Only 1,153 of Missoula’s more than 4800 estimated veterans have a VA rating and some of those percentages don’t accurately reflect what disabled live with each day. Others are refused VA disability altogether. We push to get those ratings raised and to establish service connection for the veterans who need it.
Hill & Ponton is made up entirely of VA-accredited disability attorneys, with a unique mission: overturning denials and challenging ratings that land too low.
Has the VA denied or underrated your claim? We can help you push back, with nothing due up front and a fee only if your appeal succeeds. Get in touch for a free look at your case.
Our Legal Services to Veterans
- Disability Compensation: We work to secure every dollar of monthly compensation a service-connected condition supports, plus the back pay owed for every month the VA made you wait.
- VA Disability Appeals: A denial or a too-low rating is where we do our sharpest work. We reopen the whole file, chase down the records and medical opinions the VA never gathered, and rebuild the claim into the one that should have been decided at the outset.
- Rating Increases: Conditions seldom stand still. When yours has worsened since your last decision, we assemble the proof and go after the higher percentage, and the bigger payment, that matches where you are now.
- Individual Unemployability: When those conditions leave you unable to hold any steady job, TDIU can pay you as if you were rated 100%, even when the combined figure is lower.
- Special Monthly Compensation: The most disabling injuries and illnesses can lift payments past the usual ceiling to more than 100% compensation.
- Survivor Benefits: When a fatal illness is service-connected, the spouse, child, or parent left behind may have grounds to pursue Dependency and Indemnity Compensation and other survivor benefits. We carry families through that process with understanding and professionalism.
How Your Rating Becomes a Monthly Check
Every service-connected condition earns a rating in ten-point increments, 10% through 100%, and that figure sets how large your tax-free monthly payment will be.
Carry more than one disability rating and the VA will not just add them up. It runs the figures through a combined ratings table instead, which is why getting every claim right counts for so much.
To estimate what your particular combination of disabilities should pay, try the VA disability calculator.
This is the monthly amount a single veteran with no dependents collects right now:
- 10%: $180.42
- 20%: $356.66
- 30%: $552.47
- 40%: $795.84
- 50%: $1,132.90
- 60%: $1,435.02
- 70%: $1,808.45
- 80%: $2,102.15
- 90%: $2,362.30
- 100%: $3,938.58
A spouse, children, or dependent parents push the figure higher, and an annual cost-of-living bump keeps it climbing.
Beyond the federal compensation, Missoula veterans also receive Montana state benefits, including property tax relief and other exemptions.
Work with us to get your Benefits
Winning Toxic Exposure Claims
For most Montana veterans, the toxic exposure behind a later illness happened far from home: in the Vietnam jungle, in Iraq or Afghanistan, sometimes at a U.S. military base in another state where industrial solvents or other dangerous substances were used. Those exposures can still anchor a VA claim decades on.
Closer to home, Malmstrom Air Force Base near Great Falls and Limestone Hills Training Area near Townsend carry their own contamination history: years of firefighting foam drove PFOS and PFOA into the groundwater at these sites. Veterans stationed at these military bases who later developed a related illness should weigh that exposure closely.
Whenever a toxic exposure is tied to your diagnosis, an earlier denial does not have to settle the matter. Our attorneys have spent years linking illnesses to the exposures that caused them, from Agent Orange to PFAS, and winning the benefits owed to veterans and their families.
The Three Things Every Approved Claim Has
Three requirements decide every VA claim, and a weakness in any one usually means a denial: diagnosis, in-service event, and nexus.
- A current diagnosis – a provider, VA or private, puts in writing that you have the condition today.
- An in-service cause – the record points to an injury, illness, event, or exposure in service that could have produced the condition or made it worse.
- A medical nexus – a qualified clinician ties the two together, judging service “at least as likely as not” responsible. Most claims are won or lost right here.
Our VA disability attorneys read the system the way the raters do, see where claims fall apart, and put yours together so the decision finally matches what you face day to day.
Tell us about your case
Is It Worth Hiring a VA Disability Lawyer?
Filing the claim yourself is a great first step, and sometimes it is enough. But this all changes when a denial comes in, or a rating that ignores how hard your days have become; that is the point where experienced legal counsel makes a big difference.
We built our practice to walk veterans through an appeals system that can feel designed to confuse. When a claim grinds to a halt over evidence nobody gathered or a ruling with no logic to it, we pry the file open, find the problem, and get the case moving again. We have done this for veterans in every corner of the country.
We keep pace with every shift in VA disability law, from agency policy to decisions handed down by the veterans courts, and aim it at the rating increases, unemployability pay, and special compensation you could be entitled to receive.
VA Facilities Helping Veterans In and Around Missoula
- David J. Thatcher VA Clinic – The Missoula outpatient clinic of the VA Montana Health Care System offers primary care, mental health, and other outpatient services available close to home. 3885 West Broadway Street, Missoula, MT 59808. Phone: 406-215-0100
- Missoula Vet Center – Confidential readjustment, PTSD, and military sexual trauma counseling, kept separate from your VA medical records. 910 Brooks Street, Suite 101, Missoula, MT 59801. Phone: 406-721-4918
- Montana Veterans Affairs Division, Missoula Field Office – State service officers who help local veterans prepare and manage VA claims at no cost. 1911 Tower Street, Missoula, MT 59804. Phone: 406-542-2501
- Fort Harrison VA Medical Center – VA Montana Health Care System’s main hospital, about 115 miles east near Helena, with inpatient and specialty care. 3687 Veterans Drive, Fort Harrison, MT 59636. Phone: 406-442-6410
- Fort Harrison VA Regional Benefit Office – The VA office that decides disability claims for Missoula veterans, on the Fort Harrison campus near Helena. 3633 Veterans Drive, Fort Harrison, MT 59636. Phone: 800-827-1000
Standing With Veterans at Risk of Homelessness
To assist homeless veterans, the VA Montana Health Care System runs homeless veteran services through a Missoula program office, combining HUD-VASH vouchers with case management alongside Health Care for Homeless Veterans and Grant and Per Diem transitional beds, plus referrals for mental health and substance use care and a path back to employment.
But for many veterans, a frozen or wrongly rejected disability check is what makes the difference between getting by and losing their home. Homeless and at-risk veterans therefore hold a place at the front of the line at Hill & Ponton.
A look at your case costs nothing, and our fee comes only with a win. If a VA ruling has boxed you out, call us, and we will work to bring you back in.
Meet Our Expert Legal Team
VA Disability Attorneys and professionals championing veterans in Missoula, Montana and nationwide.
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Need help appealing a VA decision? Contact our disability lawyers for a free evaluation of your claim.
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