Earlier Effective Date

[NavyWife]

My hubby will be evaluated for TBI later this month. If he is approved, will it be possible to ask for an Earlier Effective Date back to the date of his original claim? Based on the fact that the head injury is clearly noted in his service medical records, and based on the regulation that VA is supposed to develop a claim for all possible issues?

I understand that TBI has been under rating code 8045 only since 2008 and prior to that it was a different rating code and called something else, head trauma or head injury with a maximum rating of 10%

if so, how do I go about this?

Edited May 2, 2014 by NavyWife

[MRRRR5]

NavyWife,

my opinion is you should ask for the earlier effective date if the head injury happened before the original claim was filed; the TBI evaluation, if approved, will confirm it; again, this is just my humble opinion and hopefully others more knowledgeable will chime in.

[carlie]

Here's a 2006 BVA decision link for your research on DC 8045,

prior to the huge changes made in the Oct 2008 criteria which changed

DC 8045 from brain disease due to trauma to TBI.

http://www.va.gov/vetapp06/Files5/0639401.txt