If you’ve filed a VA disability claim, the “bilateral factor” might play an important role in how your total rating is calculated. Understanding the bilateral factor can help you make sense of how the VA adds up percentages for service-connected conditions, especially when both sides of your body are involved.
What Is the Bilateral Factor?
The bilateral factor is a special rule used by the VA when a veteran has service-connected disabilities that affect both sides of the body—for example, a condition in both knees, both arms, or both feet. When these paired limbs or organs are affected, the VA recognizes that the overall impact on your daily functioning is greater than if just one side were impaired. To account for this, the VA adds a little extra to your combined disability rating.
How Does It Work?
Here’s how the VA applies the bilateral factor:
- Identify the paired disabilities. These must affect matching limbs or parts—like your left and right legs, arms, eyes, ears, shoulders, hips, etc.
- Combine the ratings for those two conditions using the VA’s Combined Ratings Table, which doesn’t simply add percentages but uses a formula that reduces each subsequent percentage.
- Add 10% of that combined value as a “bonus” for the bilateral factor.
- Add that adjusted number to the rest of your disability ratings, again using the Combined Ratings Table.
Example:
Let’s say you have:
- A 30% rating for your right knee, and
- A 20% rating for your left knee.
Since both knees are service-connected and part of a pair, the VA will first combine the 30% and 20%. Using the Combined Ratings Table:
- 30% + 20% = 44% (not 50%).
Then, the VA adds 10% of 44, which is 4.4%. This gives you:
- 44 + 4.4 = 48.4%.
That gets rounded to 50% as your bilateral-adjusted rating for the knees.
If you have other service-connected disabilities, that 50% will be factored into the rest of the calculation for your overall combined rating.
Why the Bilateral Factor Matters
Even though the 10% “boost” might sound small, it can make a big difference in your overall VA rating, especially when you are close to thresholds like 50%, 70%, or 100%. Reaching these milestones can affect not only your monthly compensation but also your eligibility for other VA benefits, including healthcare, dependents’ benefits, and vocational rehabilitation.
Double Check the Math
The bilateral factor is almost always automatically applied. But just like everything else with VA claims, VA makes mistakes. When you get your decision, double check the math.
The VA’s rating system is complicated, but the bilateral factor is one of the few parts that actually helps increase your rating. If you have disabilities on both sides of your body, make sure the VA has applied this rule correctly in your case.
