Original research · refreshed weekly
Rating Transition Explorer
How VA disability ratings actually moved on appeal at the Board of Veterans' Appeals. RateMyVSO analyzed the published Board record and pulled out tens of thousands of before-and-after rating changes across hundreds of diagnostic codes (1992 to 2026). Pick a condition to see its most common before/after pairs. This is reference data, not a prediction of any individual outcome.
How this research is built: every Board of Veterans' Appeals decision published by VA is public, and anyone can read one at a time. RateMyVSO downloads and analyzes the complete published record. For this page we isolate the appeals where a veteran asked for a higher rating and the Board granted one, then read the decision itself for the two numbers that matter: the rating in effect before the appeal, and the rating the Board awarded. Those pairs are counted per diagnostic code. The rebuild runs every week as new decisions publish.
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How to Read This
- This data only includes appeals where the Board explicitly stated the before and after rating. Many decisions do not include that detail.
- Decreases happen when a veteran appeals for an increase but the Board finds the current rating too high.
- BVA appeals are contested claims. These patterns may differ from initial claim outcomes.
- All data from publicly available BVA decisions (1992 to 2026), for educational purposes only.