38 CFR § 4.14
Avoidance of pyramiding
Cited whenever a veteran has overlapping symptoms across two possible diagnostic codes and VA must decide whether separate ratings would double-count the same impairment.
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What this regulation says, in plain English
This section bars pyramiding, rating the same disability or the same symptom more than once under different diagnostic codes. Because injuries to muscles, nerves, and joints in one limb can overlap, and symptoms like shortness of breath or fatigue can come from more than one source, VA must avoid both crediting a nonservice-connected cause toward a service-connected rating and double-counting one symptom across two separate ratings.
- pyramiding
- Rating the same disability, or the same symptoms, more than once under different diagnostic codes.
Read the full text of 38 CFR § 4.14
This text was last amended by VA on December 14, 2016. We check it against eCFR every week.
The evaluation of the same disability under various diagnoses is to be avoided. Disability from injuries to the muscles, nerves, and joints of an extremity may overlap to a great extent, so that special rules are included in the appropriate bodily system for their evaluation. Dyspnea, tachycardia, nervousness, fatigability, etc., may result from many causes; some may be service connected, others, not. Both the use of manifestations not resulting from service-connected disease or injury in establishing the service-connected evaluation, and the evaluation of the same manifestation under different diagnoses are to be avoided.
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