Yes, you can. They often go together so you want to make sure that you include both of them on your application. We don’t let any of our clients apply for one without being screened for the other.
That depends on your condition and your standing with the VA. Before you go in, call us and let’s see if you can get a disability claim started so that your exam can be part of your application.
Neil Woods
VA disability lawyer
Woods and Woods
VA Accreditation Number: 44739