If a pilot makes a disability claim to the Department of Veteran’s Affairs about a mental health condition (like PTSD) or a mental health-related condition (like insomnia), the VA arranges for the service member to have a Compensation and Disability evaluation by either an internal provider, like a VA employed psychologist, or an outsourced provider often over a virtual platform.
38 CFR § 4.126 Evaluation of disability from mental disorders establishes the rules for how the VA must assess a service-members claim for a mental condition. The evaluator decides on the pilot’s claim using a clinical interview and reviewing medical records. Medical records reviewed by an evaluator can be from active duty records, VA records, any civilian records already in the VA or active duty files, or other medical records submitted by the pilot or otherwise available to the reviewer. The VA may also review information from other federal agencies.
A condition can be rated as service connected if the evaluator believes the condition newly occurred during military service or a pre-existing condition was made worse by military service. A combined service connected disability can be rated from 0% – 100%.
For this discussion, we focus only on the ratings for mental health or mental health related conditions. The most common conditions for a service connected disability, like PTSD or Anxiety, are not defined in the FAA’s Part 67 medical standards. The FAA does not use a VA disability rating as proof that the pilot has an aeromedically significant condition. But the FAA can use a new rating or an increased rating as a proxy that the pilot may have an aeromedically significant condition.
The plain language meaning of a percentage rating is defined in 38 CFR § 4.130 Schedule of ratings-Mental disorders. From the regulation, a 50% service connected disability rating for mental health describes a condition causing
Occupational and social impairment with reduced reliability and productivity due to such symptoms as: flattened affect; circumstantial, circumlocutory, or stereotyped speech; panic attacks more than once a week; difficulty in understanding complex commands; impairment of short- and long-term memory (e.g., retention of only highly learned material, forgetting to complete tasks); impaired judgment; impaired abstract thinking; disturbances of motivation and mood; difficulty in establishing and maintaining effective work and social relationships.
Service-connected disabilities are reportable as a “YES” under item 18.y on the pilot’s Form 8500-8/MedXPress. The VA and FAA audit for inconsistencies, so a pilot receiving a service-connected disability benefit will eventually be cross referenced against the FAA’s item 18.y.
A 50% service-connected disability does not prove that the pilot has a diagnosis nor does it prove that the pilot has a temporary or permanentely disqualifying health condition. But the FAA will often ask for more information from the pilot.