The Veterans Benefits Administration has set Nov. 30, 2026, as its target date for getting a legal opinion on how VA should apply its painful-motion rule, the regulation at the center of an inspector general finding that joint-disability errors produced an estimated $45 million or more in underpayments to veterans. As of Sept. 23, 2026, the VA Office of Inspector General still lists all four of its recommendations on the issue as open. The opinion is meant to settle a question that has divided VA’s own staff: whether pain alone, without pain on motion, is enough to earn a paid disability rating for a joint.
A Nov. 30 Target For A Legal Answer
The target date appears in VA’s written response to the watchdog’s Review of Assignment of Noncompensable Musculoskeletal Joint Disabilities, report number 25-02645-131, published Aug. 6, 2026. In that response, dated June 30, 2026, and signed by J. Margarita Devlin, the principal deputy under secretary for benefits, VBA said it had asked the VA Office of General Counsel on April 9, 2026, for “a clear and consistent interpretation” of the painful-motion regulation. VBA listed the request’s status as “In process” with a target completion date of Nov. 30, 2026.
The other commitments follow in sequence. Once the legal opinion arrives, VBA said it would consider revising its Adjudication Procedures Manual and notifying claims processors, with a target of Jan. 31, 2027. It set Dec. 31, 2026, as the target for deciding whether changes are needed to the evaluation builder, the calculator tool raters must use to assign a percentage, and April 30, 2027, for reviewing its guidance on how raters weigh a veteran’s own statements against clinical findings. Those three items were listed as “Not Started” in the June response.
The inspector general’s website currently shows all four recommendations as open, with $44,979,787 in questioned costs attached to them. Larry M. Reinkemeyer, the assistant inspector general for audits and evaluations, wrote that the office will close the recommendations only when VBA provides sufficient evidence that it has addressed the risks identified.
Dates matter while VA rewrites its guidance. A veteran watching for the Nov. 30 opinion will want each rating decision, exam date and review request logged in one place, which is the job of the claim tracker in The Veterans Benefits Action Kit.
What The Watchdog Found In Zero-Percent Joint Ratings
The inspector general reviewed a statistical sample of 100 decisions completed from April 1, 2024, through March 31, 2025, in which a rater assigned or confirmed a zero-percent, or noncompensable, rating for a joint disability. From that sample, the office estimated that about 32,000 of 64,000 such decisions, or 50 percent, were wrong because painful motion was not properly evaluated. It estimated that 12,000 of those errors changed what veterans should have been paid, producing at least $45 million in underpayments. A second sample of 20 decisions from Oct. 1 through Nov. 14, 2025, showed the same kind of errors were still occurring.
One case in the full report shows the stakes. A veteran seeking a higher rating for a left knee described weight-bearing pain when walking, and the examiner recorded objective evidence of pain with repeated use. The decision still assigned zero percent without addressing painful motion. After the inspector general flagged it, VBA issued a corrected decision on Aug. 14, 2025, and the veteran received a retroactive payment of $29,130.
VBA reported in March 2026 that all errors the inspector general’s team identified had been corrected by February 2026. That correction covered the specific decisions the team reviewed. The $45 million figure is a projection across the wider population of decisions, and the report does not describe a separate VA effort to find and reopen every other affected claim.
Why Raters Disagree About Pain
The regulation itself, 38 C.F.R. § 4.59, says the intent of the rating schedule is to recognize “actually painful, unstable, or malaligned joints” as entitled to at least the minimum compensable rating for the joint. In 2015, the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims held in Petitti v. McDonald that a veteran’s credible lay testimony about painful motion can be enough to support a compensable rating.
Interviews with 51 claims processors at three regional offices found that the message had not taken hold. Some raters could not correctly give examples of subjective evidence, others gave clinical findings more weight than a veteran’s own account, and many were unsure whether pain by itself qualified. The inspector general found differing interpretations even among offices inside VBA’s Compensation Service, and said unclear terminology in the procedures manual and the evaluation builder added to the confusion. As of Jan. 29, 2026, VBA had issued no guidance to resolve those differences.
The scale is large. VBA’s fiscal 2024 figures, cited by the inspector general, show 15.9 million service-connected musculoskeletal disabilities, the most common category, of which 3.3 million were rated at zero percent. A zero-percent rating recognizes service connection but pays nothing for that condition.
What The Timeline Means For Older Veterans
Joint conditions such as knees, shoulders, hips and backs tend to worsen with age, and many veterans carrying a zero-percent joint rating are now in or near retirement. For them, moving a single joint from zero to the minimum compensable rating can change the combined disability percentage and the monthly tax-free payment that comes with it, as the $29,130 retroactive award in the knee case shows.
The Nov. 30 date is a target, not a promise, and the legal opinion itself will not reopen any claim. Any change would reach individual veterans only through updated manual guidance and new decisions. Veterans who believe a zero-percent joint rating overlooked documented pain already have the standard VA decision review options: a Higher-Level Review to argue an error on the existing evidence, a Supplemental Claim with new and relevant evidence such as updated medical records, or a Board Appeal. VA’s stated goal for Supplemental Claims and Higher-Level Reviews is an average of 125 days.
The practical preparation is in the paperwork. The rating decision, the exam report showing what the examiner recorded about pain, and any written statement describing pain with use are the documents a reviewer would weigh. Veterans service organizations accredited by VA can help with a review request at no charge.
Keeping VA Paperwork In Order While The Rules Get Clarified
The inspector general’s findings put a spotlight on how often paid benefits hinge on documents a veteran already holds, from exam notes to decision letters. Those papers are only useful if they can be found when a review or a new claim is filed.
The Veterans Benefits Action Kit includes a claim tracker for logging filings and decision dates, plus the pension-poacher warning signs for spotting paid “helpers” who target veterans and families filing for VA pension.
Start the log with The Veterans Benefits Action Kit.
This article was prepared with AI assistance and reviewed against the linked official sources.
