Impairment Estimate Appointment

Why estimate before you assess?

Permanent impairment is where a DVA claim turns into actual compensation, and it is decided almost entirely by tables. Every condition DVA has accepted is rated under a GARP table for its body system — spine, lower limbs, hearing, skin, emotional and behavioural — and the points, combined and converted, set the payment. Which means the outcome is largely calculable in advance, if someone who knows the tables sits down with your history and works through them properly.

Veterans go into the formal assessment blind. They do not know whether their accepted conditions add up to 8 points or 48, whether the claim is worth pursuing now or after another condition is accepted, or whether the number DVA later produces is fair. An estimate answers that before anything is lodged:

• Before a PI claim — see the approximate points and what drives them, so you know what the claim is worth before you start it.
• Before the formal assessment — walk in knowing which tables apply to you and roughly where you sit on each.
• After a DVA determination — compare DVA’s rating against an independent working of the same tables. If the numbers diverge, you have the beginnings of a review.
• When timing matters — sometimes waiting for one more condition to be accepted changes the combined score materially. The estimate shows you.

The two products

• Physical PIA Estimate — $600 + GST. Your physical conditions, each rated under the relevant GARP chapter — spine, upper and lower limbs, hearing and tinnitus, skin, respiratory, and the rest — with the specific table, the level your answers support, and the criteria wording for that level set out for every rating.
• Mental Health PIA Estimate — $600 + GST. Your psychiatric conditions rated under GARP Chapter 4 (emotional and behavioural), covering the domains the table actually measures — personal relationships, employment and social functioning, self-care, and treatment response.

Take one or both, depending on what has been accepted. Each stands alone as a complete report.

Where the Chart Review fits — $600 + GST

An estimate is only as good as the record it works from. A chart review reads every page of your medical documents first, so the estimate covers every documented condition — not just the ones you remembered to mention — and so each questionnaire answer can be checked against what the record actually shows. If you have already had a VHC chart review, we work from it. If you have not, we recommend it as the first step.

How it works

1. Questionnaires. You complete structured questionnaires for each condition — symptoms, what makes them better and worse, treatment history, and functional impact. They mirror the style of DVA’s own Medical Impairment Assessment forms, so nothing you do here is wasted preparation.
2. The GARP working. We take each answer and set it against the criteria of the applicable GARP table — the actual wording of each level — and identify the level your reported symptoms and records support.
3. The report. You receive a written document itemising the impairment by body region, in the structure of a DVA PI determination: each condition, the table applied, the level, the criteria wording, and the rationale — ending with the approximate combined score.

Everything is done on paper and records. No examination, no travel — the whole process can be completed remotely from anywhere in Australia.

What the report looks like

For each condition you see three things side by side: what you reported, what the GARP criteria say, and the level that follows. A fictitious excerpt:

Sample excerpt — fictitious veteran. Invented data, shown only to illustrate the report’s structure.

Body region / condition	GARP table	You reported	GARP criteria at this level	Points
Thoracolumbar spine Lumbar spondylosis	Ch 3 — Spine & limbs	Constant lower-back pain at rest, interferes with sleep despite medication	Severe joint pain always present at rest, not adequately responsive to therapy, regularly interfering with sleep	15
Hearing Tinnitus	Ch 7 — Ear, nose & throat	Ringing daily, needs background noise to fall asleep	Tinnitus requiring masking or intruding on sleep on most days	5
Lower limbs Bilateral plantar fasciitis	Ch 3 — Spine & limbs	Heel pain on standing, managed with orthotics	Joint pain on moderate use, relieved by rest and simple measures	5

The report then combines the ratings the way the GARP does — using the Combined Values Chart, not simple addition — and states the approximate total and what it could mean for the claim.

Where your reported symptoms and the record diverge — you describe severe daily pain but the file shows no consultations for it — the report says so plainly, because that is exactly the gap a DVA medical adviser will find. Better to see it now, while there is time to have the condition properly documented, than at determination.

What this is not

Honesty matters more here than anywhere else on this site, so plainly:

• It is not the formal Permanent Impairment Assessment. When DVA requests a PIA, it requires completed and signed DVA impairment forms, usually following examination. That is our face-to-face Permanent Impairment Assessment — $1,500 + GST, at the Ipswich clinic. The estimate does not replace it, and if you proceed to the formal assessment the estimate work feeds straight into it.
• It is an estimate, not a guarantee. The score is our working of the GARP against your answers and records. DVA’s delegate makes the determination, and examination findings can move individual ratings.
• It is not a payout figure. The report deals in impairment points and what drives them. Converting points into dollars involves age, lifestyle ratings and compensation tables that DVA applies at determination.

Want a rough sense of the tables yourself first? The free PI points calculator lets you explore every GARP table. The estimate is the professional version: your records, a doctor’s judgement of which levels your evidence actually supports, and a document you can act on.

Which service do I want?

• Impairment Estimate Appointment — paper-based, no examination, an approximate score with the full GARP working. $600 + GST per product (physical / mental health). Anywhere in Australia.
• Permanent Impairment Assessment — the formal, face-to-face assessment with examination, completed and signed DVA forms, and a full defensive report. $1,500 + GST. This is the one DVA acts on.

Most veterans who take the estimate do so either well before the formal assessment — to decide whether and when to claim — or after a determination that looks low. If you are unsure which applies to you, ask us.