Why the Veteran Benefit Desk exists.
The short version: a disabled veteran went through the claims process, found the rules buried and the help expensive, and built the desk he needed at the time. It grew into an independent publisher. This page is the long version.
It started with one confusing decision letter
Every number that decides a veteran's monthly check is public. The rating schedule is a federal regulation anyone can read. The pay rates are published. The backlog figures come out every Monday. And yet almost none of it is readable by the person it matters to most, because it is scattered across regulations, tables, and reports that were written for lawyers and adjudicators.
That gap is where bad actors live. It is why claim consultants charge thousands of dollars for information that is free, and why so many veterans file with less evidence than their claim deserves. The founder of this site, a service connected disabled veteran, sat in exactly that fog. The Veteran Benefit Desk is the map he wishes someone had handed him: the rules pulled into the open, the math shown honestly, and a citation on every figure so nobody has to take our word for anything.
What began as calculators and a condition library kept growing, because reading the rules closely leads to questions the rules do not answer. Answering those questions required records requests, original datasets, and eventually a seat at the table in federal rulemaking. Today the desk is six things at once.
One desk, six jobs
The rating criteria for 476 conditions, translated from the regulation and cited to 38 CFR.
Original reports built on FOIA records and primary data, published with the full dataset.
Formal comments filed in VA rulemaking, each one on the permanent public record.
Weekly claim system trackers, historical rate archives, and citable quarterly briefs.
Guides on evidence, appeals, exams, and effective dates, written for the veteran reading them.
A directory where accreditation is checked and paid placement is always labeled.
What all six jobs add up to
Helping veterans understand VA benefits through independent research, transparent methodology, primary sources, and practical educational tools. Every editorial decision runs through that sentence. If a page does not help a veteran understand something real about their benefits, or cannot show where its facts came from, it does not belong here.
Three commitments follow from it. First, veterans never pay us, for anything, ever. Second, we never pretend the system is simpler than it is; we make the complexity readable instead. Third, we show our work: sources, methods, review dates, and the records behind our research are all public.
How the work is checked
Everything on the site traces to a primary source: the Code of Federal Regulations, VA's own pages and reports, the Federal Register, or records released to us under FOIA. Secondary sources, forums, and other benefits sites are not citations here. Each page shows its last documented review date, and a human editor signs off on changes to criteria, rates, and legal content before they publish.
Research goes further. Reports name their author, who holds a public ORCID record, and publish the full dataset and methodology alongside the findings so anyone, friendly or hostile, can recompute the numbers. When we are wrong, we say so and fix it; the contact page reaches a human who reads every correction report.
Who pays for this, and what that buys them
The desk is owned and operated by Aurelis LLC, a California certified Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise. Revenue comes from clearly labeled sponsored placements purchased by accredited representatives, providers, and businesses that serve the veteran community. Every paid placement is marked as sponsored where it appears.
What that money cannot buy is the part that matters: sponsors cannot write, edit, preview, or approve editorial content, cannot influence a research finding or a tracker figure, and cannot buy access to reader data, because we do not sell or share it with anyone. Veterans are never charged, and we do not sell claims coaching, nexus letters, or consulting in any form. The full policy lives on the editorial independence page.
The public record
None of the above requires trust. Each claim on this page has a public place where you can verify it:
Questions about any of it? Write to the desk. A human reads every message.