What changed

The combined-rating calculator used to be a bare tool. The page now walks through how VA math actually works — the whole-person formula and the rounding rule, the bilateral factor, and how dependents change the monthly amount — with a 2026 compensation-rate table checked cell-by-cell against VA.gov (the December 1, 2025 COLA) and eight common questions answered. All of it loads as regular page text, so it reads fine without JavaScript.

The guides on filing your first claim, VA burial benefits, TDIU (Individual Unemployability), nexus letters, the claim timeline, and VA back pay roughly doubled in length: comparison tables, worked examples, and five FAQs each. Every figure was re-verified against VA.gov for 2026 — including the correct 100% rate paid under TDIU ($3,938.58 a month) and the current average claim-completion time of about 76 days.

The procedural guides — filing walkthroughs, appeals, C&P exams, presumptives — used to ship only their first paragraph in the page HTML, with the rest filled in by scripts. The full body of every guide is now in the page itself, so guides read completely in reader mode, over slow connections, with JavaScript turned off, and for search engines.

A cleanup pass on the site's plumbing: four guides that existed at two addresses now live at one canonical URL each (old links redirect), a mis-coded glaucoma page was removed in favor of the correct DC 6013 article, two broken links from blog posts to rating articles were repaired, and a series of redirect and canonical-URL fixes means old bookmarks and search results land where they should.

The site now publishes a real RSS feed at vetdebrief.com/api/rss — the 30 most recent guides, readable in any feed reader. A way to follow new content without giving out an email address.

Reading the rating criteria for your condition is step one. Every rating article now ends with the same five links for what comes next: how to file a claim, how ratings work, how to get a nexus letter, back pay and effective dates, and the combined-rating calculator.

CHAMPVA vs. TRICARE, veteran ID cards, DIC survivor benefits, the PCAFC caregiver program, CRDP, and how VA disability ratings work — each expanded with tables and FAQs, rates verified against VA.gov and DFAS for 2026. One correction worth flagging plainly: the CHAMPVA catastrophic cap is $3,000 per family per year, not per person, as this site previously said.

Rating articles and state pages now show who wrote them and when they were last reviewed. The byline is Matt: U.S. Army veteran, OEF combat deployment, four-plus years as a field artilleryman, then five years as a housing and peer specialist in the VA's HUD-VASH program — so you know whose work you're reading and how current it is.

Raised text contrast to meet WCAG AA in both light and dark themes, made the rating-criteria tables read correctly in screen readers, labeled the breadcrumb navigation, and fixed the search box's assistive-technology semantics. Part of an ongoing effort to keep the site usable for every veteran, including those using screen readers or low-vision settings.

Trimmed what every page has to download. The state-benefits data, the blog data, and the rating cross-reference maps used to load on every page even when they weren't used; they now load only where they're needed. The homepage background images were also re-compressed. Pages load noticeably lighter, especially on slower or mobile connections.

Final round of the AUDIT-content-gaps.md push closes every missing diagnostic code from the body-system audit. Round 5 adds chronic intestinal distomiasis (DC 7324), chronic enteritis (DC 7325), and chronic enterocolitis (DC 7326) — closing the stomach-digestion file. The three forms of late neurosyphilis — cerebrospinal (DC 8013), meningovascular (DC 8014), and tabes dorsalis (DC 8015) — covering legacy and former-POW presumptive cases. Five brain-nerves movement disorders: convulsive tic / Tourette (DC 8103), paramyoclonus multiplex (DC 8104), Sydenham chorea (DC 8105), Huntington disease (DC 8106), and acquired athetosis (DC 8107). The broad mental-health catch-all DC 9327 organic mental disorder. And two women's-health closeouts: uterine displacement (DC 7622) and vaginal surgical complications (DC 7623). Across five rounds this push has added 49 new rating articles, every body-system gap is now covered, and the cross-link maps surface the new conditions throughout the procedural guides.

Fourth batch from AUDIT-content-gaps.md, with three files reaching full coverage: dental-oral closed by ramus-loss codes DC 9906 and DC 9907 (combat trauma residuals), eyes-vision closed by anatomical-loss-of-both-eyes DC 6046 (the 100%-plus-SMC-ladder case with ancillary benefits documented), and skin-conditions closed by cutaneous collagen-vascular DC 7821 (lupus, scleroderma, dermatomyositis skin manifestations). Plus three brain-nerves additions: post-traumatic syringomyelia (DC 8024), spinal cord malignant neoplasm (DC 8021), and spinal cord benign neoplasm (DC 8022). And two bones-joints muscle-injury codes: diaphragm rupture (DC 5324) and facial muscles injury (DC 5325). All nine wired into cross-links both directions.

Third batch from AUDIT-content-gaps.md: marginal ulcer (DC 7306) — the surgical-anastomosis companion to duodenal ulcer, liver injury residuals (DC 7311) for combat and trauma residuals, bacillary dysentery (DC 7322) for deployment GI infections, ano-rectal fistula (DC 7335) which is common in older veterans and after long-seat-time MOSs, vertebra fracture residuals (DC 5285) covering another protected pre-2003 spine code, extensive muscle hernia (DC 5326) for blast and trauma residuals, talcosis (DC 6835) rounding out the dust-disease set alongside silicosis and asbestosis, schizophrenia catatonic type (DC 9202) completing the four schizophrenia subtypes, and ectopic pregnancy (DC 7635) with the SMC-K loss-of-creative-organ pathway for women veterans. Cross-links wired both directions.

Second batch from the AUDIT-content-gaps.md push: silicosis (DC 6834) for combat engineers and sandblasters, amebiasis (DC 7321) for veterans who deployed to endemic regions, femoral hernia (DC 7340) to round out the hernia codes, Old World leishmaniasis (DC 7808) — the OEF/OIF Baghdad boil — under skin conditions, lumbosacral strain (DC 5295) covering the protected pre-2003 spine rating that tens of thousands of veterans still carry, and schizophrenia residual type (DC 9205) to round out the schizophrenia subtype coverage. All six get Related guides cross-links wired in, and the reverse map is regenerated so the procedural guides now surface the new conditions.

Wrote rating-criteria pages for the high-prevalence ALS gap (DC 8017, presumptive 100%), narcolepsy (DC 8108), duodenal ulcer (DC 7305), gallstones (DC 7315), chronic cholangitis (DC 7316), postoperative ventral hernia (DC 7339), monocular blindness with no light perception (DC 6064), ureterolithiasis (DC 7510), paranoid and undifferentiated schizophrenia (DC 9203 and 9204), and benign gynecological neoplasm (DC 7631). Each new article gets the standard rating table, evidence checklist, C&P tips, secondary conditions, FAQs, and Related guides cross-links — wired into the reverse map so the procedural guides surface the new conditions too.

A content audit found 43 article URLs were rendering "Something Went Wrong" instead of their rating criteria — a shape bug from when those articles were drafted (ratingCriteria stored as prose string instead of an array). Defensive guard so the page can't crash even if the shape is wrong, plus converted all 43 to proper rating tables (skin scars, kidney/urinary, endocrine, gynecological neoplasms). Coverage gap report committed at AUDIT-content-gaps.md.

Hit a 404 or scrolled the claims hub without finding what you needed? New 'Looking for something we don't cover?' prompt on those two pages so veterans can flag content gaps. Same zero-friction form as the bug report — no email required.

Auto-derived 3-5 procedural cross-links for the 565 rating articles that previously had none. Every article now surfaces a Related guides block pointing to the right C&P, secondary, presumptive, or SMC procedural guide for that condition.

The reverse cross-link map (procedural guide -> rating articles that use it) now covers every guide that's linked-to. Long lists like C&P Exams cap at 30 with a 'Show all' button so the page doesn't get buried.

Print any rating article or blog post for a VSO appointment and you get a clean serif layout with no nav, no footer, no buttons, no dark backgrounds, and every link's URL shown after its text. Was: print also rendered the nav, footer, and dark theme.

Added a form-render-time challenge (rejects submissions under 2s), link-count filter, character-repetition filter, and name-field URL/tag detection. Bots get a silent success response so they can't tell they were rejected.

Audited all 49 blog posts with a wider phrase list. Six titles or descriptions still had 'you've earned' or 'you're owed' framing — rewrote them in plain descriptive language (combat benefits, back pay, National Guard, post-briefing).

Small 'Spot a problem on this page?' link at the bottom of every rating article, blog post, and state page. Opens an inline form — type the issue, hit send. No email signup required. Goes straight to Matt with the page URL attached.

Long-tail conditions (sciatica, epilepsy, Parkinson's, stroke, deviated septum, cataracts, Crohn's, cirrhosis, hernia, thyroid, BPH, kidney transplant, frostbite, and more) now surface 3-5 relevant procedural guides in the Related guides block.

Expanded /about with a real bio — four-plus years Army artilleryman, OEF combat deployment, and five years at the VA's HUD-VASH program as a housing and peer specialist.

Nav, hero, footer, and section backgrounds all switch cleanly to a cream surface in light mode. No more dark stripes between sections.

The Enlistment row header was black-on-dark in dark mode. Fixed; now reads as light-warm on dark warm.

A human-readable directory listing every rating category, claims guide, state benefits page, and blog post in one place.

New button on the results page that prints just the Priority Actions block as a clean VSO worksheet — empty checkboxes, struck-through done items, inline VA.gov URLs.

When a returning veteran loads /results with persisted Priority Actions progress, a quiet banner shows last-visited time and remaining items.

173 entries mapping how a veteran actually thinks ('ringing in ears,' 'can't sleep,' 'BPH,' 'sciatica,' 'CUE,' 'C-file') to the right rating article or claims guide.

64 rating articles surface a "Related guides" block; 13 procedural guides surface a "Conditions this applies to" block. Cancer-from-toxic-exposure and PTSD-to-C&P trails are now obvious.

Cmd/Ctrl+K (or "/") opens a search modal that spans rating articles, claims guides, state benefits, and blog posts. Mid-query state matching means "texas property tax" finds Texas.

Type "hazlewood," "calvet," "vectr," or "chapter 115" and the right state surfaces. 22 states have known named-program synonyms.

Six journey cards — filing your first claim, denied or rated too low, toxic exposure, worsening condition, VA wants to reduce your rating, just separated — each expand to 5-8 curated guides.

16 high-traffic conditions (Back Pain, PTSD, Tinnitus, Sleep Apnea, etc.) as direct tiles. Plain-language search bar. Body-system grid sits below as Layer 3.

Replaced the funnel-style homepage with a 5-card intent splitter pointing at the briefing, ratings, claims guides, state benefits, and the calculator. No more "you did your part, get yours" framing.

Moved /ratings/mental-health/ptsd-9411 → /ratings/mental-health/ptsd. Old URLs 301-redirect. Sitemap regenerated.

Each briefing step now shows a one-line preview describing what that answer unlocks. Informational, no dollar bait.

Priority Actions became checkable items with localStorage progress, "View rating criteria" deep links, and a dynamic "X of Y done" header.

Removed every affiliate link, social-proof section, composite veteran profile, and dollar-figure marketing surface. Ungated the briefing PDF. Rewrote the subscribe form and welcome email to notification-only. Stripped the 'find every benefit you've earned' framing site-wide.