Posted on Nov 1, 2018
Does anyone know the best way to get military medical records?
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Does anyone know my best chances of getting my military medical records? I requested all my military and medical records years ago and a lot of records were missing from the packet received. I was in the Army Reserves at the time and was 13 months into a 15 month combat deployment to Iraq and was sent to Landstuhl Germany and had surgery there. Am wondering if I can get records directly from my time at Landstuhl as those are the records I’m mostly looking for. Any info would be greatly appreciated.
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Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
Records
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Records
Posted 6 y ago
Responses: 5
What was given below here about eVetRecs is in fact quite true, that is the site, however, having used it quite extensively, there are a few things that would help to know...first, the space allowed in the Java applet is actually quite limited, so one needs to abbreviate a good deal...next, you need to sign and date the copy, and fax it back, then wait, we've typically gotten letters that it was scanned in off the fax line in a couple of weeks, maybe a month, then, the NPRC staff in St. Louis need to search...if you want your clinical stuff, as you mentioned, as opposed to your purely admin personnel stuff, you need to explicitly say you want both sets, otherwise, you might well just get the admin personnel stuff only...further, VA stuff isn't included, if you've got any VA hospital stuff, you need to call the release of info (ROI) offices for each VA hospital, separately, to send in a FOIA request for it. Now, as you also mentioned, you could, I'd expect, quite conceivably just directly call the clinical facility at Landstuhl in Germany, and/or ask your Congress staffs for help getting it, you'd need to do a Privacy Act (PA) release for any Congress office, that's the law, cumbersome though it might be...I'd expect there's a clinical record office at the Landstuhl facility, though how long such stuff is actually kept, I have no idea, VA archives their stuff at hospitals after a period of time, maybe seven years, or so, from what I've seen, in asking for stuff for me, in the past, I'd expect a svc hospital would do something similar...now, that being said, the NPRC staff is really quite helpful, we've gone to them many times for various things, they used to have svc staff there in their ofcs for special requests, though I gather they might've gotten away from that, and just refer out to the svcs to find stuff they might not have...they fall under Natl Archives (NARA), one can actually call the NPRC switchboard, however, all the operators can do is, if you have the eVetRecs submission reference number, which for God's sake don't lose, scan it in, email it to yourself, whatever, then it can be looked up, if you need more help beyond that, the senior staff is genuinely most helpful, I assure you, the Congress staffs can also send letters to them as well, obviously, you might, whenever you'd fax back a signed, dated eVetRecs printout, want to do a letter to go with it as an attachment...the thing is, until you fax back such a signed, dated copy, NPRC can't process an eVetRecs submission, it'll go onto their computers, it just can't and won't go any further till they have a signature, their fax line for eVetRecs does work, you just need to be patient with them...the 1973 Army records fire in their old facility obviously wouldn't affect your stuff, certainly, being far more recent, obviously...I hope that was all of at least some use, in any event, if you'd care to chat more about the whole thing, just ask, OK?
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Capt Daniel Goodman Wow, lots of info! Thank you for taking the time to get me all that information! I’ll try a couple different approaches and am sure I’ll be able to get it now. And I didn’t think about the Congressman route either. Thank you and all the people here on RP for the help and understanding. I will definitely keep in touch! Thank you so much!
Capt Daniel Goodman
It's fine, whenever you'd want to yak, just lemme know, trust me, the NPRC staff really is callable, they're extremely helpful, we've spoken with them about my stuff, stuff for my mother-in-law in submitting her to VA for claim eval as a dependent, we couldn't get Va benefits for her for other reasons, though we did get all the stuff on my wife's Dad, stepdad, and brother, we've gotten the stuff on my Dad, my Uncle, my Mom's Dad (my maternal grandfather), once in awhile it takes them some time, however, they're all extremely good about helping, I assure you, honest....
Capt Daniel Goodman
Also, whenever you'd get your stuff from anywhere, whether Army, NPRC, VA, what have you, normally, to save a tree, the stuff is typically all double-sided as copies...go to a copy place, Staples, whichever is good by you, and run the stuff off yourself, you could give it in at a copy place to be done if you want, the thing is, I've found, quite often, there are often blank pages, duplications, pages get out of order, etc., another way is to use a printer with a scanner, and convert everything to Adobe Acrobat PDF, the thing is, those files generally get quite big, so you'd likely need to break them up, naming them carefully as separate files, in order to be able to email them, to get them past space restrictions on emails, you know? Further, quite often, stuff like lab slips, were often jumbled onto a iven page, by some clerk copying and/or scanning them in haste, back whenever you'd have had all your stuff done clinically, so don't be at all surprised to find a really jumbled, confused collection of paper, with stuff needing to be totally reordered...whenever such stuff needs to be run off, that, I've learned, quite frequently the hard way, is something I generally need to do myself...the old adage, you want something done right, you've just gotta sometimes do it yourself...next register, if you haven't alread, with Va eBenefits, also the subsidiary sites, VONAPP, and myHealtheVet...eBenefits, you can't get Level 2 normally through the VA hospitals any longer, they used to let the med libraries at them do that, then they went to online remote proofind, you know, what car did you own, what street did you live on, when we did my mother-in-law, we needed God only knows how much help from VA staff and Conress types, as well as DSO/DMDC, which has separate toll-free phone lines from VA for eBenefits, the DSO/DMDC guys are REALLY seriously strict, the helped us, however, we needed to fax stuff on my mother-in-law to document her whole thing, Va eBenefits is run by the svcs for VA, the VA staff can reach them and intercede, however, it takes time to find the right VA staff to ask for help...VONAPP is easier to register for, the thing is, it's only for VA app submissions, though it links to VA eBenefits...VA myHealtheVet is the VA patient online thing, their whole "meaningful use" EMR/EHR thing for the patients, it's not the internal thing, just the one vets typically use...it also has a Level 2, the VA hospitals are still allowed to validate that, but only that, NOT the eBenefits site as I'd said, unless one gets special help, or a given case is for an elderly, disabled, or infirm, as with my mother-in-law, who's 96 now...I just thought you'd also find that addl stuff useful, you probably know the DD214s, DD215s, whatever, are all uploaded now onto eBenefits for download, the thing is, when you'd register for VA eBenefits, once it'd be set up, as I'd said, it goes through DSO/DMDC, as you'd see, if you need to do a password reset for any reason, I've found, it's generally best to call them, before you try, maybe doing it with them, and/or the VA eBenefits guys on the phone, just to let them know you're needing to do it, OK? As I said, I hope that's also of use, if you want to know anymore, just ask, I'll try to explain what I've gleaned thus far from the purely user standpoint, OK?
SGT Mark Estes Once you click on the Archives link, click:
1. Veterans Service Records
2. Request Military Service Records
3. Request Service Records Online, by Mail, or Fax.
4. I want to request: Medical Records
https://www.archives.gov/veterans
1. Veterans Service Records
2. Request Military Service Records
3. Request Service Records Online, by Mail, or Fax.
4. I want to request: Medical Records
https://www.archives.gov/veterans
You should be able to walk into any VA facility, go to the records section, complete a From 10-5345 and get a complete copy of everything in your VA medical records. Your military active duty medical records can be retrieved by using the link Ted Hallock noted. IF you are filing a VA claim for disability, the VA is obligated by law to assist you in getting those records.
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