Primary care, medical/surgical hospital, and other medical documents are normally the easiest to acquire.

Psychiatric Emergency and Psychiatric Hospital records are normally easy to acquire.

Outpatient psychotherapy, psychiatry, and group therapy rules have special protections; these sometimes require more effort.

If your facility is commonly used by the aviation industry, for the most part they understand the importance of quickly producing your records.

Click through to read an advisory about producing substance use treatment records.

These records are required reading for drug- and alcohol-related traffic citations.

Unlike medical records, legal records can come directly from the pilot.

Read this advisory about motor vehicle records before making your request.

Internal VAMC records can be requested from the originating clinic.

Records requested through the Centralized Support Division take much longer - you should make every effort to request the files from the clinic you received treatment.

Compensation and pension records, also called a C-file, may require special handling especially if the exam was conducted by a third-party agency. If requesting a C-file, please discuss with your records technician if you need to use an agency-specific form.

At separation or retirement, you are given your entire military medical file. For veterans discharged more than ten years ago, this may be in a large paper file. Newer veterans may have the file on CD or a downloadable link. You can ask me questions about your Service Treatment Records.