What is the Arthritis VA claim approval rate at the Board?

Across 6,724 arthritis issues decided by the Board of Veterans' Appeals in 2009–2025, 13.3% were granted, 40.9% denied and 36.9% remanded. Of the issues the Board decided on the merits, 24.6% were granted. Source: VetAid analysis of 1,340,998 published BVA decisions.

Why are arthritis claims denied?

In a hand-tagged sample of 248 Board decisions involving arthritis, the leading reason was VA failed its duty to assist, appearing in 40.3% of them - not veteran credibility, which appears far less often.

Can tinnitus be rated higher than 10% in 2026?

The maximum schedular rating remains 10%. However, you can pursue extraschedular ratings under 38 CFR § 3.321(b)(1) for exceptional cases, or focus on secondary conditions which have no rating caps.

What's the most valuable secondary condition for tinnitus?

Depression and anxiety disorders offer the highest potential ratings (up to 100%) and are commonly caused by chronic tinnitus. Sleep disorders are also valuable, with ratings up to 50%.

Do I need an audiogram to prove tinnitus?

No. Tinnitus is considered a lay-competent condition under Charles v. Principi. Your testimony about the ringing is sufficient evidence. However, audiograms can help establish noise-induced hearing damage that supports your tinnitus claim.

Why do so many tinnitus claims get denied?

Based on our analysis of 148 cases, 42.8% are denied because service connection was not established, and 14.5% on credibility findings. Most denials stem from inadequate documentation of military noise exposure.

Can bilateral tinnitus get a higher rating than unilateral?

No. The VA rates tinnitus at 10% regardless of whether it affects one or both ears. This is why secondary conditions become critical for fair compensation reflecting the true impact of your tinnitus.

Arthritis VA Claim Approval Rate: What the Board Actually Decided (2009–2025)

Across 6,724 arthritis issues the Board of Veterans’ Appeals decided in 2009–2025, 13.3% were granted, 40.9% denied and 36.9% remanded. From 1,340,998 published BVA decisions, updated nightly.

6,724

Arthritis issues the Board decided, 2009–2025

Most guidance on arthritis claims explains what the regulation says. This page reports what the Board did — every arthritis issue in the 1,340,998 Board of Veterans’ Appeals decisions VetAid has parsed from the published record, counted at the issue level the way the Board itself reports.

What would this rating pay you? (2026 rates)

Official 2026 VA monthly compensation, including the 2.8% COLA increase.

Rating Married Children

per month · per year, tax-free

Dependent add-ons start at a 30% rating. Child-only and dependent-parent rates: see the full 2026 pay chart.

2026 base rates, all ratings (veteran alone)

Rating	Monthly (2026, incl. 2.8% COLA)
10%	$180.42
20%	$356.66
30%	$552.47
40%	$795.84
50%	$1,132.90
60%	$1,435.02
70%	$1,808.45
80%	$2,102.15
90%	$2,362.30
100%	$3,938.58

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Outcomes, 2009–2025

Disposition	Issues	Share
Granted	894	13.3%
Denied	2,747	40.9%
Remanded — sent back rather than decided	2,479	36.9%
Dismissed	521	7.7%
Withdrawn, vacated, moot, referred	83	1.2%

Of the issues the Board decided on the merits — granted or denied, leaving remands aside — 24.6% were granted. See the live Arthritis decision list.

By year

Only years the crawl has fully exhausted are shown; the current year and any year still downloading are left out so a partial year cannot pose as a trend.

Year	Issues	Granted	Denied	Remanded
2009	270	15.9%	78.9%	1.5%
2010	258	18.2%	72.5%	3.9%
2011	184	27.7%	58.7%	8.2%
2012	191	23.6%	67.5%	3.7%
2013	180	22.2%	71.7%	1.7%
2014	175	17.7%	71.4%	2.3%
2015	144	21.5%	60.4%	6.2%
2016	162	22.8%	66.7%	0.0%
2017	213	21.1%	66.7%	2.8%
2018	194	16.0%	53.6%	22.7%
2019	776	8.6%	30.4%	51.9%
2020	704	10.1%	32.5%	51.0%
2021	684	9.1%	32.0%	49.7%
2022	644	11.5%	22.2%	57.6%
2023	731	10.3%	27.1%	51.6%
2024	623	10.3%	29.5%	47.8%
2025	591	13.5%	34.9%	38.7%

Why these claims actually fail

The full corpus records what the Board decided, not why. For the why, VetAid hand-tagged a smaller sample: 248 Board decisions involving arthritis. A decision may carry more than one reason, so shares can exceed 100%.

Reason stated in the decision	Decisions	Share of 248
VA failed its duty to assist	100	40.3%
no medical nexus	72	29.0%
evidence not new and material	30	12.1%
lay evidence held not competent	14	5.6%
inadequate C&P examination	10	4.0%

Note what leads: VA failed its duty to assist, in 40.3% of the tagged decisions. Most published advice tells veterans to shore up their own credibility. In this record credibility findings sit near the bottom — the far more common failure is procedural, and it is VA’ burden, not the veteran’.

Authorities the Board relied on (tagged sample)

Shedden v. Principi — cited in 76 decisions
Lynch v. Mc — cited in 76 decisions
Rodriguez v. Peake — cited in 74 decisions
Luca v. Brown — cited in 61 decisions
Jandreau v. Nicholson — cited in 61 decisions

Regulations most often applied (tagged sample)

38 CFR 20.1303 — 248 decisions
38 CFR 3.102 — 160 decisions
38 USC 1110 — 128 decisions
38 USC 1155 — 95 decisions
38 CFR 4.1 — 76 decisions
38 CFR 3.303 — 74 decisions

Want to know which of these patterns your own claim matches? VetAid checks your claim against this decision record. Free, and we never take a cut of your back pay.

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Method and provenance

Outcomes: 6,724 issues involving arthritis in 6,246 decisions, drawn from 1,340,998 public Board of Veterans’ Appeals decisions (2007-06-01 to 2026-04-30) at va.gov/vetapp, parsed at the issue level. The headline rates use complete years only (2009–2025); the corpus also holds 6,964 such issues across all years downloaded so far. Decisions the parser could not read cleanly (82,386) are excluded from the rates. This page is regenerated automatically each night by data_moat/gen_outcome_pages.py as the crawl grows. Board-wide rates by condition and judge: /bva/outcomes.

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