Bad Knees, Bad Hips, Bad Shoulders? The VA Owes You an Extra 10% They Never Add

There is one line of arithmetic the VA runs on your file that never appears on your decision letter. If your service connection touches both sides of your body, that line is worth an extra 10% — and the VA routinely skips it. It is called the bilateral factor, 38 CFR 4.26. When partial disabilities affect both legs, both arms, or paired skeletal muscles, the VA is required to combine the two sides and then ADD 10% of that value — added, not combined — before any of the rest of the math happens. In a rating system built to hand you less with every claim you win, this is the one rule that works the other way. And you cannot check whether they applied it. Your letter prints the final number. It does not print the work. There is no line on that page that says "bilateral factor: skipped." Why it gets missed: your left and right sides carry different diagnostic codes, and they were almost never granted at the same time. You filed for the knee that hurt most, won it, then spent a decade limping on the other one until it gave out too. Two decisions, two years, two raters — and nobody ever laid both pages on the same desk. In this video: — The exact text of 38 CFR 4.26, on screen, straight from eCFR — A worked example where one skipped line is the whole difference between a 50% check ($1,132.90) and a 60% check ($1,435.02) — Why "legs" does not just mean knees — a right hip and a left foot is a bilateral pair — The rounding rule, 38 CFR 4.25: 94 rounds down to 90%, but 95 rounds up to 100% — Why a veteran parked at 90% may be one line of arithmetic, not one more diagnosis, away from 100% — The three traps: one arm plus one leg is not a pair, a 0% side pairs with nothing, and your back never pairs with itself — How to pull your codesheet and rebuild the math yourself in about ten minutes — What to file if the numbers do not match, and why a missed bilateral factor is close to the ideal Clear and Unmistakable Error claim — because it reaches back to the date they got it wrong 📘 The Veteran's Benefits Playbook — 50 pages, every rule that moves your check, with the section numbers so you can verify all of it yourself: https://seniorfinance.gumroad.com/l/v... Frank Sutherland is a veteran, not an attorney and not a VA claims examiner. Everything here comes straight out of the regulation, and every figure is shown on screen from eCFR.gov and VA.gov. Before you file, take it to an accredited representative — the DAV, VFW and American Legion do this for free, and nobody should ever charge you up front just to look at your file. #VADisability #VeteransBenefits #BilateralFactor #VAClaims #VeteransCompensation