Hearing loss is one of the top disabilities among recipients of VA disability benefits. In 2022, more than 1.4 million veterans were receiving benefits in whole or part due to hearing loss. In the same year, more than 74,000 new recipients got benefits for hearing loss–about 3.7% of new approvals. That probably comes as no surprise, since noise exposure is extreme in many military settings.
Veterans are more likely to have mild, moderate, and significant trouble hearing and to be deaf than non-veterans. This condition may also be secondary to another type of service-connected condition. For example, one study found that nearly half of veterans with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) had been diagnosed with one of three types of hearing loss: conductive hearing loss, sensorineural hearing loss, or central auditory dysfunction.
If you suffer from this condition as a result of your military service, you may be entitled to veterans disability benefits.
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Proving A Loss Of Hearing
Veterans may be diagnosed with this condition in different ways, by different medical providers. However, for purposes of veterans disability benefits, the VA only accepts the diagnosis and measurement of a licensed audiologist using specific tests. The two tests the VA requires are the Maryland CNC Test and the Pure Tone Audiometric Test.
The Maryland CNC Test is a controlled speech discrimination test. The “CNC” stands for “consonant-vowel nucleus-consonant. The test measures the veteran’s ability to recognize single-syllable words and to understand sentences with background noise. This is distinct from the ability to simply register sound.
The Puretone test measures the quietest sound a veteran can hear at various decibels–in other words, a measure of actual hearing versus the ability to understand.
The obstacle veterans seeking disability benefits for this condition face is that the VA relies totally on these two tests. Supplemental information about your loss of hearing from your medical provider, observations of people in your life, and your own account cannot override the test results.
The VA Hearing Loss Grid
There’s no one specific measure on either test that determines whether and to what extent a veteran is considered to be disabled by their loss of hearing. Instead, the VA applies a two-step process using grids.
The first grid includes score brackets for the ability to discriminate along one axis and score brackets for the puretone threshold average along the other. Following one score band to the column for the other yields a Roman numeral, ranging from I to X. This process is repeated for each year.
The second grid lists the Roman numerals for the better ear on one axis and the Roman numeral for the poorer ear on the other. The box at the intersection of the Roman numerals associated with the two ears is the percentage of impairment. The percentage may be as low as 0 or as high as 100.
Tinnitus
Tinnitus is another common service-connected condition and is often associated with a loss of hearing. However, there’s no complex analysis to determine the appropriate disability rating for tinnitus. If a veteran proves that they suffer from service-connected recurrent tinnitus, the assigned disability rating will be 10%. This rating may be combined with the rating for hearing loss or other service-connected conditions. However, depending on the disability rating for a loss of hearing or another condition, the 10% rating for tinnitus may not change the overall rating.
For example, if the hearing loss disability rating is 80%, that leaves only 20% to work with. Applying the 10% rating to the remaining 20% adds just 2% to the rating. However, disability ratings are rounded to the nearest 10%, so the overall rating would remain 80% and VA disability benefits would not change.
On the other hand, if the hearing loss rating was 40%, there would be 60% left to work with. When the 10% rating for tinnitus is applied to that 60%, that adds 6% to the overall rating. Rounding to the nearest 10% raises the overall disability rating from 40% to 50%. In this case, your monthly veterans disability benefits would increase due to the tinnitus rating. Since that small increase took the overall rating to 50%, that would also mean increased access to healthcare.
Proving a Service Connection for Hearing Loss
You might think that with the prevalence of high-decibel noise around many military environments, hearing loss would be presumed service-connected–at least for those who served in combat or certain other roles. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Though legislation was proposed in 2022 to make hearing loss and tinnitus service connected for certain veterans, the bill never came up for a vote. So, at least for now, it’s up to the veteran to establish that hearing loss, tinnitus, or both are service-connected.
To make this connection, you will need to identify an in-service event or exposure that caused your hearing loss. You may be able to establish the event or exposure through military records, or through statements from people who served with you and witnessed the event. You will also need an expert medical opinion–known as a nexus letter–drawing a connection between that event or exposure and your hearing loss.
Get the Help You Need With Your VA Hearing Loss Claim
If you’re one of the many U.S. military veterans who sustained hearing loss during your military service, you deserve fair compensation for your disability. When you work with an experienced disability benefits advocate at Veterans Help Group, your advocate will put their extensive experience to work to help you:
- Gather the evidence that you need to establish a service connection for your hearing loss, which may vary depending on the cause of your hearing loss and your role in the military
- Help you assess for additional possible service-connected or secondary conditions like tinnitus, that may increase your VA disability benefits
- Help ensure that you don’t make small, common mistakes that can delay a claim, or even result in denial
To learn more about how we can help you put together the strongest possible veterans disability benefits claim for hearing loss, call us today at (855) 855-8992 or fill out our contact form.
