What is the Medical Nexus Requirement?
As I wrote in a blog post in 2009, in order to receive service-connected compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), a veteran must meet three criteria: the veteran must be suffering from a current disability diagnosed by a medical professional; there must be evidence in the military service records of a disease, injury, or event in service; and the veteran must show a nexus, or link, between the current disability and the in-service disease, injury or event.
What is “Presumptive” Service Connection?
In some cases, the veteran is not required to demonstrate the nexus or link between the current disability and the in-service disease, injury or event. Instead, the VA presumes that specific disabilities diagnosed in certain veterans were caused by their military service. The VA does this because of the unique circumstances of the military service of certain veterans. If one of the medical conditions listed below is diagnosed in a veteran in one of the groups shown on the table, the VA presumes that the circumstances of his/her service caused the medical condition or, in other words, the medical nexus is presumed, and disability compensation can be awarded.
What Conditions are “Presumed” to be Caused by Military Service?
Entitlement to disability compensation benefits is presumed for veterans in the groups identified below who suffer from the medical conditions shown.
[table id=2 /]
In addition to the above, veterans with continuous service of 90 days or more who are diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ((ALS)/Lou Gehrig’s disease) at any time after discharge or release from active service are presumed to have established service connection for the disease.
I previously blogged about the VA’s “presumptive” illnesses here, here, and here.
Categories
- Affordable Care Act
- Alzheimer's Disease
- Arbitration
- Attorney Ethics
- Attorneys Fees
- Beneficiary Designations
- Blog Roundup and Highlights
- Blogs and Blogging
- Care Facilities
- Caregivers
- Cemetery
- Collaborative Family Law
- Conservatorships
- Consumer Fraud
- Contempt
- Contracts
- Defamation
- Developmental Disabilities
- Discovery
- Discrimination Laws
- Doctrine of Probable Intent
- Domestic Violence
- Elder Abuse
- Elder Law
- Elective Share
- End-of-Life Decisions
- Estate Administration
- Estate Litigation
- Estate Planning
- Events
- Family Law
- Fiduciary
- Financial Exploitation of the Elderly
- Funeral
- Future of the Legal Profession
- Geriatric Care Managers
- Governmental or Public Benefit Programs
- Guardianship
- Health Issues
- Housing for the Elderly and Disabled
- In Remembrance
- Insolvent Estates
- Institutional Liens
- Insurance
- Interesting New Cases
- Intestacy
- Law Firm News
- Law Firm Videos
- Law Practice Management / Development
- Lawyers and Lawyering
- Legal Capacity or Competancy
- Legal Malpractice
- Legal Rights of the Disabled
- Liens
- Litigation
- Mediation
- Medicaid Appeals
- Medicaid Applications
- Medicaid Planning
- Annuities
- Care Contracts
- Divorce
- Estate Recovery
- Family Part Non-Dissolution Support Orders
- Gifts
- Life Estates
- Loan repayments
- MMMNA
- Promissory Notes
- Qualified Income Trusts
- Spousal Refusal
- Transfers For Reasons Other Than To Qualify For Medicaid
- Transfers to "Caregiver" Child(ren)
- Transfers to Disabled Adult Children
- Trusts
- Undue Hardship Provision
- Multiple-Party Deposit Account Act
- New Cases
- New Laws
- News Briefs
- Newsletters
- Non-Probate Assets
- Nursing Facility Litigation
- Personal Achievements and Awards
- Personal Injury Lawsuits
- Probate
- Punitive Damages
- Reconsideration
- Retirement Benefits
- Reverse Mortgages
- Section 8 Housing
- Settlement of Litigation
- Social Media
- Special Education
- Special Needs Planning
- Surrogate Decision-Making
- Taxation
- Technology
- Texting
- Top Ten
- Trials
- Trustees
- Uncategorized
- Veterans Benefits
- Web Sites and the Internet
- Webinar
- Writing Intended To Be A Will
Vanarelli & Li, LLC on Social Media