When a veteran leaves the military, a legacy of honorable service is etched permanently into history...or is it? Everything a veteran does is recorded in a service record, which is often in paper format. You may be able to produce the basic documents of honorable discharge, but if you need to prove specific events for career, social or medical reasons, you may want a reliable backup source that is both tangible and secure. As you plan on storing your service and medical records, think of a few pieces of information that need to be gathered before putting it all away.
Medical Information For VA Claims
You may have left the military feeling fine, but certain issues in the past may manifest as present problems. Old injuries, illnesses and exposure to dangerous substances may take years to surface as a significant problem. You'll need documented proof to make claims for compensation a more solid level of success.
Unfortunately, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) may not keep your records together accurately. The information may not be saved at all, as most records are stored in a government-maintained storage facility that may take months to access. The difficulty of access exists for both you and the VA, so you'll need a faster way to preserve your info.
By using your own, third-party record storage solution, you can retrieve the information at a whim. Instead of risking damage at your home or only having one copy in one location, you can have greater peace of mind in the fact that you have an extra copy in a safe facility.
If the VA loses certain parts of your medical record that are important for a claim, you can retrieve your extra copy, make more copies and deliver the information to the VA. Make sure to take the full record back to your storage facility and be sure to check for anything that could have been lost in the transfer.
Service Record Proof For Hiring Practices
There are many jobs that participate in veteran hiring incentives. Some request a standard discharge document such as a Form DD-214, while others request proof of campaign medals or other specific military involvement. All of this paperwork is contained in a service record, but there can sometimes be issues when the record isn't available.
If you've received updated information that should go into your service record, but can't access your service record due to long wait times at government storage facilities, you should consider withdrawing the entire record and making new copies with the updated paperwork.
It's not a bad idea to utilize the government storage, but make sure that you have a faster, third party set of documents to access in an emergency just like your medical record. Contact a record storage professional like Easy Self Storage & The Archive Center to plan your paper backups.
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