Claim Raven explanation
What this means
A total disability rating and a permanent total disability finding answer different questions. This section describes total disability and when an impairment is considered reasonably certain to continue throughout life.
A 100-percent rating is not automatically permanent. The nature of the disability, prognosis, treatment history, and likelihood of improvement can matter. Other rules govern the particular rating or individual-unemployability route involved.
How this helps your claim
Read the actual award language before assuming that a total rating includes permanence. If permanence is at issue, medical evidence about the expected course of the service-connected disabilities is more useful than the percentage alone.
What to check in your records
Use your decision, examination reports, and relevant records to check the following points.
- Check whether the decision expressly establishes permanent and total disability.
- Review the prognosis and evidence about the likelihood of improvement.
- Compare future-examination information with the stated basis for the total rating.
Separate total severity from permanence
A total evaluation describes the level of disability under an applicable rating route. Permanence concerns whether the impairment is reasonably certain to continue throughout life. A condition can meet one description without automatically establishing the other.
Read the award letter for the actual findings rather than relying on the percentage alone. Medical prognosis, treatment course and expected improvement can help explain permanence. An award's relationship to future examinations should also be checked in the actual decision and relevant examination rules.
Does a 100-percent rating always mean permanent and total?
No. The percentage alone does not establish permanence. Temporary total ratings and other total evaluations can arise under different provisions. Look for the specific permanent-total finding and its supporting context instead of assuming that every notice showing 100 percent carries the same status.
Official regulatory text
38 CFR § 3.340
eCFR snapshot: September 3, 2026. Layout and spacing are adapted for reading. The full section and its tables are included below.
§ 3.340 Total and permanent total ratings and unemployability.
(a) Total disability ratings —
(1) General. Total disability will be considered to exist when there is present any impairment of mind or body which is sufficient to render it impossible for the average person to follow a substantially gainful occupation. Total disability may or may not be permanent. Total ratings will not be assigned, generally, for temporary exacerbations or acute infectious diseases except where specifically prescribed by the schedule.
(2) Schedule for rating disabilities. Total ratings are authorized for any disability or combination of disabilities for which the Schedule for Rating Disabilities prescribes a 100 percent evaluation or, with less disability, where the requirements of paragraph 16, page 5 of the rating schedule are present or where, in pension cases, the requirements of paragraph 17, page 5 of the schedule are met.
(3) Ratings of total disability on history. In the case of disabilities which have undergone some recent improvement, a rating of total disability may be made, provided:
(i) That the disability must in the past have been of sufficient severity to warrant a total disability rating;
(ii) That it must have required extended, continuous, or intermittent hospitalization, or have produced total industrial incapacity for at least 1 year, or be subject to recurring, severe, frequent, or prolonged exacerbations; and
(iii) That it must be the opinion of the rating agency that despite the recent improvement of the physical condition, the veteran will be unable to effect an adjustment into a substantially gainful occupation. Due consideration will be given to the frequency and duration of totally incapacitating exacerbations since incurrence of the original disease or injury, and to periods of hospitalization for treatment in determining whether the average person could have reestablished himself or herself in a substantially gainful occupation.
(b) Permanent total disability. Permanence of total disability will be taken to exist when such impairment is reasonably certain to continue throughout the life of the disabled person. The permanent loss or loss of use of both hands, or of both feet, or of one hand and one foot, or of the sight of both eyes, or becoming permanently helpless or bedridden constitutes permanent total disability. Diseases and injuries of long standing which are actually totally incapacitating will be regarded as permanently and totally disabling when the probability of permanent improvement under treatment is remote. Permanent total disability ratings may not be granted as a result of any incapacity from acute infectious disease, accident, or injury, unless there is present one of the recognized combinations or permanent loss of use of extremities or sight, or the person is in the strict sense permanently helpless or bedridden, or when it is reasonably certain that a subsidence of the acute or temporary symptoms will be followed by irreducible totality of disability by way of residuals. The age of the disabled person may be considered in determining permanence.
(c) Insurance ratings. A rating of permanent and total disability for insurance purposes will have no effect on ratings for compensation or pension.
[26 FR 1585, Feb. 24, 1961, as amended at 46 FR 47541, Sept. 29, 1981]
Related references
- 38 CFR § 4.1: What a VA disability rating measures
- 38 CFR § 3.159: VA duty to assist: records and examinations
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