Compensation & Pension Exam for a Service-Connected Eye Condition

Any veteran who applies for disability benefits from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will be required to undergo a Compensation and Pension (C&P) exam. This routine exam allows the VA to assess your medical condition and send a report to the VA Regional Office where you submitted your claim. If you’re seeking benefits for a service-connected eye injury or disease, it’s important that you understand the goals of the exam and the types of tests the eye doctor will perform. It’s also helpful to have experienced VA disability attorneys help with your claim to increase your chances of obtaining fair compensation.

Veterans can receive a VA rating for a variety of visual impairments, including loss of sight in one or both eyes, loss of peripheral vision, and loss of light perception; blurry vision; double vision; and loss of eyelids, eyelashes, or eyebrows. However, a Compensation & Pension exam must be performed first to determine the extent of the disability before it can receive a rating. The C&P exam for visual impairment can only be conducted by an ophthalmologist or optometrist who will use the following measurements when conducting the exam and the results:

This test measures a veteran’s visual sharpness—how you see details of objects, letters, and/or symbols from certain distances. Whenever you hear someone mention 20/20 vision, this is a reference to visual acuity. Although testing for visual acuity is a common method eye doctors use to assess vision, they don’t believe it’s the most accurate for determining visual function. 

It’s possible that you’ve had a visual acuity test if, during an eye exam, you’ve ever sat in a darkened room and read black letters on a white screen. This is called the Snellen test, and doctors use it to establish the smallest letter you’re capable of reading. Or you may have been given the Random E test, which has you identify the direction the “feet” of the E are pointing.

This type of test measures how far you can see in all directions when staring at a fixed object and without moving your eyes. Your optometrist can determine how much vision you have in each eye and if you’ve lost any vision. A field vision test can also establish if you have scotoma or blind spots, where they are, and how they’re impacting your vision. Additionally, the eye doctor will use the visual field test to measure the range your eyes can see—how far left, right, up, and down without moving your eyes and the sensitivity of your vision in different parts of your field of vision.

The two most common types of visual field tests are:

• The Amsler grid. A pattern of straight lines creates perfect squares, and you look at a dot in the middle of the grid and tell the doctor if any of the lines are broken, wavy, or blurry.
• The confrontational visual field. For this test, you look straight ahead at the doctor who sits facing you a few feet away, holding his arms out to the sides. When the doctor begins to move a hand inward, you signal him when you first see the hand come into your field of vision.

This type of test measures restricted or irregular eye movement that can be a result of muscle weakness or other optical conditions. The doctor will ask you to follow an object with your eyes while keeping your head perfectly still. This test can show the doctor if there is any uncontrolled shaking in your eyes—vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. It can also show if there is any misalignment in your eyes if one or both of your eyes is turned down, up, out, or in. The muscle function test can help determine other types of eye conditions, such as Duane’s retraction syndrome (DRS) and diplopia.