The Phone Call to the VA

If you are in the MEB process, some of this will be old news, but from someone who recently went through this, hopefully you pick up a tip or trick.

When your doctor recommends you for a Medical Evaluation Board (MEB), your first step should be to go to the Records Office and request your full medical records. Those will be sent to you through secure Email. Mine only took three or four days. Then you need to review your records and highlight anything you want to bring up to the VA for your evaluations.

Next you need to copy those down and keep them for the upcoming contact with the Military Service Representative (MSR), they'll make that process MUCH quicker.

Your Military Service Representative (MSR) will be in contact through Email to send you a form with your medical issues and complaints on it. If you have the list of things handy you'll be able to plug in the information you already have, carefully reviewing the form for accuracy, and send it back to the MSR quickly.

Your MSR will contact an evaluation agency to schedule you for the appointment to evaluate your conditions listed on the form. That agency can take some time to get back to you. Make sure that when they do call you, you have that form handy to reference to make sure you got everything you needed them to do done.

Now you will be sent all over the place in the next 30 days getting your appointments taken care of. When you get them scheduled, make sure you plug them into DTS through a medical TDY with the Patient Travel Office at the Med Group. If dealing with DTS in your final weeks of your military service is something you'd enjoy, that is.