Summary and Key Points: Effective February 17, 2026, the VA’s interim final rule, “Evaluative Rating: Impact of Medication,” directs examiners to evaluate disabilities based on “actual functional impairment” under treatment.
-This effectively overrides court precedents like Jones v. Shinseki and Ingram v. Collins, which previously protected veterans from rating reductions due to medication effectiveness.
-Major advocacy groups, including the VFW and American Legion, warn this creates a “dangerous incentive” for veterans to abandon prescriptions to preserve their benefits.
-While the VA claims the rule formalizes long-standing policy, critics argue it is a substantive budget-cutting measure that penalizes medical compliance.
The “Medication Penalty”: New VA Disability Rule Summed Up in 2 Words?
Could military veterans end up with a lower disability rating if their conditions are improved by medication?
That’s the possible effect of a new rule, veterans groups are saying.
The rule, called “Evaluative Rating: Impact of Medication,” went into effect immediately upon publication earlier this week.
According to a report by Task and Purpose, veterans “will have their disability compensation evaluated based on whether their prescribed medication or treatment improves their illness or injury.”
The new rule was published in the Federal Register to go into effect on Tuesday.
The new language goes as follows: “To ensure that disability evaluations are based on the actual level of functional impairment under the ordinary conditions of daily life, the medical examiner will not estimate or discount improvements to the disability due to the effects of medication or treatment, whether or not medication or treatment is included within specific rating criteria. If medication or treatment lowers the level of disability, the rating will be based on that lowered disability level.”
“While VA believes this is already the correct construction of current regulations, this change will make more explicit in regulation VA’s longstanding policy and practice to include, among other factors, the ameliorative effects of medication when conducting disability evaluations,” is the Federal Register explanation for the new change.
In a statement to Task and Purpose, VA spokesman Pete Kasperowicz defended the new language.
“This regulation simply formalizes VA’s longstanding practice of determining disability ratings based on Veterans’ service-related disabilities and any medications they are taking to treat those disabilities,” Kasperowicz said in the statement. “VA has been determining disability ratings this way since 1958.”
Veterans Groups Disagree
Some veteran groups, though, have taken exception to that interpretation.
“They are going to be evaluated under this new criteria and potentially receive a lower disability rating based on this sudden interim rule, whereas last Friday, they likely would have gotten a higher evaluation because this rule wasn’t in place,” Michael Figlioli, who is the national service director for Veterans of Foreign Wars, told Task & Purpose.
There’s one potentially terrible effect of the new rule, per Task & Purpose: It could discourage veterans from taking their medication, out of fear that it could affect their benefits.
“You’re potentially going to force a veteran whose condition is serious enough to be put on antidepressants or other medications, and now you’re going to rate them at the level that the medication provides [them] relief,” Figlioli told Task and Purpose. “You’re now going to put some of these veterans at risk because they potentially could stop taking their medication.”
“This is the first time VA placed their specific interpretation clearly into text,” Figlioli added. “If there had been consistency in application since 1958, there would have been no need for repeated judicial clarification.”
US Army. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Disabled American Veterans also weighed in.
“It is unclear if and how VA is implementing this dramatic change and how it will impact the more than 6 million veterans currently receiving disability compensation, most of whom are taking at least one medication,” Colman Nee, Disabled American Veterans’ commander, told T&P.
Nee added that DAV was “extremely disappointed and alarmed” by a rule that was “developed and issued in a closed and unnecessarily expedited process” that did not give veterans the chance to give input.”
The American Legion also opposed the rule.
“The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) published an Interim final rule that effectively nullifies existing case law by creating a new default rule whereby veterans will be rated in their medicated state during a C&P exam,” the organization said in a statement.
U.S. Marine Pfc. Emily Zamudio with Alpha Company, Infantry Training Battalion, School of Infantry (SOI) West, prepares for a shooting drill at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton on Sept. 1, 2021. Zamudio graduated recruit training from the first female platoon to become Marines at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, May 2021. She then progressed to SOI West where she completed the Infantry Marine Course and earned the military occupational specialty of 0311, infantry Marine. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Tessa D. Watts)
“Veterans should not be penalized for complying with treatment. Even if such treatment shows improvement in symptoms, the underlying disability does not disappear. Functional management is not total cure,” The American Legion added. “Medication can reduce symptoms. It can help a veteran sleep, reduce vigilance, or stop anxiety attacks. But it does not remove the underlying traumatic experience, or moral injury, and it certainly does not mean a veteran can fully function without that treatment.”
“VA has the authority to make this change. But the veteran community has a right to be heard,” the Legion concluded.
An Irregular Process
The rule was published, Task and Purpose reported, without a public comment period before passage. The VA claimed that it did so because “providing advance notice and prior opportunity for public comment is impracticable and contrary to the public interest.”
Per Stars and Stripes, a public comment period, post-passage, has now kicked off and will continue through April 20.
Other veterans objected, including Navy veteran and former VA adviser Michael Embrich, who spoke to Task and Purpose.
“It’s incredibly messy and politically ugly, and they’re just gonna try to shove a rule change down our throat,” Embrich told the news outlet. “By the time this goes to court and if it’s ever adjudicated in the next one or two years or three years, the damage will be done already.”
A U.S. Sailor signals to an F/A-18E Super Hornet aircraft, attached to Strike Fighter Squadron 87, during flight deck operations on the flight deck of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, Ford-class aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), while underway in the Caribbean Sea, Jan. 3, 2026. U.S. military forces are deployed to the Caribbean in support of the U.S. Southern Command mission, Department of War-directed operations, and the president’s priorities to disrupt illicit drug trafficking and protect the homeland. (U.S. Navy photo)
“This is an erosion of benefits,” Jason Cameron, a Marine Corps veteran, told Stars and Stripes.
“A lot of veterans prescribed medication for their service-related medical problems will cut it off, rather than lose compensation,” Charles Garbarino, a retired Army colonel who is also a doctor, also told Stars and Stripes of the change. He especially expressed concern for veterans afflicted with PTSD.
Military.com, meanwhile, looked at the legal history of the question.
“For over a decade, veterans and their attorneys operated under court precedent that largely protected disability ratings from being reduced just because medication made symptoms more manageable,” the analysis said. “The key case was Jones v. Shinseki, a 2012 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims that held that the VA could not factor in medication’s benefits unless the specific rating criteria for that condition mentioned medication.”
Another case in 2025, Ingram v. Collins, extended that protection,“ruling that VA examiners evaluating musculoskeletal conditions must attempt to determine ‘baseline severity’ without medication.”
The new rule, however, overrides both decisions, per Military.com.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
