How to Order Military Medical Records for 3M and Camp Lejeune Claims

The large number of claims being made against 3M earplugs and water contamination from Camp Lejeune means that a lot of law firms are having to request medical records for their clients at the same time. But if your firm is not requesting records correctly, this can become a frustrating process that jams up the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the National Archives. In order to get records back quickly, it is critical to request them correctly the first time. If you or anyone in your firm has any questions, please don’t hesitate to run them by our company. We have former VA Release of Information specialists on our staff and thus have a very high success rate of requesting large volumes of military records.

Where to Get Veteran’s Medical Records

• If a person has been treated at the VA in the last three years, their records are still with the VA.
• If a person has not been treated with the VA in the last three years, records are stored according to discharge date in one of several places, including the National Archives.
• It is important to note that Personnel Records (OMPF) and Medical Records may come from two different places.

Given the date range of water contamination exposure, the majority of requests will come from the National Personnel Record Center (NPRC). They maintain medical and personnel files for veterans discharged between 1905 and June 1994. Our company will submit these requests through the NPRC website. The Dept. of Veterans Affairs handles medical files for veterans discharged between July 1994-2013, which are faxed to the Janesville intake center.

Required Forms

• If requesting records from the VA, you will need Form 10-5345 (VA Release Form). This form is similar to HIPAA as far as what is required to fill out.
• If requesting records from the Archives, you will need SF180
  • SF180 will require full name, full SSN, birthplace, where the patient was Active/Reserve/National Guard, date entered and discharged, Officer/Enlisted, service number (pre-1971), and whether or not they are currently deceased.
  • It may be possible to omit some of this information, but if so, the military publishes a disclaimer saying it might not be able to find the information.

The expected turnaround time for your record request is:

• From the VA – 30 days
• From the Archives- Some are quoting 90-120 days, others are 3-6 months. As they take on more requests, we expect a backlog.

For more information on how to gather your needed medical documents due to 3M or Camp Lejeune lawsuits, place a call to National Record retrieval today.