Erectile Dysfunction

Video Transcription:

Christian McTarnaghan: My name is Christian McTarnaghan and I am an attorney here at Chisholm Chisholm and Kilpatrick, and today we are going to discuss VA disability benefits for erectile dysfunction. This occurs when a man is unable to get or to maintain an erection firm enough for sexual intercourse, and veterans are eligible. If you can prove that your erectile dysfunction is related to your service or related to another service-connected disability, which we are going to get into a little bit later. You should be able to get service connection for that. To qualify for direct service connection, you need to show that you developed your ED due to a specific event, injury, or illness that occurred as a result of your military service. So, these types of in-service injuries could include a physical injury, like blunt-force trauma to your genital region. Psychological trauma, you know, you develop post-traumatic stress disorder due to your service and the effect of that post-traumatic stress disorder or one effect is that you lose the ability to function sexually. You have to show nexus that is going to connect your ED to your service. Medical nexus would probably be the most sure thing, there is also lay statements that you could submit to show this nexus or connection.

Christian: VA typically rate ED under thirty-eight C.F.R. section four-point-one-five-five-b, as you all probably know at this point. All of these VA rating criteria are going to be in regulations. So, some of the examples of ED specifically rated listings include diagnostic code seventy-five twenty. So, that is actually going to be when there is some removal of your penis. There is diagnostic code seventy-five twenty-one, if there are some glands that actually have been removed or needed to be removed. There is code seventy-five twenty-two, where someone is unable to obtain an erection because of physical deformity that is going to get you a twenty percent. The glands removal would give you twenty percent too. Removal of half of your penis will get you a thirty percent rating. And then there is diagnostic code seventy-five twenty-three, so that is if your erectile dysfunction is due to some sort of atrophy of your testicles which is often the condition that is resulting from reduced testosterone and thus a lower sex drive. You get a twenty percent if both testicles are affected or a non-compensable rating if there is only one. And then finally there is diagnostic code seventy-five twenty-four, where both testicles are required to be removed due to a service connection event. You get a thirty percent rating if one is removed, if there is no removal then that would be a zero percent rating.

Christian: You are also eligible for benefits for your ED if it stems from an already service-connected disability, and two common ones are diabetes and prostate cancer. And then there is also special monthly compensation level, these are all letters. So, special about the compensation level K eligible for K, SMC-K as what they call it. Due to loss of a creative organ, even if you are zero percent for erectile dysfunction. So, this is different than getting a compensable rating for it and SMC-K pays benefits in addition to your standard VA monthly compensation. Let us say you are rated at a thirty percent rating; you get your thirty percent rating check each month. SMC-K, if you get it, pays an additional a hundred and ten dollars and thirty-one cents per month. But as always, you can find more information on this topic on our website at cck-law.com or through our YouTube channel. Thanks for joining us and make sure to keep up with us on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.