How Do I Get A Disability Rating For Tinnitus?

Did you know more than 1.25 million Veterans suffer from hearing loss, and more than 2 million suffer from Tinnitus? If you’re a part of that statistic, you might be wondering how to get a VA disability rating for tinnitus. In this article, we’ll tell you how!

How Do I Get A Disability Rating For Tinnitus?

In most cases, hearing loss VA disability claims among Veterans are typically a direct result of prolonged noise exposure from things such as:

explosives
aircraft
tanks
gunfire
combat deployments
training incidents
and much more

Unfortunately, hearing loss can have a long-term effect on Veterans’ ability to live everyday life. However, if you experienced any hearing loss due to your time in the military, you may be eligible for VA disability benefits.

Please note that in many cases, a hearing loss claim is one of the most challenging claims to get service-connected. Many times, these claims receive a low rating or are denied.

How to Prove a Hearing Loss Claim

In order for a Veteran to prove a hearing loss disability claim, they must:

Receive a medical diagnosis of hearing loss confirmed by an audiologist
Show evidence on an in-service injury or incident that occurred that would have resulted in hearing loss
Have current symptoms of hearing loss (prove the severity of symptoms)

What’s the Difference Between Hearing Loss and Tinnitus?

You might have heard of Tinnitus — “the ringing in the ear syndrome,” which is very different from hearing loss.

So what exactly is the difference?

Well, the most significant difference is how the VA rates these two types of claims.

A tinnitus claim is typically a subjective claim, you either have it, or you don’t. This means you can only have one VA rating — Your rating for Tinnitus is either 10% or nothing.

On the other hand, hearing loss is a factual claim. For this type of claim, an audiologist measures your hearing loss at various decibels to determine your VA rating for hearing loss.

Another difference is that Tinnitus is the #1 most accessible claim to win. In fact, from 2018 to 2019, the VA disability claims data showed that Tinnitus was the most commonly claimed disability for all Veterans with over 157,000 recipients.