Records

[Joey Ross]

How long can the VA hold up a Claim, if they are requesting records. Is there a limit on the number of times they can make the same request, before they are forced to go with the info they have?

[brokensoldier244th]

Yup. That one of the things my dad told me before I ETS'd in 2002. Get to be friends with the records people at medical and personnel. Beg, borrow, or steal and make copies and hand carry that stuff out. 

When you ETS now your SMRs and personnel file from your last unit and whatever DOD has are electronically sent. Problem is, like when I work a claim for a recently separated person, those records come in piecemeal and not on a set schedule. Ill be looking at a claim with personnel but no SMRs, no Personnel but SMR's (partial), or, one of my favorites- SMRs and Personnel and not a DD214 anywhere to verify character of discharge. Its sometimes a month or more waiting for them to get scanned. Better to send whatver you have, if you have it, marked up in a way that we can read. Highlighter tends to darken when scanned, so underlines, margin notes, and a coverpage if you send in a whole pile that describes a bit what we are looking at is always helpful, too. 

 

Edited October 5, 2020 by brokensoldier244th

[USMC_VET]

1 hour ago, brokensoldier244th said:

Yup. That one of the things my dad told me before I ETS'd in 2002. Get to be friends with the records people at medical and personnel. Beg, borrow, or steal and make copies and hand carry that stuff out. 

When you ETS now your SMRs and personnel file from your last unit and whatever DOD has are electronically sent. Problem is, like when I work a claim for a recently separated person, those records come in piecemeal and not on a set schedule. Ill be looking at a claim with personnel but no SMRs, no Personnel but SMR's (partial), or, one of my favorites- SMRs and Personnel and not a DD214 anywhere to verify character of discharge. Its sometimes a month or more waiting for them to get scanned. Better to send whatver you have, if you have it, marked up in a way that we can read. Highlighter tends to darken when scanned, so underlines, margin notes, and a coverpage if you send in a whole pile that describes a bit what we are looking at is always helpful, too. 

 

I know not everyone has access to Adobe PDF, but they have a nice highlighting feature you can use in tools.  I dont manually highlight anything in my records i highlight it via pdf and send it.  Will it darken that way as well? i never thought about it

[brokensoldier244th]

No, thats okay, because it displays as part of the PDF. If you upload PDFs directly they aren't converted since the system uses PDF.So, everything you upload is converted to PDF. Jpgs do not transfer well unless you print them, then scan them -then upload THAT. I don't know why.