Filing and Appealing a VA Disability Claim: A Practical Guide

Summary. This guide runs a claim from the decision to file through a Board appeal: the intent to file, the records, identifying every condition, the nexus opinion, lay statements, the examination, reading the decision, choosing a lane, and the benefits people miss.

For the law — the elements, presumptions, the rating schedule, TDIU, and the appeal structure — see Veterans Benefits. This guide is the sequence.

Do this first, before reading anything else: file an intent to file. It takes minutes, costs nothing, and preserves your effective date for up to a year while you gather everything else. It is frequently worth thousands of dollars in back pay.

Stage 1: The intent to file

An intent to file tells VA you are going to submit a claim and freezes the effective date for one year. If you file the actual claim within that year, benefits are paid from the intent-to-file date rather than the claim date.

How. Online through the VA's portal, by telephone with a VA representative, or on the paper form.

Do it the moment you decide to claim anything — before you have the records, before you have a diagnosis, before you know what you are claiming. There is no downside and no cost.

Separately: if you are within one year of separation, a claim filed in that window takes an effective date of the day after separation. Do not wait.

Stage 2: Get your records

Service treatment records and personnel file. Request them from the National Personnel Records Center or through the VA portal. The personnel file matters as much as the medical one: it establishes duty assignments, locations, and dates, which is what proves exposure for presumptive claims.

Your claims file (C-file), if you have filed before. This is the complete record an adjudicator reads, including prior examinations, rating decisions, and the internal rating sheets. Request it early — it takes weeks — and read it. A great many appeals succeed on something the veteran found in their own C-file.

Private treatment records, from every provider. VA will request them, but the request may go unanswered; obtaining them yourself is faster and you control what is included.

Social Security disability records, if you have applied. VA has a duty to obtain them, and they frequently contain the functional evidence that supports TDIU.

Stage 3: Identify everything to claim

Make a list. Then make it longer.

Every condition you have, whether or not you think it is related to service. A denial costs nothing, and service connection at 0% is a foundation for later increases and secondary claims.

Then add the secondary conditions, which are the most underclaimed part of the system:

Depression or anxiety secondary to chronic pain from a service-connected orthopedic condition.
Sleep apnea aggravated by service-connected PTSD, or by weight gain from a service-connected condition or its medication.
Hypertension secondary to diabetes or PTSD.
A knee, hip, or back condition secondary to an altered gait from a service-connected ankle or knee.
Gastrointestinal conditions and erectile dysfunction secondary to psychiatric medication.
Radiculopathy secondary to a service-connected spine condition.

Then check the presumptive lists, which have expanded substantially — the PACT Act added a large set of burn pit and toxic exposure presumptives and expanded covered locations and periods. If you were denied before for a condition that is now presumptive, refile.

And check whether you should claim TDIU — see Stage 9.

Stage 4: The nexus opinion

For any condition that is not presumptive, this is the document that decides the claim.

Who writes it. A treating physician, a specialist, or a private examiner retained for the purpose. It does not have to be a VA provider, and a treating provider who knows you is frequently more persuasive than a stranger.

What it must contain:

A statement that the provider reviewed the service treatment records and the relevant history, identifying what was reviewed.
The diagnosis.
The magic words: "at least as likely as not" — meaning a probability of 50% or greater — that the condition is related to (or was aggravated by) service, or by the service-connected condition in a secondary claim.
A rationale. The mechanism, the chronology, the medical literature, the absence of intervening causes. Why the provider reaches that conclusion.
Where a VA examiner has already given a negative opinion, an explicit response to that reasoning.

What defeats an opinion: "could be," "may be," "possibly related" — none meets the standard. A conclusion with no rationale. A provider who did not review the records.

Give the provider the tools. Bring the service treatment records with the relevant pages flagged, a timeline, and the VA examiner's report if there is one. Providers write better opinions when they are not reconstructing the history themselves.

Stage 5: Lay statements

Free, competent, and radically underused. A veteran is competent to describe what they experienced and observed, and so are the people around them.

Get statements from:

A spouse or partner, describing what changed after service — sleep, temper, avoidance, physical limitation, what you stopped doing.
Someone who served with you, describing the event or your symptoms at the time. This is frequently the only evidence of an unreported in-service event.
An employer or coworker, describing accommodations, absences, and declining performance. Essential for TDIU.
Yourself, describing continuity of symptoms from service to the present.

Format: first person, specific, dated, signed, in the writer's own words. Not "he is a good man" — but "in 2007 he began waking three or four nights a week yelling, and he stopped going to family gatherings."

Stage 6: Filing

File online through the VA portal where possible; it produces a receipt and a tracking record.

Use the fully developed claim option if you have everything — it can shorten processing substantially.

List every condition separately and describe how each affects you.

Attach everything: nexus opinions, lay statements, private records, and a cover statement identifying what you are claiming and on what theory (direct, presumptive, secondary, aggravation).

Keep a copy of everything you submit, with the date.

Stage 7: The compensation and pension examination

This is where the claim is usually decided.

Before. Read the rating criteria for your condition so you know what is being measured. Write a one-page summary: diagnoses, providers, medications, and a symptom log. Bring copies of private records the examiner may not have.

Attend. A missed examination is a denial. If you cannot attend, call immediately and reschedule in writing.

Describe your worst days and your average days, not your best. This is the single most common and most costly mistake, and it is made by people who were trained not to complain. If you can walk a mile on a good day but cannot get out of bed twice a week, both facts belong in the record, and the second one is what rates.

Be functional and specific. Not "my back hurts" but: "I can stand about ten minutes before I have to sit. I stopped mowing the lawn in 2022. I miss two or three days of work a month. I sleep four hours because of the pain."

Do not exaggerate. Consistency is assessed, and a report contradicted by the treatment records damages everything else.

Afterward, request the examination report and check three things: did the examiner review the claims file; did the examiner address every claimed condition and theory, including secondary and aggravation; and does the opinion use the correct standard with a stated rationale.

If it was inadequate, say so in writing, identifying the defect. An examination conducted without the records, omitting a condition, resting on a wrong factual premise, or giving a conclusion without reasoning is not adequate — and VA's duty to assist requires an adequate one.

Stage 8: Reading the decision

Two sections tell you everything.

The "Evidence" list. Confirm that everything you submitted appears. If something is missing, that is a duty to assist failure and a strong appeal ground.

The "Reasons for Decision." Identify which element failed:

The letter says	What failed	The right lane
"No current disability"	No diagnosis in the record	Get diagnosed → supplemental claim
"No in-service event"	Records do not show it	Buddy statements, personnel records, markers → supplemental claim
"Evidence does not establish a link"	No nexus — the most common denial	Nexus opinion in the right words → supplemental claim
"The examiner opined less likely than not"	A negative VA opinion controls	A private opinion rebutting that reasoning → supplemental claim
"Not compensable under the criteria"	Severity, at 0% or denied	Evidence already there? → higher-level review. New evidence? → supplemental claim
No explanation of why one opinion was preferred	Inadequate reasons	Higher-level review or the Board

Stage 9: Choosing a lane — you have one year

Supplemental claim. File when you have new and relevant evidence. The duty to assist reattaches. This is the only lane that accepts new evidence, and it is the right choice for most denials, because most denials are evidentiary.

Higher-level review. A senior adjudicator reviews the same record de novo. No new evidence. Request the informal conference. Use it when the record supports the grant and the decision misapplied the criteria — and go into the conference able to cite the specific pages that meet each criterion.

Notice of disagreement to the Board, with three sub-options: direct review (fastest, no new evidence, no hearing); evidence submission (90 days to submit, no hearing); hearing (before a Veterans Law Judge, with a 90-day post-hearing window — much the slowest).

Lanes may be used in sequence, and the effective date is preserved so long as each step is filed within one year of the prior decision. A Board denial can be followed by a supplemental claim with new evidence.

Deadlines: one year from the decision for any lane; 120 days from a Board decision to appeal to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

Stage 10: TDIU

If your service-connected conditions prevent you from holding substantially gainful employment, claim total disability based on individual unemployability — which pays at the 100% rate without a 100% schedular rating.

Do not assume you are ineligible because you work. Marginal employment — earnings below the poverty threshold, or work in a protected environment such as a family business or a position with substantial accommodation — does not defeat the claim.

What wins it is evidence about work, not medicine:

An employment history showing declining hours, lost jobs, and periods of unemployment.
A statement from your current or former employer describing accommodations provided, absences tolerated, and productivity.
A vocational expert's opinion connecting your service-connected limitations to an inability to sustain employment. This is the single most valuable document in a TDIU claim.
Social Security disability records, where you have them.

File the TDIU form rather than assuming VA will infer the claim, and file it with any claim where employment is affected.

Stage 11: The benefits people miss

Dependents. At 30% or higher, you receive additional compensation for a spouse, children, and dependent parents — but you must file a dependency claim. It is not automatic. File the day a rating reaches 30%.

Special monthly compensation, above the schedule, for loss of use, aid and attendance, housebound status, and specified combinations.

Automobile and adaptive equipment grants, specially adapted housing, and the clothing allowance where prosthetics or medications damage clothing.

Concurrent receipt for military retirees: CRDP (20 years and a rating of 50%+) and CRSC (combat-related), which cannot be received simultaneously and require an annual election — and which retirees frequently do not know to compare.

Veteran Readiness and Employment, which pays for training and supports and is far more generous than most veterans realize.

State benefits, which the VA does not administer and will not tell you about: property tax exemptions (total, in some states, at 100%), tuition waivers for veterans and dependents, license fees, and state veterans homes. Ask a county or state veterans service officer.

DIC for survivors, which is substantial and routinely unclaimed.

And if your discharge is other than honorable, do not assume ineligibility. A character of discharge determination or a discharge upgrade through the service branch's review board can restore access to nearly everything, and upgrades have been granted in large numbers for discharges attributable to conditions now understood as PTSD, traumatic brain injury, or military sexual trauma.

Stage 12: Getting help — most of it free

A Veterans Service Organization representative. Free, permanently, and excellent at initial claims. Call one first.
A county or state veterans service officer, also free, and the only people who will tell you about state benefits.
An accredited attorney or agent, who may not charge for an initial claim and typically takes 20% of retroactive benefits after a decision — paid by VA out of past-due amounts, so nothing out of pocket. Most valuable at the Board and the Court.
Verify accreditation. VA maintains a searchable list, and checking takes a minute. Only accredited representatives may assist for a fee.
Be wary of anyone who guarantees a rating, charges upfront to file an initial claim, or asks for a percentage of your monthly benefit rather than past-due amounts.

Stage 13: Understanding your rating, and whether to fight it

A rating decision produces a number, and veterans routinely accept it without checking whether it is right.

Find the diagnostic code and read the criteria. Every rating rests on a diagnostic code in the rating schedule, and the decision names it. Look up the criteria for that code and compare them, line by line, against your own treatment records. Rating criteria are written as lists of findings, and the question is whether your records contain the findings at the next level up.

Where ratings are most often too low:

Mental health. The criteria are functional — occupational and social impairment — and examiners frequently rate on symptom lists rather than on impairment. Panic attacks more than weekly, impaired judgment, and difficulty adapting to stressful circumstances appear at the 70% level, and they appear in treatment notes far more often than they appear in ratings.
Musculoskeletal. Range of motion is measured on a single day, and the schedule requires consideration of functional loss — pain, weakness, fatigability, and incoordination, including during flare-ups and after repetitive use. An examination that records range of motion and ignores flare-ups is incomplete.
Painful motion. A joint with painful motion is entitled to at least the minimum compensable rating even where motion is otherwise noncompensable.
Multiple codes. Separate ratings are permissible where the conditions produce distinct symptoms — radiculopathy separate from a spine condition, scars separate from the underlying injury, associated conditions separate from diabetes.

Check the combined rating arithmetic. Combined ratings are not additive; they operate on remaining efficiency and then round to the nearest 10. Run the table yourself, because a computational error is a higher-level review case.

Check the effective date. This is where the money is. Was there an intent to file? Was the claim filed within a year of separation? For an increase, do the records show the worsening was factually ascertainable up to a year before you filed?

Watch for "staged" ratings. Where severity changed over the claim period, VA may assign different percentages for different periods. If your condition was worse in 2021 than in 2024, the records may support a higher staged rating for that earlier period.

And know when not to fight. A higher-level review or a Board appeal takes months, and where the remaining dispute is one 10% increment on a low combined rating, the marginal benefit may be small — the combined ratings table means an additional 10% at a 70% combined rating adds very little. Run the arithmetic before deciding, and spend the effort on the claim that moves the number: usually a secondary condition or TDIU.

Stage 14: The claim calendar

When	What	Why
Day you decide	File an intent to file	Preserves up to a year of back pay for the cost of a form
Within 1 year of separation	File the claim	Effective date reaches back to the day after separation
Week 1	Request service treatment records, personnel file, and the C-file	Weeks to arrive; the C-file is what adjudicators read
Weeks 1–4	List every condition, including 0% and every secondary	Secondary claims are the most underclaimed part of the system
Weeks 2–8	Obtain the nexus opinion — "at least as likely as not," with a rationale, from a provider who reviewed the records	The document that decides non-presumptive claims
Weeks 2–8	Collect lay statements: spouse, buddy, employer, and your own	Free, competent, and rarely submitted
Filing	Fully developed claim if complete; every condition listed separately; copies kept
C&P notice	Read the rating criteria; write the one-page summary; attend	A missed exam is a denial
At the exam	Worst days and average days, functional and specific, no exaggeration	The most common and costliest mistake
After the exam	Request the report; check records reviewed, all conditions addressed, correct standard	Inadequacy is a duty-to-assist ground
Decision	Read the Evidence list and the Reasons — identify which element failed	Determines the lane
Within 1 year	Choose the lane: new evidence → supplemental · misapplied criteria → HLR · complex/repeated → Board	Missing this deadline restarts the effective date
At 30%	File the dependency claim	Not automatic
Any time employment is affected	File TDIU, with employer statement and vocational opinion	Pays at 100% without a 100% rating
Board decision	120 days to appeal to the Veterans Court	Hard deadline
Ongoing	Refile previously denied claims now presumptive under the PACT Act	Substantial expansion

Stage 15: Fifteen mistakes

Not filing an intent to file. It is free, takes minutes, and preserves up to a year of back pay.
Waiting to file until the evidence is perfect. File; then supplement. The date is what matters.
Not claiming conditions you think are minor. A 0% grant is a foundation for later increases and secondary claims.
Never claiming secondary conditions, which are granted routinely and claimed rarely.
Accepting a nexus letter that says "could be related." The standard is "at least as likely as not," and the phrase matters.
Getting an opinion from a provider who never saw the service records — and whose opinion therefore carries little weight.
Submitting no lay statements. They are free, competent evidence, and they are frequently the only proof of an unreported event.
Minimizing at the C&P examination. Describe the worst days. Examiners record what you say.
Missing an examination without immediately calling and rescheduling in writing.
Not requesting the examination report and therefore never learning why the claim failed.
Not reading the Evidence list in the decision to see whether your submissions are even there.
Choosing the wrong lane — filing a higher-level review when the problem is missing evidence, which that lane cannot accept.
Missing the one-year deadline, which restarts the effective date and can cost years of back pay.
Not filing the dependency claim at 30%. It is not automatic.
Assuming an other-than-honorable discharge ends the inquiry. A character of discharge determination or an upgrade can restore nearly everything.

Stage 16: For families and caregivers

Much of this work is done by someone other than the veteran, and a few things are worth knowing.

You can help without being the claimant. Gathering records, tracking deadlines, assembling the timeline, and driving to examinations are the tasks that most often go undone, and none of them requires the veteran's participation beyond a signature.

Write a lay statement of your own. A spouse, adult child, or parent who describes what changed — the sleep, the temper, the withdrawal, what he stopped doing, what she can no longer manage alone — is providing competent evidence of exactly the functional impairment the rating criteria measure. Be specific and use dates.

Learn the two forms that matter to you. A veteran who cannot manage their own affairs may need a fiduciary appointed by VA to receive benefits, which is a VA process separate from any state guardianship. And a caregiver of a seriously injured veteran may be eligible for the Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers, which provides a stipend, health coverage, respite, and training — and which is significantly underused.

Survivors: claim DIC. Where a veteran died of a service-connected condition, or was rated totally disabled for a specified period before death, Dependency and Indemnity Compensation is payable to a surviving spouse, children, or dependent parents. It is substantial, it is not automatic, and it is routinely never claimed. Also claim burial benefits, the plot allowance, a headstone or marker, and — where applicable — accrued benefits for a claim pending at death.

And take care of the caregiver. The literature on this is consistent: caregivers of veterans with serious service-connected conditions have worse health outcomes than the general population, and respite is the intervention that helps. Ask the VA caregiver support coordinator about respite specifically; it exists and it is under-requested.

Stage 17: Two claims, start to finish

The claim that took one document

Month 1. Marcus separated in 2006. In 2023 he decides to claim a knee condition. He files an intent to file the same day, then requests his service treatment records and personnel file.

Month 3. The records arrive. They show two sick-call visits for the knee in 2004 after a training injury. He files the claim — within the one-year intent-to-file window — with the records, an X-ray showing degenerative changes, and a lay statement from a squad member who remembers the injury.

Month 8. Denied. The decision says: "the evidence does not establish a link between your current condition and service." The C&P examiner opined it was "less likely than not" related, reasoning that there was no continuity of treatment.

Month 9. He takes the service records and the examiner's report to his orthopedist, who writes a two-page opinion: she reviewed the records; the 2004 injury is documented; there is no intervening trauma; the degenerative pattern is unilateral and consistent with post-traumatic change; and gaps in treatment are common in a population without health coverage and do not indicate resolution. "At least as likely as not."

Month 10. He files a supplemental claim — the only lane that accepts new evidence — attaching the opinion.

Month 15. Granted at 10%, effective the intent-to-file date in Month 1, producing fourteen months of back pay. One document, in the right words, in the right lane.

The rating that was wrong on the record

Month 1. Elena is rated 30% for PTSD. Her VA treatment notes over two years document panic attacks two to three times a week, impaired judgment during episodes, and difficulty adapting to stressful circumstances — findings that appear at the 70% level of the rating criteria. The decision recites the records and assigns 30% without explaining why.

Month 2. This is not a supplemental claim; the evidence is already in the file. She files a higher-level review and requests the informal conference.

Month 5. At the conference she does one thing: she cites, by date and page, the treatment entries matching each criterion at the 70% level. The reviewer increases the rating to 70%, effective the date of the original claim.

Month 6. With a 70% combined rating including one at 40%, she now meets the schedular threshold for TDIU. She files, with a statement from her former employer describing the accommodations and absences before she left, and a vocational expert's opinion. She also files the dependency claim she did not know existed at 30%.

What decided both cases: identifying which element failed, and choosing the lane that fixes that element.

Stage 18: Mental health claims, which are different

Psychiatric claims are the largest category in the system and the one where the ordinary approach fails most often.

The stressor problem. For a combat veteran, or where the stressor relates to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity, the stressor may be established by the veteran's own testimony if consistent with the circumstances of service and confirmed by a VA psychiatrist or psychologist. Otherwise corroboration is required — unit records, after-action reports, morning reports, or buddy statements.

Personal assault and military sexual trauma claims follow a special rule. Because these events are frequently unreported, the regulations expressly permit alternative evidence — "markers": a request for transfer, a sudden decline in performance or attendance, disciplinary action, substance use beginning at that time, a pregnancy test or treatment for a sexually transmitted infection, statements made at the time to a counselor, chaplain, family member, or friend, or an unexplained economic or social change. A behavioral change documented in the personnel file, explained by a lay statement, can establish the stressor.

The rating criteria are functional, not symptomatic. The schedule rates occupational and social impairment, and examiners frequently rate against a symptom list instead. The findings that appear at the 70% level — panic attacks more than weekly, impaired impulse control, difficulty adapting to stressful circumstances, an inability to establish and maintain effective relationships — appear in treatment notes far more often than they appear in rating decisions. Read your own notes against the criteria.

Do not accept a diagnosis label as a limit. Service connection attaches to the disability, not to a particular diagnostic name. A claim filed for PTSD that is diagnosed instead as major depressive disorder or an anxiety disorder should still be adjudicated, and the Veterans Court has been clear that a claim for one psychiatric condition encompasses the psychiatric disability actually shown. If a claim is denied because "the diagnosis is not PTSD," that is an appealable error.

Substance use is not automatically disqualifying. Compensation is barred for disability resulting from the veteran's own abuse of alcohol or drugs — but a substance use disorder that is secondary to a service-connected condition, most commonly PTSD or chronic pain, is compensable, and is regularly granted on that theory.

And the practical advice. Bring someone to the examination who can describe what you are like on a bad week, because the veteran in the room will minimize. Keep a symptom log for a month before the examination. And treat the treatment records as the evidence they are: a veteran who tells a therapist the truth every week is building the strongest possible file without doing anything extra.

Stage 19: Managing the wait

Claims take months and appeals take longer, and there are useful things to do in the meantime.

Track the claim. The VA portal shows the status and the stage. Check it monthly rather than weekly, and note the dates — a claim that has sat in one stage for months is one to ask about.

Keep treating. This is not only about health. Every appointment generates a record, and the treatment record is what documents severity, continuity, and functional impairment over time. A veteran who stops attending appointments because "nothing helps" is also stopping the accumulation of evidence.

Keep a symptom log, especially before an examination. Frequency, duration, what you could not do, days missed from work, flare-ups.

Report worsening in writing as it happens. A claim for increase can reach back up to a year where the worsening is factually ascertainable from the records — which requires it to be in the records.

Update your address and direct deposit, and respond to every VA letter within the deadline stated. A missed development letter can close a claim.

Do not stop working solely to support a TDIU claim. The question is whether the disabilities prevent substantially gainful employment, and the evidence for that comes from the work history, employer statements, and a vocational opinion — not from a decision to stop.

Use the health care and the other programs now, while the compensation claim is pending: enroll in VA health care (eligibility expanded substantially under the PACT Act), apply to Veteran Readiness and Employment, and look into the caregiver program if it applies.

If you are in crisis, use the Veterans Crisis Line — dial 988 and press 1, or text 838255. It is available 24 hours a day and does not require enrollment in VA health care.

And finally: expect the process to be slower and more procedural than it should be, and do not read the delay as a judgment about the claim. The backlog is structural. What you control is the file — the records, the nexus opinion, the lay statements, and the deadlines — and a complete file adjudicated late still gets granted.

Stage 20: If you get to the Board or the Court

Most claims never reach here, and the ones that do follow different rules.

At the Board. Three sub-options, and the choice is mostly about speed. Direct review decides on the record already there and is by far the fastest. Evidence submission gives 90 days to add to the record. A hearing before a Veterans Law Judge adds a year or more, and it is worth it only where credibility genuinely matters — where the claim depends on the veteran's own testimony about an unreported event, or where the file understates the impairment in a way a person present can convey.

What the Board actually decides. It reviews de novo and must give adequate reasons and bases: it must explain what evidence it found credible and why, and why it credited one medical opinion over another. A Board decision that recites the evidence and announces a conclusion without that explanation is the most commonly reversed kind of decision, and it is worth reading yours specifically for that defect.

A remand is not a loss. The Board remands frequently for a new examination, a missing record, or an inadequate opinion, and the claim returns for development. It is slow and it is usually a sign the Board saw a problem with the denial.

At the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. Appeal within 120 days of the Board decision — a hard deadline. The Court reviews facts for clear error and law de novo, and its most common disposition is a remand for inadequate reasons and bases or for a duty-to-assist failure.

Representation there costs nothing out of pocket. The Equal Access to Justice Act provides fees against the government where its position was not substantially justified, which is why an experienced veterans appellate bar exists and why you should not conclude you cannot afford counsel at this stage.

Clear and unmistakable error is the separate collateral route into a decision that is already final. The standard is high — the error must be undebatable and must manifestly have changed the outcome, and a disagreement about how evidence was weighed does not qualify — but a successful CUE motion revises the effective date, which in an old claim can mean decades of retroactive benefits.

And the practical judgment. Appeals at this level take years. Before starting one, ask what a supplemental claim with a strong new nexus opinion would produce, and how quickly. The lane that gets to the right answer fastest is usually not the most formal one.

Frequently asked questions

How long will it take? Initial claims commonly run several months to over a year. Higher-level review is faster. A Board hearing is much the slowest.

Can I file for something that was denied years ago? Yes — through a supplemental claim with new and relevant evidence, and particularly where the condition is now presumptive under the PACT Act.

Will filing affect my military retirement or my job? No. Compensation is separate, and for retirees the concurrent receipt rules govern the interaction.

Do I have to attend the examination? Yes. A missed examination is a denial. Reschedule in writing if you cannot attend.

Is VA compensation taxable? No.

Can I get VA compensation and Social Security disability? Yes, both, and a VA rating of 100% permanent and total entitles you to expedited SSA processing.

What if my condition gets worse? File a claim for increase. The effective date can reach back up to a year where the worsening is factually ascertainable from the records.