A chronic skin condition causing thick, scaly patches that may itch or be painful.
Medical records that document the extent of your psoriasis lesions are central to establishing which rating level applies. Records showing the percentage of your body surface area or exposed areas affected — such as notes from dermatology visits that use a body surface area measurement or a severity scoring tool — directly address the area-based criteria at each level.
For the therapy-based criteria, records showing what treatments were prescribed and for how long over the past 12 months are equally important. Pharmacy records, prescription histories, or physician notes showing that you took systemic medications — such as oral corticosteroids, biologics, or other immunosuppressive drugs — and whether that use was constant, lasted 6 weeks or more, or lasted less than 6 weeks, tie directly to the 60%, 30%, and 10% levels respectively. Records showing only topical treatments were used support the 0% criteria.
Statements from you or people who know you about how your symptoms affect your daily life, such as the impact of flares on work, sleep, or physical activity, can help give context to the medical findings. For any complications like psoriatic arthritis, separate medical documentation of those conditions would support a separate rating claim under the applicable diagnostic code.
Conditions that are often caused or made worse by this one. If you have any of these, they may be claimable as secondary service connection.
