Understanding our free VA claim analysis service
We're a small team led by a cancer survivor who experienced the difficulty connecting a close family member's Parkinson's to chemical exposure during service. This service is the further development of a personal research aide into something that can help every veteran better understand their claim and how the VA assesses evidence and makes decisions.
No. We're not affiliated with the VA or any governmental entity.
No, but this tool was developed with the input of a VSO.
No. It will always be free to veterans, as it should be.
No. Your data is never shared with anyone– not the VA, attorneys, or anyone else. We don't believe in using this service for unauthorized lead generation, solicitation, or monetization of sensitive information. Of course, you can always choose to provide a VSO, family member, or accredited representative a copy of this analysis.
As little as possible. We don't fingerprint your device (i.e. store individual characteristics about your browser or device that can be used to track or identify you across the web). We do store IP addresses for rate-limiting purposes, but these are not tied to individual claim analyses.
Your data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Any data you enter (branch, MOS, dates, locations) is encrypted at rest using AES-128 encryption with PBKDF2 key derivation.
Your personal save key is the only way to decrypt your data. Neither we nor anyone else can decrypt what you entered.
For technical support or issues with the service, email: help@bvaradar.com
For all other inquiries or to offer feedback, email: info@bvaradar.com
We try to respond to all emails within 48 hours. We are unable to provide you personalized advice on your claim.
Technically, yes. You can represent yourself at any level in the VA system. However, we highly recommend working with a local VSO as they are always free. In many states, VSOs are supported by your own tax dollars and higher usage encourages more funding for them.
No. This is not an official document, but a starting point to understand how similar claims have been made and assessed by the VA. We think this is a helpful starting point for a conversation with a VSO or other accredited representative.
Not generally. Claims examiners are not required to synthesize these cases for you, but a VSO/accredited representative can make an argument that synthesizes them with your personal claim narrative.
Claims from the BVA (unlike the CAVC) do not form binding precedent. While the VA tries to make similar decisions in similar fact patterns, they don't always.
Every claim is different. Similar facts may have different outcomes.
By our testing, assessment of similar strategies is highly accurate. Our models may occasionally misrepresent individual case details (less than 5% of the time) through oversimplification or mixing facts between very similar cases.
These errors occur because we filter hundreds of thousands of BVA decisions down to find the most relevant ones - and these final cases can be extremely similar. Like a human reader reviewing many nearly-identical cases, the model sometimes confuses specific details between them.
However, the legal arguments and strategies remain accurate because they're either shared across similar cases or clearly distinct. Most importantly, we never hallucinate cases - every case citation you see is real and can be verified.
We always recommend reviewing the actual cited cases, as each is likely highly valuable for understanding your claim.
Not currently. We want to prevent bad actors from creating copycat versions that confuse or scam people. However, if the service was at risk of shutting down, we'd ensure continuity by open-sourcing it.
Not at the moment. If you have a use case that would be enabled by a future API and are a mission-driven organization, researcher, or governmental entity-- send us an email at our contact links.
Yes. This service is provided to help veterans and their families better understand and structure claims. We support any use for that purpose.
If you are using this, we'd love to hear from you.
We're exploring a professional version with different features that might be better suited for volume use cases.
We built this to help veterans, not to be a free backend for commercial services or enable predatory use cases.
We expressly prohibit any use for commercial purposes by non-accredited individuals.
No. Any accredited representative asking for fees to make an initial claim for benefits is violating the law. Accredited representatives or attorneys can only charge for higher-level reviews or appeals to the BVA.
No. We're not lawyers and do not represent anyone before the VA in any official capacity.
No. Please don't. Medical opinions not personally written by your treating physician may undermine your claim and are potentially fraudulent. An AI/LLM is not qualified to review your medical records and the VA has never indicated that an AI-generated nexus letter is acceptable as evidence.
Any service offering to create these for a fee is likely operating unethically. Making a false statement or concealing the source of a statement in administrative matters is illegal under 18 U.S. Code § 1001. The proliferation of AI-generated nexus letters will likely harm the VA's examination of all claims.
It wouldn't be the best idea. They can be very helpful in getting thoughts on paper, understanding what information to include, and proofreading/editing your letter. We'd never recommend submitting something wholly written by AI as it might hurt your claim in the view of the examiner.