VA Compensation Calculator — Update 1.27.0

Version 1.27.0 of the VA Compensation Calculator is now available on the App Store. It brings a Claim Finder that shows conditions you may be able to claim, Military Job Lookup for the job code on your DD 214, My Profile for your dependents and your military service, a Might file status, a reminder before your intent to file runs out, widgets for your Home Screen and Lock Screen, and two columns on iPad.

The Claim Finder

Many veterans qualify for more than they’ve claimed. The Claim Finder looks in three places:

• With the conditions you have — conditions often claimed alongside the ones on your list, matched by diagnostic code. Some are rated separately under 38 CFR, like the complications of diabetes, nerve problems from the spine and the residuals of a TBI. Others need a doctor’s opinion linking them to your service-connected condition.
• Where and when you served — the conditions VA presumes are service-connected after certain service: Agent Orange, burn pits and the PACT Act’s other exposures, Gulf War illnesses, Camp Lejeune, radiation, former prisoners of war, ALS, and the chronic conditions that show up within a year of leaving service. If you served there and have one, you don’t have to prove your service caused it.
• What you did in service — pick your duties, like loud noise, combat, blasts, asbestos, diving or firefighting, to see the conditions linked to them. These aren’t presumptions: each one says what VA accepts as proof of the duty, and a claim still needs a diagnosis and a doctor’s opinion.

Each condition cites its 38 CFR section or VA page. Tap Add to put one on your list as a claim you might file, and the main screen shows what your combined rating and pay could be if it’s granted at the rating you pick.

The lists come from VA’s own pages and the regulations, and like the pay tables, they update without an app update when a law or VA’s lists change. Each update is signed, so the app only uses lists I’ve published.

Military Job Lookup

Enter the job code from block 11 of your DD 214 — an MOS, rating or AFSC — or its title, and Military Job Lookup shows what the job was, what it became, and the conditions linked to its duties. It covers every branch, the Space Force included: more than 3,400 job codes, today’s and older ones, including codes retired decades ago. Type the code the way your records print it, skill level and all (11B1P, BM2, 2A571), or browse by branch and career field.

A job’s page has its official description and the duties often part of it, which you can add to what you did in the Claim Finder. For jobs on VA’s own asbestos list, it shows the exposure level VA’s manual gives the job. Tap This was my job to keep it in My Profile.

My Profile

The Dependents & SMC card is now My Profile: your dependents, SMC and TDIU (TDIU moved here from Settings), and your military service — your jobs, where you served and what you did. Its card on the main screen shows each of them at a glance and says what’s missing. See what you may be able to claim turns your answers into one list to go through, and you mark each one as you go: might file, filed, rated or denied.

Might file, and your intent to file

A claim you’re thinking about now has its own status, Might file, apart from one you’ve filed. Your official rating and “With pending claims” leave it out, and the main screen shows it on a line of its own: “With claims you might file”.

An intent to file holds your effective date — and so your backpay — for one year from the day VA received it. The Claim Tracker can now remind you 30 days and 1 day before yours runs out, and when you add a claim you might file, the app offers to set the reminder.

A new welcome

If you’re new to the app, it opens on one question: where are you with VA? I have a VA rating opens the form to add your disabilities. I’m getting ready to file asks three questions you can skip — your job, where you served and what you did — then shows a list of what you may be able to claim. Just looking, or helping a veteran goes straight to the app.

Widgets

Your rating, monthly pay, next pay date and next Claim Tracker event, on your Home Screen (small and medium) or your Lock Screen. The widget moves on to your next pay date by itself, and to the new year’s rates when VA starts paying them. With App Lock on, it shows a lock instead of your numbers. It only reads what the app saved on your phone, and sends nothing itself.

One main screen

The card layout from 1.26.13 is now the only main screen; the classic layout and its switch are gone. The Claim Finder and the Increase Finder have cards of their own, My Disabilities shows your highest ratings, and the rounding note (“94% rounds to 90%”) sits beside your rating, which leaves more room for the cards. After you update, a New label points out what’s new, two at a time.

On iPad, your rating and cards stay in a column on the left, and the card you tap opens beside them.

More places to get help

Support & Community (tap ?, then Support & Community) now lists the help veterans ask about most, in sections you can jump to from the top, each number and link checked on its own official page:

• Your claim: intent to file, which holds your effective date for a year, and how to disagree with a decision, with the deadlines.
• Free help with your claim: VA’s search for an accredited service officer, and its list to check anyone before you sign; DAV, VFW and the American Legion; your state’s veterans affairs office; a free lawyer for a court appeal; and VSAFE, VA’s line for reporting a claim scam. Help from a VA-accredited service organization is always free.
• Contact VA: MyVA411, VA’s 24/7 line; the benefits hotline, for claims and payments; and Ask VA, for questions in writing.
• Health & wellbeing: Vet Centers (877-927-8387, 24/7), care after military sexual trauma, VA’s PTSD Coach app, the Women Veterans Call Center and Vets4Warriors’ peer support.
• Family, housing & work: the Caregiver Support Line and VA’s family caregiver program, the homeless veterans line (877-424-3838, 24/7), Veteran Readiness and Employment, and help with a VA debt.

The Veterans Crisis Line stays at the top: call 988 and press 1, text 838255, or chat, and now, if you’re deaf or hard of hearing, dial 711, then 988. Under it: in a suicidal crisis, any emergency room can treat you at no cost, even if you’re not enrolled in VA health care. Like the pay tables, the list updates without an app update when a number or a link changes.

Analytics

The app’s anonymous usage analytics now count a few more things, like which answer people pick on the welcome and which screens they open, so I can see what helps. They still never include anything you enter: no condition, rating, dependents, job, place or duty. The privacy policy has the details.

Also

• In a rare mix of bilateral ratings, the combined rating could show one step lower than VA’s. It now leaves a condition out of the bilateral factor when that gives a higher rating, as VA’s rule says (38 CFR 4.26(d)).
• Tapping a Claim Tracker event or a Symptom Log episode opens it again, instead of a blank form.
• Year menus list the newest year first.
• A Contact Me message can’t arrive twice.
• The Tip Jar is its own screen, with the story behind the app.
• The 38 CFR Diagnostic Codes now match the rating schedule for kidney and bladder conditions, asthma, COPD and bronchitis, disc disease (both of its rating methods), double vision and more, and the quick picks offer only its ratings.
• Backpay: “Already being paid at” can now include the SMC-K VA was already paying, and say whether it was paying for your dependents, so the backpay is only what’s still owed.
• Various bug fixes and improvements.

New to the app? The Getting Started video is an 8-minute tour.

As always: your VA information stays on your device and under your control. If something’s off or you have an idea, tap ? → Contact Me and tell me.