Jane Babcock still recalls the first time relief brought a new kind of fear.

Years after leaving military service, the retired U.S. Army and Army Reserve Veteran was living with debilitating migraines stemming from a service-connected neck injury. The attacks were severe enough to send her to the emergency room without warning, disrupting work, sleep, and nearly every part of daily life.

When doctors finally offered a new treatment, injections that greatly reduced her migraines, she was hopeful for the first time in years. But as the therapy started working, a new worry crept in.

“If this helps me function better,” she remembers thinking, “does that mean they’ll say I’m not disabled anymore?”

For Babcock, who later filed more than 1,200 disability claims as a county Veterans Service Officer and now volunteers as a Veterans benefits educator, that concern is one she has heard repeatedly from thousands of Veterans over the years.

Now, she says, it sits at the center of a major federal policy change.

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Starting February 17, 2026, the Department of Veterans Affairs officially made permanent the change in how disability ratings are evaluated. Now, adjudicators must assess how Veterans function while receiving treatment or medication, instead of focusing on how severe their condition would be without it.

“For decades, ratings focused on the damage service caused. This change shifts the focus to how you function during the exam. Those aren’t always the same,” Babcock said.

What the New VA Rule Does

This change comes from an interim final rule that amends 38 CFR §4.10, the regulation that guides how functional impairment is evaluated in disability claims.

Under the new standard, disability ratings must reflect a Veteran’s actual functional ability while receiving treatment, rather than how severe the condition would be without treatment.

The VA said this change was needed after a 2025 court decision, Ingram v. Collins, which interpreted existing rules as requiring adjudicators to ignore drug effects in many cases. It said that interpretation could affect more than 500 diagnostic criteria and influence over 350,000 pending disability claims if left unresolved.

Why the Rule Took Effect Right Away

Most VA regulatory changes follow a standard process: proposed rules, public comments, and final approval.

This policy did not follow that process.

Instead, VA issued it as an interim final rule, a rare method that lets the rule take effect immediately while still collecting public feedback afterward.

Historically, VA has rarely used interim final rules for disability compensation policies, mostly during big changes like the Appeals Modernization Act. Legal experts say using this process for a rule affecting so many disability evaluations is unusual in the Veterans’ benefits system.

VA’s Explanation

VA officials say this rule does not introduce a new policy direction.

“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,” said VA press secretary Pete Kasperowicz.

“VA has been determining disability ratings this way since 1958,” he added.

What This Means for Veterans

Babcock says the real impact becomes clear when you look at how disability exams actually work.

“Often, it all depends on what you can do during that exam,” she explained. “If medication helps you that day, that gets recorded.”

She stresses that the rule doesn’t automatically lower ratings, but it changes how disability is measured.

“It shifts the focus from long-term impact to how you appear at that moment,” she said.

Potential Effects on Survivor Benefits

Babcock also points out that some Veterans worry about how this might affect their eligibility and their family’s eligibility for survivor benefits in the long run.

Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) is available to eligible survivors of Veterans who died from service-connected conditions or who were totally disabled for certain periods before death.

Any effects would depend on individual situations and vary from case to case.

The Role of Technology in Claims Review

This rule comes as VA keeps expanding the use of automated tools in claims processing.

Advocacy groups say AI-assisted systems can review large amounts of medical documents to spot patterns throughout disability claims.

These analyses suggest these tools could help evaluate medical evidence on a large scale under the new rule, but final rating decisions will still be made by human adjudicators.

What Veterans Can Do Now

Even though the interim final rule is already in effect, federal law requires VA to accept public comments until April 20, 2026, before making it permanent, starting February 17, 2026.

The time to comment is limited.

Veterans, families, and advocates have until April 20, 2026, to send in their feedback.

How to Submit a Comment

1. Visit Regulations.gov
2. Search for RIN 2900-AS49
3. Click “Comment”
4. Share your experience or concerns
5. Submit before April 20, 2026

Contact Ethan Kalett, Executive Director, Office of Regulatory Oversight and Management, (202) 461-9700.

After the deadline, the VA will review the comments and decide if the rule needs changes.

“This is your only chance to influence the outcome,” Babcock said. “Now is the time to speak up.”

The Question That Still Remains

After decades of working with Veterans, Babcock says the main debate hasn’t really changed.

“How do we define disability?” she asked.

“Is disability measured by the best day, or by long-term reality?”

For years, that question was answered much more simply at desks like hers.

Now, it’s being answered at the national policy level, with consequences that are able to shape how disability is understood for generations of Veterans to come.

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