How Do You Get Medically Retired from the Military?

To get medically retired from the military, you have to go through the Integrated Disability Evaluation System (IDES), a joint Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs process that decides whether a medical condition makes you unfit for your military duties. If IDES finds you unfit and your unfitting condition is rated at least 30 percent, you retire with monthly pay and lifetime benefits. If the rating comes in lower and you have fewer than 20 years of service, you separate with a one-time severance check instead. The DoD aims to finish 80 percent of cases within 180 days from referral to final disposition, though complex files take longer.¹

How the Process Starts

You don’t apply for medical retirement. It starts with a treating physician deciding that you cannot return to full duty within a reasonable period, typically 12 months, and referring you into IDES. From there, a Physical Evaluation Board Liaison Officer (PEBLO) is assigned to your case to track deadlines, gather documents, and shepherd the file through each stage.

The legal authority for everything that happens sits in 10 U.S.C. Chapter 61, which lets the Secretary of your military department retire or separate members who are unfit to perform the duties of their grade because of a physical or mental disability.² The operative word is “unfit.” A diagnosis alone won’t do it. The condition has to prevent you from doing the specific job your military occupational specialty requires. A knee injury that grounds a pilot may not disqualify an intelligence analyst.

The Two Boards Inside IDES

IDES routes your case through two boards, each answering a different question.

Medical Evaluation Board

The MEB is a panel of two or three physicians appointed by the medical treatment facility commander. Their job is narrow: look at your medical evidence and decide whether your condition meets your branch’s retention standards.³ If it does, you go back to duty. If it doesn’t, the case moves forward. In parallel, the VA runs its own disability examination to develop the ratings that will be used later. That dual track is what makes the system “integrated.”

Physical Evaluation Board

The PEB is where the career decision happens. It first conducts an informal review to decide whether you’re fit or unfit. If unfit, it applies the VA’s ratings to your unfitting conditions and recommends a disposition: retirement, separation with severance pay, or in some cases separation without benefits.

Ratings come from the VA Schedule for Rating Disabilities (VASRD), which assigns percentages based on how much a condition impairs average earning capacity.⁴ Note the split: the DoD only rates the specific conditions that make you unfit for duty, while the VA separately rates every service-connected condition you have. Your DoD percentage and your VA percentage are often different numbers, and both matter.

The Documentation That Decides Your Case

The strength of your case almost entirely tracks the strength of the paperwork. Three documents do most of the work.

Your service treatment records are the clinical backbone. Every diagnosis, imaging study, lab result, and specialist consultation tied to your condition needs to be in the file. Records from off-base or civilian providers have to be gathered and included too. Gaps are where claims fall apart.

A Commander’s Performance and Functional Statement supplies the non-medical half. Your commanding officer documents which duties you can no longer perform and how the limitations affect the unit. This is what translates a clinical finding into operational terms the boards understand. “Chronic lumbar radiculopathy” means one thing to a doctor. “Unable to wear body armor or carry a standard load for more than 20 minutes” means something concrete to the people deciding fitness.

The medical team then compiles everything into a Narrative Summary, the central document for the evaluation. You get roughly five to ten calendar days to review it and flag errors before it moves forward. Use every day of that window. Mistakes that make it through the narrative summary are much harder to correct later.

The 30 Percent Threshold

The rating the DoD assigns to your unfitting condition drives the biggest fork in the process. Under 10 U.S.C. § 1201, you qualify for disability retirement if the rating is 30 percent or higher, or if you have at least 20 years of creditable service regardless of rating.⁵ Retirement means monthly pay for life, TRICARE eligibility, commissary access, and the full retiree benefit package.

If your rating is below 30 percent and you have fewer than 20 years of service, you receive a disability separation with a one-time severance payment instead of ongoing retired pay.⁶ Disability severance pay equals your years of service (capped at 19), multiplied by two, multiplied by your monthly base pay.⁷ Over a lifetime, the difference between a 20 percent and a 30 percent rating can run to tens of thousands of dollars a year. That is why borderline ratings are worth fighting.

One boundary to know: if a disability existed before you entered the military and was not aggravated by service, you can be separated without benefits.⁶ The statute requires “clear and unmistakable evidence” that the condition pre-existed and was not made worse by service.⁵ That’s a high bar, and a pre-existing condition that worsened on active duty can still qualify.

Challenging a Rating You Disagree With

If you disagree with the informal PEB findings, whether it’s the fitness call, the percentage, or the disposition, you can demand a formal hearing. Once the formal PEB convenes, the informal results are void and the board starts fresh.⁸

You appear with appointed military counsel. The hearing is non-adversarial, so no opposing counsel is arguing against you. You can present additional medical evidence, lay testimony, and arguments for a specific rating or outcome. After the formal PEB issues its decision, you can still file a petition for relief if you believe the outcome is wrong. If your rating is even a few percentage points from a threshold that changes your benefit category, a formal hearing is almost always worth requesting.

Temporary vs. Permanent Retirement

Not every qualifying condition has stabilized by the time the PEB decides. If your rating is 30 percent or higher but the condition is not yet permanent and stable, you go on the Temporary Disability Retired List (TDRL) instead of the Permanent Disability Retired List (PDRL).⁹ You still get retired pay and benefits while on the TDRL, but the case stays open.

You must undergo periodic re-examinations at least once every 18 months, and the Secretary of your department has to make a final determination before the three-year anniversary of your placement on the list.¹⁰ If the disability still exists at that point, the law treats it as permanent and you move to the PDRL. If it has improved to below 30 percent, you can be separated with severance. If you’re found fit, you can be returned to duty. Retired pay terminates if no final determination is made by the three-year mark.

While you’re on the TDRL, the minimum disability percentage used to calculate your retired pay is 50 percent, even if your actual rating is lower.¹¹

How the Pay Is Calculated

Monthly disability retired pay is your retired pay base multiplied by a percentage. The retired pay base is typically your “high-36,” the average of your highest 36 months of basic pay. For the percentage, you get whichever of these produces a higher result:¹¹

Your DoD disability percentage applied directly (a 40 percent rating gives 40 percent of the base).
Your years of creditable service multiplied by 2.5 percent (12 years gives 30 percent).

Either way, the multiplier is capped at 75 percent by law. Most people medically retired with fewer than 20 years of service come out ahead using the disability rating method, and the calculation is done automatically in your favor.

The VA Offset and Concurrent Receipt

This is where a lot of new medical retirees are caught off guard. Federal law generally prohibits collecting full military retired pay and full VA disability compensation at the same time. If you qualify for both, your military retired pay is reduced dollar-for-dollar by the amount of your VA disability compensation.¹² Since VA compensation is tax-free and military retired pay is generally taxable, most retirees waive the military pay in favor of the VA benefit when the amounts overlap.

Two programs can restore some or all of that offset:

Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay (CRDP). If you were medically retired under Chapter 61 with at least 20 years of creditable service and have a VA rating of 50 percent or higher, you can receive both concurrently. If you were retired under Chapter 61 with fewer than 20 years, CRDP does not apply and the full offset stays in place.¹²
Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC). If any of your disabilities came from armed conflict, hazardous duty, war simulation activities, or exposure to instruments of war, you can apply to your branch for CRSC. This tax-free payment replaces the offset amount for qualifying combat-related conditions.¹³

You can’t receive both CRDP and CRSC at once. DFAS automatically pays whichever is more favorable.

If you were separated below 30 percent and received disability severance pay, expect a different recoupment. When VA disability compensation later kicks in, the VA withholds a portion of each monthly payment until the severance amount (minus the federal income tax that was withheld from it) has been recouped in full.¹⁴ The severance check effectively works as an advance against future VA benefits, and many veterans don’t realize that until the withholding starts.

Healthcare and Family Benefits After Retirement

Medical retirees on the PDRL or TDRL keep TRICARE eligibility. You have 90 days after your retirement date to enroll in a plan. Missing that window doesn’t lock you out permanently, but it creates a coverage gap and requires a retroactive enrollment request within 12 months.¹⁵ Dependents are eligible as retiree family members, but their information has to be current in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS).

If you’re separated below 30 percent rather than retired, you don’t get retiree TRICARE. You may qualify for temporary coverage through the Transitional Assistance Management Program (TAMP) or the Continued Health Care Benefit Program (CHCBP), both time-limited.¹⁵ If you become Medicare-eligible due to disability before age 65, you must enroll in Medicare Part B to keep TRICARE.

Most medical retirees have about six months or less between their evaluation and their separation date. Starting your financial planning, TRICARE research, and VA claims work as early as possible in the IDES process gives you the best chance of a clean transition into retired status.

1
TRICARE. IDES Timeline
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 USC Ch. 61 – Retirement or Separation for Physical Disability
3
Wounded Warrior Regiment. IDES Pocket Guide Third Edition
4
eCFR. 38 CFR Part 4 – Schedule for Rating Disabilities
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 USC 1201 – Regulars and Members on Active Duty for More Than 30 Days, Retirement
6
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Disability
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 USC 1212 – Disability Severance Pay
8
Wounded Warrior Regiment. Procedures of the Formal Physical Evaluation Board
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 USC 1202 – Regulars and Members on Active Duty for More Than 30 Days, Temporary Disability Retired List
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 USC 1210 – Members on Temporary Disability Retired List, Periodic Physical Examination, Final Determination of Status
11
Military Compensation and Financial Readiness. Disability Retirement
12
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Concurrent Military Retired Pay and VA Disability Compensation
13
Veterans Affairs. Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC)
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 USC 1174 – Separation Pay Upon Involuntary Discharge
15
TRICARE. Medical Retirement