The Veterans Claims Assistance Act (VCAA) requires the VA to send you a notice letter early in the claims process explaining several critical things about your claim. This letter is commonly called a VCAA letter or duty to notify letter.
The VCAA letter must tell you what evidence is needed to substantiate your claim — specifically, what elements have not yet been established. For a service connection claim, this means which of the three required elements (current diagnosis, in-service event, and nexus) the VA does not yet have evidence for.
The letter must explain what evidence you are responsible for providing and what evidence the VA will attempt to obtain on your behalf. Generally, you are responsible for providing private medical records (or authorizing the VA to request them) and personal statements. The VA is responsible for obtaining federal records like service records, VA medical records, and Social Security records.
The letter must inform you of your right to submit any evidence in your possession that is relevant to the claim, including evidence you might not think is important. The VA wants you to err on the side of submitting too much rather than too little.
The letter should also explain how disability ratings and effective dates are assigned, so you understand what is at stake in the claim decision.
When you receive a VCAA letter, read it carefully. It tells you exactly what the VA thinks is missing from your claim, which is valuable strategic intelligence. If the letter says the VA needs evidence of a nexus between your condition and service, that tells you a private nexus letter could be the key to winning your claim.
If the VA fails to send a proper VCAA notice, or sends one that is incomplete, this is a procedural error that can be raised in an appeal. However, the error must be prejudicial — meaning it must have actually affected the outcome of the claim — for it to result in a remand.
Note: This article references sections of the VA's M21-1 Adjudication Procedures Manual. The VA periodically reorganizes the M21-1 and section numbers may have changed since this article was written. For the most current section references, visit the VA's public M21-1 Web Automated Reference Material System (WARMS).