Today we implemented some fixes and changes to our calculator for determining what your final VA disability rating would be. This calculator allows you to input individual conditions and then see how VA would calculate the final rating, based on its “whole person” concept.
If you’re not familar with how the “whole person” concept impacts final rating determinations for multiple disabilities (and often wonder why they don’t just add them all up–50% and 30% and 20% should equal 100%!), VA does not add percentages linearly. Instead, it calculates using the “whole-person” concept, where the remaining “healthy” percentage decreases with each additional condition.
For example, let’s say you have Asthma which has been rated at 50%. You also have foot pain which has been rated at 30%, and you have depression, also rated at 30%:
Starting at a 100% “whole person”, subtract the highest percentage condition (50% for asthma), leaving you 50% healthy.
Multiply your 50% healthy person by 30% for foot pain, equaling 15%. Subtract that 15% from your 50% healthy person, reducing you to a 35% healthy person.
Multiple your 35% healthy person by 30% for depression, equaling 10.5%. Subtract that 10.5% from your 35% healthy person, reducing you to a 24.5% healthy person.
You are left as a 24.5% healthy person, so you would be 75.5% disabled. Since VA rounds to the nearest 10% after the final calculation is made, you would be rounded up to 80% disabled as your final rating.
If you’d like to see if the updates we made to the calculator impacts any conditions you’ve altready input into the calculator, simply force-close your app and re-open. Navigate back to the calculator, and if you’ve already input conditions before, your total rating will be automatically updated. If you haven’t tried the calculator out yet, try it out!
