Knee Pain Veterans Disability Benefits Details
Are knee pain and injuries from your active military service making daily living difficult? You may be eligible to receive a monthly veterans disability check if your team at Woods and Woods can prove that it is a service-connected disability. A monthly check from the VA can help fill in the gaps caused by your knee pain. Having professionals review your case can also lead to the discovery of other disabilities that you didn’t know counted for a VA rating. Knee joint pain can be a symptom of bigger things that the VA should compensate you for.
What Caused Your Knee Pain?
Knee pain can come from an accident or normal wear and tear. Knee disabilities bring a lot of different symptoms that can even show up as back pain or hip pain. As your knee condition progresses, it seldom gets better. Your symptoms that fall under knee pain may include:
- Inability to bend your leg as far as you used to
- Constant pain in your joints
- Knee feels frozen when you try to straighten it
- Swelling of your knee after being on your feet for a while
- Pain after a short walk or standing around the house
- Knee “gives out” and can’t hold weight at unpredictable times
- Even if your knee is amputated and gone, your brain can still think it has pain.
Apply for VA Disability Benefits for Your Knee Pain Today
If you do have knee pain from your service, you want to start applying for VA disability benefits as soon as possible. The process can take several years, and over the course of time, the secondary effects of a knee injury will probably increase. If you start your claim now, you’ll have a better chance of attaching other related injuries to your claims like arthritis, pain and swelling, or a restricted range of motion. If it’s not getting better, hurry up and start the process so in 10 years you can be applying for an increase instead of just getting started.
Secondary Disabilities can also be amplified by a knee injury, so if you are already working on your VA Disability claim, make sure you include your knee pain in the application. As you compensate for your knee pain, your opposite hip might be doing extra work. A right ankle injury and a left knee injury change the calculation of your rating. This is called a bilateral factor and in VA Math you can get a higher rating if you have disabilities on each leg. The VA knows that one leg is going to work harder to compensate for another, so they adjust the ratings in your favor if both legs have a disability.
What is the Veteran’s Disability Rating for a Knee Injury?
The VA rating for knee pain depends on how far your knee can bend and not feel pain. Zero percent is considered a straight leg. If you can’t bend your leg at all without experiencing pain, you’ll have a higher rating. If you can bend your knee all of the way to 90°, you’ll get a lower rating. Don’t be afraid to tell your doctor during your C&P Exam exactly where and when it hurts. If you tough it out and bend your knee a little more than you can bear, it will cost you in monthly benefits. Be open and clear with the doctor about your pain and discomfort. Also, take notes along about flare-ups and their effect on your daily life at work or with your family.
Use our VA Disability Calculator to estimate your rating and monthly entitlement here.
The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) rates your range of motion in your knee from about 10% up to 30%. That doesn’t seem like much, but they rate extension of your leg up to 50%. If you can bend it but you can’t extend and straighten it, your rating will be different. Even the ways that your bones below your knee are affected can increase your rating if they are injured. Every degree that you can bend your knee affects the measure of your functional loss and therefore, your final knee disability rating.
You Can Get a VA Disability Check for Knee Pain
If you are working in a job now but can tell that your knees aren’t going to carry you to retirement, you should start planning ahead right now. If you are out of work right now because of your knee pain, you should call us today. Veterans disability for knee pain can cover a wide range of injuries and symptoms:
- Torn ACL
- Knee replacement
- Wear and tear
- Instability of the knee
- Tendinitis (or tendonitis)
- Limitation of flexion
- Arthritis
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Decreased range of motion
- Ankylosis of your joints
Our VA Disability Calculator includes calculations for bilateral knee pain and other bilateral factors. Your best bet is to review and remember the various stresses on your knee and walk through the process with our case managers. Review your C-File and any medical records or complaints you’ve had either with the VA or with your family doctor.
If you Get Social Security, it Can Help you Get Veterans Disability
A lot of people wonder if you can get VA disability benefits if you already get Social Security benefits. In fact, the Social Security Administration is a completely different department of the government than the Veterans Administration. If you have documentation and decisions from the Social Security Administration that show their approval of your conditions, we can include those in your appeal or application. Often, if one administration accepted a decision, the other one will too. The SSA will even expedite your application with them if you already have 100% TDIU.
Are There Torn ACL Disability Ratings for Veterans?
If your knee gives out, pops, or swells up with a lot of pain quickly, you may have torn your ACL. Even though you didn’t tear your ACL during active service, you might have injuries that accelerated the tear. Even if you have a genetic condition that affected your knees before you entered the service, any injuries or activities that increase the level of injury can go into your VA disability claim. When it comes to the VA rating knee joint pain, you want to show a complete picture of how the pain started and continues to affect your life.
In 2010, the VA incorrectly lumped an ACL tear and arthritis into one single disability. Without regard to the range of motion of the veteran’s knee, the veteran was unable to get a higher rating. That claim was later corrected to become two separate entitlements of 10% and 20%. (Which of course adds up to 28% with VA Math, but was rounded to 30% disability) This leaves room for a ratings increase claim a few years down the road as his or her flexibility changes.
How Do I Get VA Disability for Knee Pain if My Leg’s Been Amputated?
No matter the injury or illness, service-connected amputations of the leg all fall under the same VA Rating classification. Of course, there are different ratings depending on where the amputation is done. It’s not necessarily higher rating if the cut is higher up the leg, either. Various toes and parts of the foot can earn you different VA ratings. The VA rating for knee amputations is either 40% if there still some knee function or 60% if the knee is removed or unusable.
These 40% and 60% ratings related only to the point of amputation. If you suffer from Phantom Limb Pain (PLP), you may try to get a higher rating. PLP can last for years after the amputation surgery and can have a huge effect on your quality of life. When making a case with the VA, you’ll get the biggest check if you can paint a full picture of how your pain affects your daily life. You will get a higher rating and you are more likely to be approved for 100% TDIU if you can show how your whole life is affected by your disability. You may also qualify for Special Monthly Compensation (SMC) if your knee pain affects the way you can live in your house, maintain your own health, or take care of your family.
We Help Veterans Get More Than VA Benefits for Their Knee Pain
“I have been fighting the VA since I was discharged in 1972. I injured both my right knee and back while serving in the USAF. When I left, I went to the VA for my discharge exam. From there until 2008, it has been nothing but a struggle…My last appeal was denied Jan of 2015. I still had a low %. After spending 2 weeks in research, I called Woods & Woods. Until then, my representation was miserable. That is not so with my current rep. Thank you, Woods & Woods.”
– L.B. in Texas on Facebook Reviews
Many of our clients were guys that didn’t think their aches and pains were enough to get Veterans’ Disability. Once they called in, we worked on their case and found that they had more qualifying disabilities than they realized. If one knee is injured, the other knee and hip are making up for the weakness, so there may be secondary-service connected disabilities. Your best bet is to get your case before our team so that we can get you the best VA Rating you qualify for.
How Can Woods and Woods Help With Your Claim?
If you are a veteran and you have service-connected injuries, then all you have to do is fill out the paperwork, apply for VA benefits, and wait. You can do it yourself, but ask any of the thousands of veterans we have helped, from Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq, and they’ll tell you what a good job we’ve done with their claim. VA disability claims take a long time, so you want to give it your best shot right from the start. We’ll look over your case and get interviews from family members and friends about your current condition and your condition before you were in the service.
We tell the complete story of your life with a disability for your case so that you can get what you deserve from the VA.
Use our VA Disability Calculator to estimate your rating and monthly entitlement here.
Where Do I Start with the VA If I Have Knee Pain Right Now?
If you are currently talking to a VA doctor or a family doctor about your knee pain, keep seeking relief. Treatment or physical therapy for your condition will probably not affect your VA disability claim for knee pain. Make sure the doctors keep records of your flexibility, extension limitations, and movement, as well as any assistive devices like canes or walkers that you require.
Start your VA application process as soon as possible. If you have already applied and the VA denied your knee pain claim, you can still contact us. We can look into your case for free and see what ratings you should have gotten. We can look to see if you should have applied separate ratings to your knee injury or if you have different types of arthritis that are related to your active duty in other ways. For example, Agent Orange exposure has been linked to rheumatoid arthritis, so if you were in blue water or brown water Vietnam service, the VA should give some kind of rating for that.
Give us a call or fill out this form to bring our team together around your case. We work hard to get you (and your family) the VA benefits you deserve.