Already out
Your file is what it is. Start by finding out what that means.
Whether you separated last year or fifty years ago, the work is the same: read everything that is already in your file, find what is missing, and close those gaps before you file rather than after a denial explains them to you.
Where you probably are
Four common situations
Filing for the first time
Your file already exists whether you have looked at it or not. The work is finding out what is in it, then closing the gaps before you file rather than after a denial tells you about them.
How the analysis worksYou were denied before
Your old decision letter names the exact element the claim failed on. That is the most actionable document in your file, and most people never read it that way.
What decision letters proveYour condition got worse
An increase claim turns on current severity, which means recent treatment records and evidence of how the condition affects your work and daily life.
What makes a claim readyYou separated decades ago
Old records are degraded, misfiled and sometimes missing. That is the normal case, not the hard case, and there are documented paths through it.
Reading 50-year-old recordsOn timing
There is no deadline to file, but timing is not free
You can file an initial disability compensation claim at any point after service. Nobody times out of eligibility.
What timing affects is the effective date VA may assign, which determines how far back any award reaches. That is a real cost, and it is why filing a year later with the evidence you could have gathered up front is worse than it looks.
It is also why filing a thin claim quickly is usually the wrong instinct. A denial on the record is harder to work against than a short delay.
If you were denied before
Your decision letter names the exact element the claim failed on.
Not a vague reason. A specific missing piece. Read that way, an old denial becomes a checklist. The analysis reads prior decisions and reports what they turned on, so you can decide whether that gap is closeable now.
Which review route fits your situation is a question for an accredited representative. We can tell you what your evidence shows; they can tell you how to file it.
Getting what you do not have
Five sources, and what each one holds
Every gap the analysis reports names the right source for that specific document, so this is never guesswork.
Your VA eFolder
Everything VA already holds on you. Usually the largest single source and usually the one nobody has read end to end.
The National Personnel Records Center
Service treatment records and personnel files, including cleaner copies of pages that came through as unreadable scans.
Your VA facility
Treatment records from any VA medical centre where you have been seen.
Private providers
Your own doctor, a specialist, a sleep clinic. Frequently holds the one diagnostic study a claim turns on.
People you served with
Lay and buddy statements about symptoms that were never taken to sick call, which is most of them.
Common questions
Filing after separation
Next step
Find out what is already in your file
Free for veterans, however long ago you served, with a source behind every finding.