Jim,

I am a vietnam vet, navy corpsman that served with the marines in 1968 until wounded.

My question is I am 100% for ptsd total and permanent. A lot of vets I know are 100% ptsd and are IE. What is difference between the two?

I know IE can not work at all and I understand I could work if I wanted to. My health and age will not allow me to work plus I don't want to. I have 20% for my wounds and 20% for heart disease. Just wanting to know the difference.

Reply:

You're saying "IE" but I think you mean TDIU. Read about TDIU here http://www.vawatchdog.org/tdiu-unemployability.html

The benefits are exactly the same but the pathway to get to 100% is slightly different.

There is a "schedule" of ratings that VA uses. The schedule adds up different disabling conditions and if you reach 100%, you are said to have a "schedular" 100% award. It sounds as if you have a schedular 100% rating. The schedular rating may be permanent and total (P & T) or it may be temporary.

Please read http://www.vawatchdog.org/permanent-and-total---p---t-.html

VA recognizes that quite often the schedule doesn't work for the veteran. The disabilities a veteran has may not add up to 100% on the schedule but those conditions may have a profound effect on the veterans ability to work at a decent job. This can make a veteran unemployable. Thus, when certain requirements are met, the veteran may be assigned a TDIU 100% rating because of unemployability. The term "unemployability" is a VA term and won't be found in your dictionary. It simply means that the individual can't hold gainful employment because of the effect of service connected conditions.

The TDIU benefit may also be permanent or temporary. The TDIU benefit delivers the same privileges to a veteran as the schedular benefit. The only difference is that the TDIU veteran, because he/she is viewed as unemployable, can't work at gainful employment. The TDIU veteran can work at marginal employment. Gainful employment is defined loosely as any job where the veteran earns more than the poverty wage in effect at that time. Marginal employment is loosely defined as a job that is part time or earns less than the poverty threshold that would apply to the veteran.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold

I get a lot of email from veterans who want to change their TDIU to a schedular rating. There are constant rumors and misunderstandings that lead many vets to think that a schedular rating is somehow superior to a TDIU rating. As you now understand, there is no difference in the rating, the difference is only in the path to get to 100%.

I personally believe the TDIU rating is the safer and more protected of the two. I came to that conclusion after years of observing as VA tries to modify an existing rating for one reason or another...usually because of some improvement in the conditions that allow the vet to be rated at 100%. To modify a schedular rating would require VA to show that the conditions that were in place have improved. To modify a TDIU rating would have to show all that plus show that the veteran was employable. The burden on VA is higher when it comes to modifying (lowering) the benefit.

I hope this helps to explain a bit about these complex benefits.