A veteran can have normal blood pressure, keep up with medical appointments, and still be struggling.

Maybe work has become unstable.
Maybe money is tight.
Maybe relationships have fallen apart.
Maybe they feel increasingly isolated from the people around them.

Those problems don’t always appear in a medical chart. But they can have an enormous effect on a veteran’s health and quality of life.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is increasingly trying to capture that bigger picture.

A brief assessment known as Well-being Signs is now being used across 134 VA facilities to help healthcare teams understand how veterans are doing not only physically, but across several important areas of everyday life.

According to a September 29 update from VA Health Systems Research, the assessment has already been administered more than 200,000 times.And its use is growing quickly.

What Are “Well-being Signs”? 

The idea behind Well-being Signs is surprisingly simple. Instead of focusing entirely on disease, symptoms, and diagnoses, VA asks veterans to rate how they’re doing across several areas of their lives. Those areas include:

• Physical health
• Mental health
• Social well-being
• Vocational well-being
• Financial well-being

The assessment is intentionally brief so it can be incorporated into routine care without creating another lengthy questionnaire for veterans to complete. The answers give clinicians a snapshot of problems that may not surface during a traditional medical appointment. A veteran might arrive for treatment of chronic pain, for example, while also struggling financially because the pain has made it difficult to work. Another veteran’s physical condition may be relatively stable, but social isolation or deteriorating mental health could be affecting their overall quality of life. Looking at those pieces together gives providers a different picture than medical symptoms alone.

VA Says Use Has Increased Dramatically 

Well-being Signs grew out of research conducted within VA’s Center for Care Delivery and Outcomes Research and has gradually moved into clinical use.

According to VA, utilization increased 221% during the first quarter of fiscal year 2026.

The assessment has now been used more than 200,000 times at 134 VA facilities.

That’s a significant expansion for something designed initially as a research tool. It also reflects a broader shift occurring within VA healthcare toward Whole Health, an approach that looks beyond individual diseases and asks veterans what matters to them in their lives and health.

VA describes Whole Health as care centered around a veteran’s values, needs, and goals rather than simply reacting to illness when it appears. Well-being Signs gives providers another tool for doing that.

Why Financial and Social Health Belong in Healthcare 

At first glance, asking about finances or employment during a medical appointment might seem outside a doctor’s job description. But those factors can directly influence health.

A veteran who can’t afford reliable transportation may miss appointments. Someone facing housing instability may struggle to manage medications or maintain treatment. A veteran who loses a job may experience financial stress, isolation, depression, or worsening physical symptoms. And a veteran who feels socially disconnected can be struggling significantly even if their medical tests look perfectly normal. These problems don’t exist independently of one another. That’s especially important for disabled veterans, whose health conditions may affect their ability to work, maintain relationships, participate in their communities, or remain financially stable.

Recognizing those connections earlier could help VA healthcare teams connect veterans with appropriate resources before one problem snowballs into several.

This Isn’t Another VA Disability Exam 

There’s an important distinction for veterans to understand.

Well-being Signs is a healthcare assessment, not a VA disability compensation examination.

Its purpose is to help healthcare providers understand a veteran’s overall well-being and identify areas where additional support may be helpful. It isn’t designed to determine a VA disability percentage or replace the evidence required for a disability compensation claim.

Veterans shouldn’t confuse it with a Compensation and Pension exam simply because questions may involve how health conditions affect everyday life. The goal here is care.

Measuring the Veteran, Not Just the Condition 

Healthcare has traditionally been very good at measuring individual things.

Blood pressure.

Weight.

Pain levels.

Lab results.

Medication adherence.

Those measurements matter. But they don’t necessarily answer a much bigger question: Is this person actually doing well? That’s what makes the Well-being Signs approach interesting.

A veteran’s health doesn’t stop at the examination-room door.

Employment, financial stability, relationships, mental health, physical health, purpose, and connection can all influence one another.

VA researchers are attempting to make some of those traditionally harder-to-measure factors visible to clinicians. And more than 200,000 completed assessments suggest the idea is moving well beyond the experimental stage.

Final Thoughts … 

There isn’t anything particularly flashy about a short questionnaire asking veterans how they’re doing. But sometimes the simplest questions uncover the things a medical chart doesn’t.

A veteran can have a manageable diagnosis and still be struggling. Another can live with significant disabilities while having strong relationships, financial stability, meaningful work, and a good quality of life.

Health isn’t only the absence of disease.

For disabled veterans especially, it can be the combination of physical health, mental health, financial security, purpose, independence, and connection to other people.

VA’s Well-being Signs initiative won’t solve all of those problems. But asking about them is a pretty reasonable place to start. 

If you’re receiving VA healthcare and struggling with something affecting your overall quality of life, whether that’s physical health, mental health, employment, finances, relationships, or social isolation, don’t assume it isn’t relevant to your healthcare.

Talk with your VA care team about what you’re experiencing and ask what services or resources may be available. You can also learn more about VA’s Whole Health approach and continue following DisabledVeterans.org for news and information affecting disabled veterans and their families.