Extra-Schedular Evaluations for Individual Disabilities

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) amends its adjudication regulation pertaining to extra-schedular consideration of a service-connected disability in exceptional compensation cases. This rule clarifies that an extra-schedular evaluation is to be applied to an individual service-connected disability when the disability is so exceptional or unusual that it makes application of the regular rating schedule impractical. An extra-schedular evaluation may not be based on the combined effect of more than one service-connected disability. For the reasons set forth in the proposed rule and in this final rule, VA is adopting the proposed rule as final, with two changes, as explained below.