Common EPs
Start with the control, then verify what the label actually means.
Use the connected 110, 010, 020, 290, 330, 600, 400, and 040 workflows. Broad controls such as 290, 330, and 400 branch by the actual pending issue rather than the number alone.
Open authority or workflow →Quality / QRT
Review the action through the same CA, VSR, and RVSR task structure quality uses.
The mapped layer covers identity/control, development, examinations, issues, decision, dates, award, notice, systems, other defects, and automation.
Open authority or workflow →Job aids
Use the current operational aid without confusing it with authority.
Filter the curated VA-network library by subject or EP, check its version/capture warning, and return to M21/CFR for the controlling rule.
Open authority or workflow →Application
Is there a valid claim to work?
Confirm the prescribed application, signature, benefit type, claimed issues, and substantial completeness before treating the submission as ready for normal development.
Open authority or workflow →Date of claim
Protect the earliest controlling receipt date.
Find the earliest relevant VA receipt or intent-to-file fact. Do not let a later scan, routing, or development action quietly replace it.
Open authority or workflow →Service
Verify the service that matters to this issue.
Review periods, dates, character of discharge, and any missing verification. One usable period does not automatically establish every service fact.
Open authority or workflow →POA
Know who represents the claimant before notice goes out.
Confirm the current appointment and any required representative notification or record-review right before a decision is released.
Open authority or workflow →Issues
Decide the real issue, not just the label on the form.
Account for the claimant's wording, reasonable theories, complications, and ancillary benefits. Keep separate issues separate.
Open authority or workflow →Direct service connection
Build the claim around the disability, the service event, and the link between them.
Identify the current condition or symptoms, the relevant in-service event/injury/disease, and the evidence connecting them. A gap in any one part may change the needed development.
Open authority or workflow →Presumptive service connection
A presumption is a defined shortcut—not a general exposure label.
Match the exact qualifying service, location, date, and condition to the applicable rule. If the presumption does not fit, keep direct service connection and other raised theories in view.
Open authority or workflow →Increase claim
The question is usually current severity over the relevant period.
Identify the established disability, obtain current evidence, screen complications and ancillary issues, and consider whether severity changed at different times.
Open authority or workflow →Evidence standards
Decide what the evidence actually proves for each element.
Separate competent medical evidence, lay evidence, service records, and other facts. Do not treat a record as proving more than it reasonably says.
Open authority or workflow →Favorable findings
A prior favorable finding matters unless the controlling procedure allows it to be disturbed.
Identify the finding, its source decision, and its scope before re-litigating the fact in a later review lane.
Open authority or workflow →Notice
Give the right notice for this claim lane.
Notice rules differ by procedural posture. Confirm both whether notice is required and whether the correct notice was documented.
Open authority or workflow →Duty to assist
Once a claim is sufficiently complete, VA has a development job to do.
Identify the evidence needed to decide each issue, pursue it through the right channel, and document the result. Development is not finished just because an initial request was sent.
Open authority or workflow →Records
Know who has the evidence, then track the request.
Map the source, request VA/Federal/private/claimant evidence under the correct procedure, follow up when required, and document unavailable records.
Open authority or workflow →Federal records
Keep pursuing the record until the procedure gives you a stopping point.
For service, VA, SSA, and other Federal records, track every lead and do not close development merely because one source says it does not have the record.
Open authority or workflow →Private records
Ask clearly, obtain the needed release, and follow the private-records path.
Target the provider, dates, and condition whenever possible. If the record cannot be obtained, document the effort and give the required notice instead of silently moving on.
Open authority or workflow →Unavailable records
A missing record needs a documented conclusion, not an empty folder.
Record the efforts made, the result, and the applicable notice to the claimant. Then reassess whether another source or development path remains.
Open authority or workflow →Relevance
Develop evidence that could matter to the issue—not everything that exists.
Ask whether the evidence has a reasonable possibility of helping prove or disprove a material fact. The answer can differ issue by issue within the same claim.
Open authority or workflow →Claimant evidence
Tell the claimant what specific missing information would help.
A focused request for provider details, dates, release, stressor facts, employment history, or another material fact is more useful than a generic “send evidence” letter.
Open authority or workflow →Exams
Order an exam only after the right development question is clear.
For service connection, the record generally needs a current disability or symptoms, an in-service event/presumptive basis, and an indication of association when the evidence is otherwise insufficient.
Open authority or workflow →Secondary
Causation and aggravation are separate questions.
If both are reasonably raised, make sure the evidence and opinion address both. A causation-only answer may leave the claim incomplete.
Open authority or workflow →Exposure
Not presumptive does not mean not claimable.
Separate herbicide, PACT/TERA, direct exposure, and other raised theories before stopping development or ordering an opinion.
Open authority or workflow →PTSD
Classify the stressor route before developing it.
Combat, fear-based, personal-trauma, and other stressor paths can require different development. Personal-trauma claims need their dedicated procedure.
Open authority or workflow →Review lane
The review option controls the evidence record.
Classify HLR, Board, supplemental, DTA return, CUE, or another posture first. Do not quietly use ordinary development rules for a review request.
Open authority or workflow →Finality
A prior decision can change what the next valid claim lane is.
Before developing the merits, identify whether a decision became final and whether the claimant is using an authorized review option or must meet a supplemental-claim threshold.
Open authority or workflow →Supplemental claim
New and relevant evidence is the gate before the merits work begins.
First verify the proper form, completeness, and new-and-relevant evidence. Only then move into merits development and the underlying service-connection or rating analysis.
Open authority or workflow →IU / TDIU
Unemployability can be a claim issue, not a medical checkbox.
Identify how IU was raised, develop employment and functional evidence, use the correct threshold/referral procedure, then decide the legal question on the proper record.
Open authority or workflow →Effective date
Date questions are a separate decision point.
Check claim receipt, continuous pursuit, the applicable benefit theory, and any special effective-date rule before choosing a date.
Open authority or workflow →Evaluation
The rating is an evidence-to-criteria comparison over time.
Use the correct rating criteria, identify the relevant findings, and check whether the evidence supports different evaluations for different periods or raises an ancillary benefit.
Open authority or workflow →Decision rationale
Explain the outcome issue by issue.
A useful decision identifies what was decided, the material evidence, the governing basis, and why the evidence produced that result. The conclusion alone is not the explanation.
Open authority or workflow →Authorization and notice
The work is not finished when the rating is drafted.
After the decision is built, check authorization, signatures, required notice, representative handling, payment consequences, and QRT-informed release controls.
Open authority or workflow →Quality
Finish the decision before you close it out.
First resolve scope, record, criteria, findings, evaluation, and effective date. Then perform authorization, notice, and QRT-informed final controls.
Open authority or workflow →