According to the U.S. Department of Defense website, the Department of Defense has recently moved to make the health records of troops electronically available to the Department of Veterans Affairs. This effort that will hopefully allow the VA to improve its processing time on claims for disability benefits.
How will electronic medical records help improve VA’s claims processing
When a veteran applies for disability benefits, the VA usually needs to obtain medical records about medical treatment that occurred during a veteran’s service to determine if there is an in service event so that it can determine if there is a nexus between the disability and the event. Medical records for treatment during service are often necessary to establish that there was an event or that the condition started during service. Hopefully, now that the VA will have electronic access to these records, the VA claims examiners in the regional offices will be able to process applications for benefits more quickly.
