A Compensation and Pension (C&P) exam is VA’s medical review of your claimed condition. It is not treatment and the examiner is not your doctor — their only job is to document severity against VA’s rating criteria. Skipping it usually ends the claim. As of August 2026 most C&P exams are performed by contract providers […]
An intent to file tells VA you plan to apply, and it freezes your effective date for one year while you gather evidence. File VA Form 21-0966 today, submit the complete claim any time in the next 12 months, and VA pays you back to today’s date. It takes about five minutes and costs nothing. […]
Your VA disability back pay is calculated from your effective date, not from the day VA approves your claim. In most cases the effective date is the day VA received your claim, so a claim filed in March and decided in December still pays from March. That gap is where back pay comes from. As […]
The VA’s disability compensation and pension claims backlog fell below 70,000 for the first time since February 2020, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced, marking a more than 74% reduction since January 20, 2025. What the VA Actually Reported The VA defines the "backlog" as claims that have been pending for longer than 125 days […]
If you served in the military and have a service-connected illness or injury, VA disability compensation provides tax-free monthly payments — and you may qualify even if your condition didn’t appear until years after your service ended. Here’s exactly who’s eligible, verified directly from VA.gov. What Counts as a “Service-Connected” Condition VA disability compensation applies […]