The DVA Lifestyle Rating: Which Option to Choose on the D2670

Two veterans with the same impairment points can be paid different amounts. The difference is the lifestyle rating, a score from 0 to 7 for how much your conditions affect your everyday life. It sits alongside your impairment points, and the two together set your compensation.

This is Part 3 of our five-part DVA assessment series. Part 2 covered the medical assessment. This part covers the form DVA sends you about your lifestyle, and the choice on it that many veterans make without realising it is a choice.

How the lifestyle rating works

DVA rates the effect of your conditions in four areas: personal relationships; mobility; recreational and community activities; and employment and domestic activities. The ratings for the four areas are added together and divided by four, giving an overall lifestyle rating from 0 to 7. Domestic activities and employment are rated separately, and the higher of the two is used. The average is rounded to the nearest whole number, with a half rounded up. GARP M requires pain, suffering, problems with memory or concentration, and interference with sleep caused by your conditions to be taken into account.

That rating and your impairment points are then looked up together in GARP M's compensation factor tables. At the same impairment points, a higher lifestyle rating gives a higher compensation factor, and the factor multiplies directly into your weekly payment.

The three options on the D2670

DVA's Lifestyle Rating form, the D2670, asks you to choose how your rating is set.

Which option suits you

Option 2 is what you get if you leave the form blank. It is not a bad result on its own, because DVA cannot set it below the higher end of the range expected for your impairment points. But it is based on your medical impairment, not on your life. If your conditions affect your relationships, your movement, your social life or your work more than your impairment points suggest, Option 2 will usually not show it.

Option 1 is quick, and a self-rating is not usually queried. It works best when you have a clear sense of how your conditions affect each of the four areas. If DVA thinks you have rated yourself too low, it puts in a higher rating; if too high, you get a second chance through the questionnaire.

Option 3 takes the most effort, and it is the option where you describe your own life in detail. If your conditions affect your daily life more than the medical findings alone would suggest, that detail is how it gets on the record.

Answering honestly, without playing it down

Many veterans find this form harder than the medical assessment, because it asks about the parts of life they have quietly adjusted around. The answers that count are the specific ones.

• Personal relationships: are you more irritable, withdrawn or absent from family life than you were? Has a relationship come under strain because of your conditions?
• Mobility: how far can you walk, how long can you drive or sit, and can you manage stairs, public transport and looking after yourself without help?
• Recreational and community activities: what have you given up, from sport and hobbies to catching up with mates or going to community events?
• Employment and domestic activities: what has changed at work, and what can you no longer do around the house and yard?

Describe a normal week, bad days included, not the best week you have had this year. Your answers should match what someone living with you would recognise.

Interim payments use a set rating

If you are receiving interim PI because a condition is not yet stable, DVA sets the lifestyle rating itself: the top of the expected range if you have 15 impairment points or fewer, and the bottom of it above that, unless a rating you already have is higher. The options on the form are not used. The full lifestyle rating comes with your final assessment, once your condition is stable. That is when the effort on this form pays off.

Frequently asked questions

What is the DVA lifestyle rating?

A score from 0 to 7 for how your accepted conditions affect your personal relationships, mobility, recreational and community activities, and employment and domestic activities. Together with your impairment points, it sets your compensation factor.

What happens if I don't choose an option on the D2670?

DVA sets your lifestyle rating (Option 2) based on your level of medical impairment, at no less than the higher end of the range expected for your impairment points, and without your own account of how your conditions affect your life.

Can DVA change my self-assessed lifestyle rating?

Yes, although a self-assessment should not usually be queried. It is expected to be broadly consistent with your level of medical impairment. If DVA considers it too low, it substitutes a higher rating. If it considers it too high, you are given a second chance to complete the Lifestyle Questionnaire.

Does the lifestyle rating change how much I am paid?

Yes. At the same impairment points, a higher lifestyle rating gives a higher compensation factor, which multiplies into your weekly payment and any lump sum you convert it to.