Veterans Affairs (VA) requirements can be difficult to work with during a disability claim. There's a lot of specific information that needs to satisfy disability requirements, such as the approximate cause of your condition and how much you're suffering now. Whether you're filing a new claim, sitting through the backlog or filing an appeal, there are a few things you could do to strengthen your claim through understanding a few quirky parts of the system.

Proving Military Service Disability Connection

The VA provides disability compensation for veterans with conditions related to their military service. If you believe your condition was caused by a workplace injury, combat situation, or even on your personal time during military service, you may qualify.

The difficult part is proving that your condition was caused by or became worse because of military service. You'll need some kind of documentation that shows your injury, the general time-frame of the injury, and the severity. Unfortunately, some documents may not have enough information.

As long as you've complained about the issue during medical service and have the complaint documented, you have a good start. From there, the documentation needs to show that a medical professional has concerns about the issue, which many medical records may lack.

If your medical record entry doesn't seem serious enough to VA officials--such as an old limping complaint that you're trying to connect to severe leg pain today--you'll need an updated set of documents that can build a stronger connection.

The VA will send you through a compensation and pension (C&P) examination to review your health and compare it to the claim. If you feel that the examination was rushed, it may be time to get legal assistance and the opinion of civilian medical professionals.

A Lawyer Can Argue the Claim for You

It isn't always easy to get new, relevant information. A civilian doctor might be able to diagnose part of a problem and show that you're currently suffering, but unless the doctor has experience with medical claim systems, you may run into problems linking it to a past history. With the help of a general practice attorney and a team of medical professionals with experience in the VA claim system (or similar injury claim systems), you may have a better chance.

An attorney can perform deeper research that may shed light on your injury, such as finding other veterans you worked with or may have been stationed with to compare similar issues. The medical professionals can perform medical examinations and generate documentation that pinpoints specific areas that the VA expects to see in a claim.

By having a legal and medical team in your claim process working with the same resources, your claim can become more organized and more likely to succeed. Contact an attorney like Herbert Law Firm LLC to begin looking through your military documentation for information that could boost your claim's success.