Listing VA Doctors and VA Records on Your Application

List your VA doctors and VA medical facilities exactly as you would any other treating sources, because for filing purposes they are treated the same way. The VA facilities go in the treatment table of the Adult Disability Report, SSA requests the records under its standard medical release, and your VA compensation rating plays no direct role in the application itself.

This article stays on the filing side: where VA sources go on the forms, how the record request works, and how VA records differ from private-practice records. Whether a condition meets SSA's medical criteria is a separate topic outside this site's scope.

Where VA treatment goes on the forms

Form SSA-3368-BK, the Adult Disability Report, is where medical sources are listed. Section 8 provides a table for each healthcare provider and facility, asking for the facility or office name, the provider who treated you, the conditions treated or evaluated, the phone number, the address, and the date first seen, date last seen, and date of the next appointment if known. Each VA medical center, community-based outpatient clinic, and VA specialist belongs in its own row. If you run out of rows, the form directs you to continue in Section 11, Remarks.

Section 9 of the same form asks: "Does anyone else (other than your healthcare providers) have your medical information?" The form's own example list begins with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and it also names workers' compensation and insurance companies. For each organization, the form asks for the name, phone number, address, a contact person, the claim number if any, and the dates of contact. This is the right place to point SSA at VA-related files beyond routine treatment notes, such as compensation and pension examination records you know about.

Do not skip a facility because the records are old or the care was brief. The Disability Report instructs you to answer every question, writing "none" or "does not apply" where that is the case, and the same completeness standard applies to the treatment table.

How SSA obtains the records

You do not need to collect your VA records before filing. The Disability Report states this directly: if you have consented to SSA obtaining medical records from your providers, SSA will request the records directly from them, and the information you provide tells SSA where to request records.

The consent is Form SSA-827, Authorization to Disclose Information to the Social Security Administration. It authorizes release of your medical records in paper, oral, and electronic form. VA treats its health records as confidential under its own federal rules, so the SSA-827 is what allows VA to release them to SSA, and VA's own claims manual, the M21-1, directs VA staff in how to respond to SSA record requests that include the authorization. Adults filing online can sign the SSA-827 electronically, per SSA's disability professionals pages on the eAuthorization process.

The practical consequence is simple. SSA can only request records from sources it knows about, so a complete Section 8 and Section 9 is the filing work that makes the VA evidence arrive.

One more category deserves attention: care delivered outside VA walls. Under VA community care, VA pays for some treatment from private providers in the community, and those records usually sit with the outside provider rather than in the VA facility's file. If you received community care, list the outside provider's office by its own name and address in Section 8, rather than assuming the VA medical center holds the chart. The same goes for care at a military treatment facility if you are still serving or recently separated; name the facility itself.

If the evidence on file turns out to be insufficient, SSA can send you to a consultative examination at government expense, and SSA's Publication No. 05-10030 (January 2026 edition) reminds claimants that you will not have to pay for any additional examinations or tests SSA requests. Keeping appointments is part of the filing-side job, and a missed exam is one of the most common ways a claim stalls.

Ways to speed things up yourself

If you want copies moving immediately rather than waiting on agency-to-agency requests, veterans can download much of their own VA health information through the Blue Button feature of My HealtheVet on VA.gov, including visit notes, lab results, medication lists, and admission summaries. You can submit those copies to SSA with your application or hand them to the examiner when contacted.

A few other filing-side moves help:

• Include the VA release of information office as a contact point if you know which facility holds your file.
• List your VA pharmacy's medication list in Section 7 of the Disability Report, which asks for current prescription and non-prescription medicines, the prescribing doctor, and the reason for each.
• If a Veterans Service Officer helps with your VA claim, that person's office can also be listed in Section 9 as an organization holding records.
• Attach copies of any VA compensation and pension examination reports you already possess, since those contain examination findings SSA can evaluate.

What is different about VA records

Functionally, VA records serve the same role as private records: they document impairments, treatment, and function over time. Two practical differences matter at the filing stage.

First, VA facilities are large, and records requests to them can be slower than requests to a small private practice. Listing the specific facility, clinic, and provider names, rather than just "the VA," reduces that friction. Second, much of the VA file is organized around the disability compensation claim rather than around episodes of care, so pieces like examination reports from the compensation process sit in a different part of the system than treatment notes. That is why both Section 8 and Section 9 exist on the form, and why using both helps.

VA compensation is a separate system

SSA's Information for Military and Veterans page on SSA.gov lays out the differences in a side-by-side comparison. VA disability compensation requires a service-connected condition and pays partial benefits on a percentage scale. SSDI requires an inability to work at the substantial gainful activity level, a condition that has lasted or is expected to last at least 12 months or to result in death, and it pays as an all-or-nothing benefit rather than a percentage. The page also notes that SSDI and VA compensation do not reduce each other, but you must apply for them separately.

For the application itself, one regulation governs the relationship. Under 20 CFR 404.1504, a decision by another governmental agency, expressly including the Department of Veterans Affairs, is based on that agency's rules and is not binding on SSA. For claims filed on or after March 27, 2017, SSA will not provide analysis of another agency's decision, but SSA will consider the supporting evidence underlying that decision as evidence in your claim.

The filing takeaway: do not write "VA says 100 percent" in Remarks and stop there. List the treatment sources so the underlying medical evidence, the exams, the imaging, the therapy notes, actually reaches the file. That evidence is what SSA evaluates.

One shortcut worth knowing at filing

Veterans with a VA disability compensation rating of 100 percent Permanent and Total can request a separate SSA expedited processing track, which SSA announced in March 2014 and describes on its Information for Military and Veterans page. SSA usually identifies these veterans automatically, but in rare instances you may need to self-identify and provide the VA notification letter. This is distinct from the expedited track for service members disabled on active duty on or after October 1, 2001, and neither track changes the medical standard; they only move the claim forward in the queue.

This article provides general information about SSA filing procedures, not legal advice. Form editions, VA systems, and rules change, and SSA.gov and VA.gov are the controlling sources. For advice about your specific situation, consult a qualified representative, a Veterans Service Officer, or SSA directly.