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Glaucoma is a group of eye conditions that damage the optic nerve, often from raised pressure inside the eye, and can reduce the field of vision over time.
VA rating schedule, diagnostic code 6013
Glaucoma is a recognized eye condition the VA can service-connect and rate when it is linked to your military service. The VA rates eye conditions under its schedule for diseases of the eye in 38 CFR § 4.79. Glaucoma has its own diagnostic codes: code 6013 covers open-angle glaucoma (the most common type, which slowly and often painlessly affects vision over time) and code 6012 covers angle-closure glaucoma.
Glaucoma is not rated by the diagnosis alone. Instead, the VA evaluates it under the General Rating Formula for Diseases of the Eye, which looks at how much the condition affects your sight — your visual acuity (how clearly you see) and your visual field (how much area you can see). For some eye conditions the formula can also consider "incapacitating episodes," and the VA uses whichever method results in the higher evaluation.
The rules also include a minimum-rating concept. For both open-angle (6013) and angle-closure (6012) glaucoma, 38 CFR § 4.79 provides a minimum evaluation of 10 percent if continuous medication is required to manage the condition. So if your records show you must take ongoing medication, such as daily eye drops, the rules set a floor of at least 10 percent even when measured vision loss is limited. Your diagnosis, treatment records, and eye-exam results all help the VA apply these rules.
This is general educational information about how the VA's rules work — not legal advice, not a VA decision, and not a prediction about any individual claim. Outcomes depend on your own facts and evidence; a denial can be appealed.
Grounded in federal regulations and VA guidance, independently reviewed June 2026. Educational information, not legal advice or a VA determination.
Across 4,809 real Board appeals for Glaucoma
A denial is often not the end either — remands (shown below) are sent back for more development and can still end in a grant. These are historical outcomes, not a prediction of your case.
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Among the appeals that were granted or partly granted, the most common ways Glaucoma was linked to service:
In appeals where Glaucoma was the only condition decided and the Board granted it, the rating most often assigned was:
These appeals involved a recognized exposure — which can mean the link to service is presumed, with no nexus to prove:
The Veteran's service-connected glaucoma has rendered him unable to secure or follow substantially gainful employment on an extra-schedular basis, effective September 1, 2020.
The Veteran's service-connected open angle glaucoma is granted an initial 20 percent rating, effective from the date of the decision.
The Veteran's service-connected disabilities, including diabetes with upper and lower extremity diabetic neuropathy, glaucoma, back disability, and bilateral knee disability, rendered him unable to secure or follow a substantially gainful occupation as of July 26, 2022. Effective date for TDIU is set at this date.
The Veteran's claim for an initial rating of 60 percent for primary open angle glaucoma with pseudophakia is granted, effective from March 13, 2024.
The Board has granted service connection for glaucoma, finding that the Veteran's reports of vision problems and his acquired psychiatric disorder and inflammations of joints provide support for awarding secondary service connection.
The Board has granted the Veteran's claims for service connection for glaucoma and a lumbar disability, with effective dates set at May 20, 2015. The decision also grants an earlier effective date of May 5, 1993 for these conditions.
Jump to the decisions from a specific year.
New decisions are added every week, and older years are actively being backfilled — a year that looks thin or missing here (especially 2011–2017) is a gap in our library, not in the Board’s decisions.
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This is general information, not legal advice. For advice about your own situation, talk to a VA-accredited representative — many help for free.