Veterans Disability Compensation: 5 Ways to Establish Service-Connection

When a military service veteran files a claim for disability compensation with the VA for an illness or disability that resulted from military service, one of the first things a Veteran has to establish is whether the current illness or disability is connected to the Veteran's military service.  This is called establishing service connection.

How to Establish Service-Connection

There are, generally, 5 ways to establish service-connection.  It is important to note that the summary below is very basic.  How these 5 methods of service connection affect your claim, or whether the VA properly considered all applicable methods of service connection is not covered by this article. For that, you will have to talk to an attorney that practices Veterans Disability Compensation law, or a Veterans Service Organization (VSO) that represents Veterans in such matters.

In any event, here are the 5 methods of establishing service-connection for a current disability, disease, or illness:

1) DIRECT Service Connection. While  direct service connection can be established in any number of ways, this generally means of establishing service connection usually means that there is clear evidence of a disability, an incident that occurred while the veteran was in service, and evidence of “linkage” between the two.  The most common example is this: A veteran is currently paralyzed from the waist down.  In military service, the veteran suffered an injury in Airborne School, and broke his back during a parachute landing. In this example, the veteran's paralysis is directly connected to his military service.

2) Pre-Existing Injury AGGRAVATED by Military Service.  In this type of service-connection, the veteran had a condition prior to military service, an event occurred in military service, and the event in service aggravated the pre-existing condition.  An example of this is the Veteran that had a skin condition prior to entering military service. However, due to exposure to certain chemicals in the military, the skin condition is made worse than it ever would have been on its own.  In situations such as this, the military service is said to "aggravate" the pre-existing condition.

3) Service Connection by LEGAL PRESUMPTION.  Certain conditions or diseases are presumed to be service connected. There are lists of these conditions and their presumptive periods. Most of these conditions must manifest to a degree of 10 percent of more within one year from the date of separation.  For example, General Shinseki recently directed the VA to grant service connection by legal presumption to any Veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange during their military service, and who now have Parkinson's disease.  The veteran does not have to prove that his or her current medical condition is related to their military service - the law presumes it.

4) Secondary Service Connection.  This type of service connection exists when a one-service connected disability is the cause of another disability.  The second disability is not directly related to military service, but would not have occurred but for the first disability (which was caused by military service). A famous case of this type is of a WW II veteran who was treated for tuberculosis using medicine known to cause hearing loss.   The hearing loss was service-connected secondarily, through the tuberculosis.   Another common present-day example is Diabetes Type II.  When Diabetes Type II is service-connected, conditions such as peripheral neuropathy, or the panoply of medical conditions caused by Diabetes Type II should be given serious consideration for secondary service connection.

5) Service Connection due to injury caused by treatment in the VA Healthcare System.  38 U.S.C. 1151 states that if a veteran is injured because of VA hospitalization, treatment, rehab or therapy that is not the fault of the veteran, the injury is treated as service-connected.

You should always talk to a qualified VSO representative or a Veterans Disability Compensation Attorney to determine if your condition can be service-connected in one or more of the above ways, or to find out if a prior VA Ratings Decision is in error because the VA failed to consider all available methods of Service Connection.