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

Across 234,226 knee issues decided by the Board of Veterans' Appeals in 2009–2025, 21.3% were granted, 34.9% denied and 37.9% remanded. Of the issues the Board decided on the merits, 37.9% were granted. Source: VetAid analysis of 1,340,998 published BVA decisions.

Why are knee claims denied?

In a hand-tagged sample of 238 Board decisions involving knee, 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.

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

Across 234,226 knee issues the Board of Veterans’ Appeals decided in 2009–2025, 21.3% were granted, 34.9% denied and 37.9% remanded. From 1,340,998 published BVA decisions, updated nightly.

234,226

Knee issues the Board decided, 2009–2025

Most guidance on knee claims explains what the regulation says. This page reports what the Board did — every knee 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	49,861	21.3%
Denied	81,793	34.9%
Remanded — sent back rather than decided	88,765	37.9%
Dismissed	12,109	5.2%
Withdrawn, vacated, moot, referred	1,698	0.7%

Of the issues the Board decided on the merits — granted or denied, leaving remands aside — 37.9% were granted. See the live Knee 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	4,827	22.9%	72.4%	2.1%
2010	4,589	27.0%	67.5%	2.0%
2011	4,380	28.7%	65.6%	2.2%
2012	4,023	30.2%	63.2%	2.0%
2013	4,108	28.7%	64.5%	2.1%
2014	5,342	32.9%	59.2%	2.2%
2015	5,405	34.3%	56.6%	3.0%
2016	4,723	34.8%	56.1%	2.7%
2017	6,032	32.5%	58.3%	2.4%
2018	8,495	28.3%	35.2%	31.1%
2019	24,279	16.1%	27.8%	51.6%
2020	25,047	17.5%	32.1%	45.7%
2021	25,489	18.5%	30.8%	45.6%
2022	25,195	19.7%	25.6%	49.2%
2023	27,845	18.5%	25.0%	49.7%
2024	27,877	20.2%	27.6%	44.5%
2025	26,570	20.8%	30.2%	41.0%

Why these claims actually fail

The full corpus records what the Board decided, not why. For the why, VetAid hand-tagged a smaller sample: 238 Board decisions involving knee. A decision may carry more than one reason, so shares can exceed 100%.

Reason stated in the decision	Decisions	Share of 238
VA failed its duty to assist	96	40.3%
no medical nexus	62	26.1%
evidence not new and material	27	11.3%
inadequate C&P examination	14	5.9%
lay evidence held not competent	12	5.0%

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)

Lynch v. Mc — cited in 72 decisions
Shedden v. Principi — cited in 71 decisions
Rodriguez v. Peake — cited in 66 decisions
Jandreau v. Nicholson — cited in 58 decisions
Luca v. Brown — cited in 53 decisions

Regulations most often applied (tagged sample)

38 CFR 20.1303 — 238 decisions
38 CFR 3.102 — 150 decisions
38 USC 1110 — 113 decisions
38 USC 1155 — 104 decisions
38 CFR 4.1 — 84 decisions
38 USC 5107(b) — 71 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.

See what my knee claim is missing

Method and provenance

Outcomes: 234,226 issues involving knee in 138,399 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 244,757 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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