Where you are

You disagree with a decision

A denial comes with a reason, and the reason tells you what to do next.

Start with the letter

The VA has to tell you why. The letter must list any findings in your favor. It must also name which requirement for granting the claim was not met. If you were rated lower than expected, it must state the criteria for the next higher level. The favorable findings bind every later reviewer unless someone shows a clear and unmistakable error in them. The letter also tells you how to get the evidence the VA relied on, including the exam report. Request it.

Every condition on this site has a free page under Decisions, built from what the Board actually did. Nothing to sign up for.

The reasons a claim is usually denied

No current diagnosis, or no persistent or recurrent symptoms of one.
No in-service event, injury, or disease in the record.
No nexus, meaning no link to service or to a condition already service connected.
Rating criteria not met. Service connection was granted, but the findings did not reach the next level in the rating schedule.
A missed VA exam. Miss a scheduled exam without good cause, and an original compensation claim is rated on the evidence already in the file. A supplemental claim or a claim for increase is denied outright.
The service itself does not qualify. Compensation is payable only on service that ended under conditions other than dishonorable. A disability that came from your own willful misconduct is barred. A discharge bar is a different problem from a missing link. Its road is a discharge upgrade or a character of discharge determination.

The first three are what the VA must see before it will even order an exam. A denial names the reason it relied on. Find yours in the letter. If your letter gives another reason, work from the letter.

Three ways to ask again

The VA's review system has three lanes. You can use only one lane at a time for each issue, and you can withdraw and switch. This site does not choose for you, and none of this is legal advice. Here is what each lane is built for.

Add evidence and ask for a new decision (supplemental claim). You send evidence that is new and relevant. New means not already in the file. Relevant means it tends to prove or disprove something at issue. Evidence for a new theory of why you qualify counts too. A substantially complete supplemental claim restarts the VA's duty to help you gather evidence. With new and relevant evidence in the file, the VA must decide again on the whole record. Without it, the VA issues a decision saying there was not enough to decide again. This is the lane for a missing diagnosis, a missing doctor's opinion on the link, or a better exam.
Ask a senior reviewer to look again (higher-level review). A senior reviewer who did not make the first decision looks at the same file with fresh eyes. The earlier decision carries no weight, except that findings in your favor still stand. This lane takes no new evidence and has no hearing. You can ask for one informal conference to point out errors in the decision. The reviewer must also check whether the VA met its duty to help you gather evidence. If the reviewer finds an error there and cannot grant the full benefit, the claim must go back to be fixed. This lane fits when the rater read the evidence wrong or missed a rating requirement.
Appeal to the Board of Veterans' Appeals. A Veterans Law Judge decides the appeal. On the Board's appeal form, the Notice of Disagreement, you choose one of three dockets. The docket sets what the judge may look at. Direct review: no hearing and no new evidence, so the judge reads the record as it stood at the regional office. Evidence submission: no hearing, but you may add evidence with the Notice of Disagreement or within 90 days after it. Hearing: you testify before the Veterans Law Judge. The judge also takes evidence given at the hearing and within 90 days after it. The hearing docket is the only way to speak to the Board judge who decides your appeal.

The one-year clock

A higher-level review or Board appeal must be filed within one year of the decision notice. A supplemental claim can be filed any time, but the year still matters. Your effective date is the date an award starts from. File your next step within a year of each decision, and your effective date stays tied to the original claim. If the date you became eligible is later, it's tied to that date. Let the year pass and the effective date moves forward. It can be no earlier than the day the supplemental claim arrives, unless the VA grants an extension for good cause.

Read the Board decisions first (step 5)

Before you choose a lane, read published Board decisions on your condition. It may be the most useful thing you can do. Each one says what the veteran filed, what the examiner wrote, and why the judge granted, denied, or ordered a new exam. Regional office decisions are not published. Board decisions are the closest public view of what moved a claim like yours. Read ten. Open the decision pages to find decisions on your condition, and how to read a Board decision to read one in ten minutes.

When the exam was the problem

The rating schedule requires accurate and fully descriptive exams. The exam has to describe how the condition affects your ordinary activity. A report without enough detail is supposed to be returned as inadequate. An inadequate exam usually looks like one of three things. The examiner never measured what the rating depends on. The examiner denied a link to service only because nothing was written down at the time. Or the examiner ignored your statements and your witnesses. In the Board decision used as the example in the nine steps, the judge threw out two examiner opinions for those same problems.

You can challenge it two ways. In a higher-level review, point to the defect and argue the VA did not give you an adequate exam. In a supplemental claim, bring a better one. A private doctor's report can be accepted for rating if it is adequate.

Lay evidence (step 8)

Lay evidence is evidence that takes no special training or expertise to give. Your own statement counts as evidence of anything a person can observe. So do statements from the people who saw what you went through. The VA must decide service connection on all the medical and lay evidence that bears on it. When the evidence is close to even, doubt goes to you.

Specific, dated statements about what changed and when are often what a denial was missing. If they were not in the file, they are new. If they speak to the element that was missing, they are relevant. Lay evidence and buddy statements shows how to write one.

You do not have to do this alone

You have the right to a representative at every stage. Accredited representatives from veterans service organizations do this for free. You can also file every form yourself on VA.gov. This site teaches. It does not represent you or file for you.

See what the Board did with claims like the one in your decision

Every condition has a free page here showing what the Board granted, denied and sent back, with the decisions themselves linked at their source. A Board decision binds only the case it decided.

See the packs

Sources

Decision letters, hearings and representation, 38 CFR 3.103(d)(1), (e) and (f).
Findings in your favor, 38 CFR 3.104(c).
Lay evidence, evidence after a decision, and exams, 38 CFR 3.159(a)(2), (b)(4) and (c)(4).
The rule on secondary conditions, 38 CFR 3.310.
The rating schedule, 38 CFR Part 4.
Missing a VA exam, 38 CFR 3.655(b).
Character of discharge, 38 CFR 3.12(a).
Willful misconduct, 38 CFR 3.301.
The review system, 38 CFR 3.2400.
The three lanes and the one-year clock, 38 CFR 3.2500(a) to (e) and (h).
Supplemental claims, 38 CFR 3.2501.
Higher-level review, 38 CFR 3.2601(e) to (i).
Choosing a Board docket, 38 CFR 20.202(c)(1).
Board direct review, 38 CFR 20.301.
Board hearing docket, 38 CFR 20.302.
Board evidence docket, 38 CFR 20.303.
What an exam must describe, 38 CFR 4.1, 4.2 and 4.10.
A private doctor's report, 38 CFR 3.326(c).
Service connection on all the evidence, 38 CFR 3.303(a).
Doubt goes to the veteran, 38 CFR 3.102 and 4.3.

This page is education, not legal advice. Rules quoted are from 38 CFR Parts 3 and 4, as published on the government's eCFR website. Board decisions are public records, linked at their source.