Recurrent tinnitus
Ongoing or repeating head noise that isn't a one-time thing.
DC 6260 rates recurrent tinnitus at a single flat 10 percent - this is the only percentage the code provides.
audiology notes; ENT records
Reference: 38 CFR 4.87
Tinnitus: Terminology
Plain-English definitions of the terms used
Terminology
Plain-English terms
Objective tinnitus
Head noise with a findable physical source, rather than noise only the veteran can hear with no identifiable cause.
DC 6260's Note (3) excludes objective tinnitus from this code - it is evaluated as part of the underlying condition causing it, not as a separate DC 6260 finding.
ENT or audiology findings identifying a physical cause
Single-evaluation rule
One rating for tinnitus, no matter which ear (or both) it's in.
Prevents a bilateral tinnitus finding from being treated as two separate ratings.
audiology or ENT notes describing laterality
Combination rule (DC 6260 Note 1)
Tinnitus and certain other ear or hearing findings, or any other condition a tinnitus finding might otherwise help support, can usually both be rated and combined, unless the same tinnitus finding is already being used to help qualify for the other rating. The rule's real purpose is to stop the same tinnitus finding from being double-counted, not to limit which conditions tinnitus can combine with.
Prevents the same underlying finding from being counted twice while still allowing genuinely separate findings to combine.
records for the other condition being combined
TDIU
Even if the schedular rating for Tinnitus does not reach 100 percent, TDIU may still provide a pathway to compensation at the 100 percent rate, based on unemployability from this and/or other service-connected disabilities combined.
A lower schedular percentage does not by itself foreclose TDIU eligibility -- this hub computes only the schedular percentage for this specific condition and does not determine TDIU eligibility.
Employment history; vocational impact documentation; occupational impairment
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