VA said it fixed burn-pit denials. Its watchdog found the reviews still missed errors.
VA said it corrected old burn-pit denials. OIG found the reviews still missed errors. Follow the timeline, evidence and unanswered outcome question.
Intelligence Brief
Clear guides, original reporting and a closer look at VA claims.
Special Reports
Original reporting, public records and the questions that deserve answers.
The same VA payment faces a $763 monthly rent gap across Arizona
Compare HUD’s FY2027 rent benchmarks across all 15 Arizona counties with current VA disability payments. Includes county data and calculation methods.
Arizona expanded veterans’ tax relief. Clear instructions are the next test.
Arizona’s 2027 veteran property-tax changes follow documented concerns about county guidance. What the public record shows and what applicants should check.
Free VA claims help in Arizona: a directory cannot tell you the wait
Arizona agency records describe historical waits for free claims help. Learn what the figures establish and how to check for a suitable appointment.
Arizona’s $1.95 million VetLink settlement includes $1.2 million for restitution. What comes next?
Arizona’s VetLink settlement includes a $1.2 million restitution fund. Understand the published deadline, payment window and outstanding outcome measures.
Latest
The newest articles from every section.
VA Form 10-10EZ PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Apply for VA health care with the current 10-10EZ and understand how disability ratings, service history, insurance and income affect enrollment.
VA Form 10-5345 PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Use the May 2026 VA Form 10-5345 to authorize release of VA health records to someone else, with a field-by-field example and submission guidance.
VA Form 10-5345a PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Request your own VA treatment records with the July 2021 VA Form 10-5345a, and learn when to use 10-5345 instead.
VA Form 10-7959c PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Report other insurance to CHAMPVA correctly, including Medicare parts, coverage dates, prescription benefits and changes after enrollment.
VA Form 10-10d PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Use the current CHAMPVA application to identify the veteran sponsor, each family member, other insurance and the documents VA needs.
VA Form 10-7959a PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Prepare a CHAMPVA reimbursement claim with the current form, itemized bill, proof of payment and other insurer's explanation of benefits.
VA Form 22-5490 PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Download the current Chapter 35 application and follow each item, including benefit elections, signatures, school certification and mailing addresses.
VA Form 5655 PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Complete the January 2024 Financial Status Report for a VA debt waiver, compromise or repayment request, with a fictional monthly-budget example.
VA Form 21P-527EZ PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Download the current Veterans Pension application and follow its service, household, income, medical-expense and signature sections.
VA Form 21-8951-2 PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Check your paid training days and complete VA's military-pay election, including corrections, commander signatures and the current filing address.
Claim Guides
Understand the process, gather useful evidence and prepare your claim.
VA Form 10-10EZ PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Apply for VA health care with the current 10-10EZ and understand how disability ratings, service history, insurance and income affect enrollment.
VA Form 10-5345 PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Use the May 2026 VA Form 10-5345 to authorize release of VA health records to someone else, with a field-by-field example and submission guidance.
VA Form 10-5345a PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Request your own VA treatment records with the July 2021 VA Form 10-5345a, and learn when to use 10-5345 instead.
VA Form 10-7959c PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Report other insurance to CHAMPVA correctly, including Medicare parts, coverage dates, prescription benefits and changes after enrollment.
VA Form 10-10d PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Use the current CHAMPVA application to identify the veteran sponsor, each family member, other insurance and the documents VA needs.
VA Form 10-7959a PDF: How to Fill It Out, With an Example
Prepare a CHAMPVA reimbursement claim with the current form, itemized bill, proof of payment and other insurer's explanation of benefits.
Case Studies
The evidence and reasoning behind individual Board decisions.
TBI Granted After the Board Compared Two VA Opinions
One VA examiner diagnosed TBI and connected it to documented head injuries. A later opinion missed those facts. Here is why the Board gave them different weight.
GERD Rating Reduction Reversed: What the Board Found in A25062915
VA reduced this veteran's GERD rating from 30% to 10%. The Board restored it and separately awarded 60% from May 2022, based on the evidence for that period.
Diagnostic Code 7328: The One Word That Keeps Severe Digestive Ratings at 40 Percent
A veteran with two intestinal resections, a removed gallbladder, GERD, and chronic diarrhea was denied a higher rating. The reason wasn't symptoms. It was the word 'material' in Diagnostic Code 7328.
PTSD Back Pay Has a Deadline: How Five Days Cost This Veteran Eleven Months of Retro Pay
A Navy veteran missed his appeal window by five days. The Board denied his earlier effective date claim and locked his 70 percent PTSD rating to August 2020 instead of the year before. Here's the procedural trap, in full.
Clear and Unmistakable Error Is the Hardest Motion in VA Law. He Proved the Error and Still Lost.
An Army veteran proved the 2008 RO applied the wrong legal standard to his pes planus claim. The Board agreed. He still lost. Here's why CUE is the hardest motion in VA law.
Nexus Letter Denied: Two Chiropractor Letters Reopened This Claim, Then Sank It
His chiropractor's two nexus letters got his denied back claim reopened. Then the Board gave them no probative weight and the claim died anyway. The letters contradicted his own records. Here is what went wrong.
VA Data & Research
A closer look at the numbers and patterns in VA claims and appeals.
MOS and VA Disability Claims: What Our BVA Sample Shows
The intelligence and logistics categories differ by 10.2 percentage points in our sample. Small groups, missing labels and repeated decisions limit what that means.
When the Board Quotes a Lay Statement: What Our Sample Shows
In 77,151 condition records, quoted lay evidence appeared alongside more favorable outcomes. That finding does not mean a quotable statement doubles your chances.
BVA Grant Rate: What 98,625 Board Condition Records Show
The BVA grant rate across 98,625 decided condition records: 30.6 percent granted overall, but the rate swings from 3 percent to 93 percent based on your evidence.
Examiner Specialty Predicts C&P Adequacy: 73% to 26% in the Same System
Urology C&P exams come back adequate 72.8% of the time. Sleep medicine C&P exams come back adequate 26.3%. Same system, two different reports.
VA Service Connection: Direct, Secondary, and Presumptive
Compare direct, secondary, presumptive, and aggravation theories. Map your actual records to the connection question your claim needs to answer.
Combat Status Helps Less Than You Think: 6.6 Points of Grant Rate Difference
Combat veterans grant at 37.2%, non-combat at 30.6%. The 6.6-point gap is real but smaller than the § 1154(b) talking points suggest. What it actually does.
Company Reviews
Reviews of claims services, medical-evidence providers and software.
Sworn Medical Review: Nexus Letter Prices, Physician and Terms
Sworn Medical names its physician and publishes flat nexus-letter prices. We examine the costs, credentials, refunds, service scope and customer-evidence limits.
Amica Clinical Consulting Review: The $3,000 VA Evaluation
Amica review covering the $250 screening and $2,750 evaluation, mental-health DBQs, nexus limits, credentials, refund terms, and sparse public feedback.
Veritas Ratings Review: Costs, Contract, and Feedback
Veritas Ratings review covering consulting scope, undisclosed prices, customer terms, indefinite data retention, and selected positive and mixed feedback.
Veterans Network Champions Club Review: Fees and Terms
VNCC review covering $67 and $87 courses, separately contracted consulting, refund and review restrictions, privacy, and positive public feedback.
Valor Psychology Review: Prices, Nexus Letters, and DBQs
Valor Psychology review: $495 evaluations, $600 special services, DBQ options, cancellation fees, public feedback, and limits of its medical opinions.
MRPY Professional Services Review: Prices and Refunds
MRPY review covering its $199 assessment, nexus packages, optional DBQs, refund triggers, privacy terms, and limits of public customer feedback.
Veteran Life
Practical help for work and life after military service.
Military to Civilian Cover Letters: One Veteran, Four Tones, and a Complete Infantry Example
The pages ranking for this search give three complete letters, all office jobs, and contradict each other on tone. Here is the same letter in four tones, plus a full infantry example no other ranking guide publishes.
Your DD-214 Is a Resume Skeleton, Not a Resume: How to Extract Every Usable Line
The DD-214 holds no accomplishments, and the critics are right about that. Here is the block-by-block map of what it does hold, what it can pre-fill, and the three fields that should never reach an employer.
Federal Resume for Veterans: The Two-Page Rule, Preference Documents, and What Changed
The pages ranking for this search disagree on the single most important format rule. Here is the current two-page requirement, the fields a federal resume demands, and where your preference documents actually go.
Veteran Resume Examples That Actually Translate (Junior Enlisted, NCO, and Officer)
Three complete veteran resume examples grounded in a real occupational dataset: a junior enlisted supply specialist with no degree, a mid-career combat medic, and a Space Force cyber officer. Each shows the jargon bullets before and the civilian rewrite after.
How to Write a Military to Civilian Resume (With Real MOS Translations)
The pages that rank for this search tell you to translate your jargon, then leave you guessing at the words. I pulled real MOS translations and the 2026 pay tables so you can see the exact titles, skills, and salary numbers.
Rules & Updates
Changes to VA rules and what they mean for your claim.
VA Asthma Claim Denied: PACT Act Presumption, Direct, or Secondary?
The PACT Act presumes asthma diagnosed after service is service connected for covered veterans. If you are not covered, the claim needs a medical link. Check which route VA decided.
PACT Act Deployment Records: How to Prove Where You Served
A presumptive claim needs proof that you served in a listed place during listed dates. How each exposure program draws its map, which records prove location, and what to do when no record shows it.
Hoffman v. Collins: When a Supplemental Claim Cannot Use Up Your Intent to File
VA said a supplemental claim used up Robert Hoffman’s Intent to File. The court disagreed. Here is the filing sequence, what changed, and the records to check.
After Hamill v. Collins: How to Find a VA Claim That Was Never Actually Decided
The Federal Circuit says a claim the VA never explicitly decided is still pending. Here is how to read your decisions since 2019, spot an unaddressed issue, and act on it.
Hamill v. Collins: The VA Can No Longer Deny Your Claim in Silence
A new Federal Circuit ruling ends the VA's implicit denial doctrine for AMA-era claims. A claim the VA never explicitly decided may still be pending, with an earlier effective date on the table.
Freund v. Collins Update: A Fairness Hearing on August 13, and Where Your Reopened Appeal Stands
The VACOLS appeal-closure settlement now has a fairness hearing set for August 13, 2026. Here is where things stand and what affected veterans should watch for.
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