Find free and accredited claim help
find_claim_helpUse this when a veteran asks who can help them with a VA disability claim, or when they describe a crisis. The Veterans Crisis Line comes first, in full, when need is crisis, and no other need returns crisis content. Setting urgent true puts the veteran’s first action at the top of routeNow and does not change the crisis routing. Every result carries accredited representation routes: VA accredited Veterans Service Organizations, whose services on VA benefit claims are free, and accredited attorneys and claims agents, who may charge fees only for representation provided after VA issues notice of an initial decision on the claim (38 CFR 14.636(c) and 38 U.S.C. 5904(c)(1)). It also returns the VA Office of General Counsel accreditation search and the VA.gov find a representative tool, the state or territory veterans agency matching a two-letter state code, VA phone numbers suited to the need, the documents worth bringing, and links to the VA forms that need points at. It names no individual, firm or private directory. It does not prepare, submit or file any form, and it reads no account data, so the answer is the same for every caller with the same inputs. A two-letter code with no agency on file returns stateAgency null and coverage.stateResolved false, with the national routes unchanged. The askedFor argument carries the veteran’s own words. It does not change the routing and does not withhold it: a request that this tool or the model calling it act as the veteran’s attorney, agent or representative before VA, a request to supply words for a veteran or a clinician to use, which covers asking for a personal, buddy or lay statement, a statement in support, or a nexus letter the veteran already has to be rewritten, polished, tightened or cleaned up, to choose a decision review lane for the veteran, or to prepare or file a claim returns status ok with the same findings, plus a boundary object whose kind names the primary boundary crossed and whose kinds lists every boundary the request crossed, in the fixed precedence representation_request, then words_for_testimony, then review_lane_choice, then preparation_request, so a request that crosses two keeps both. Its opening, rule and route state what VeteranHQ does not do, one sentence per kind in kinds, the accreditation rule (38 CFR 14.629) and the fee rule (38 CFR 14.636, 38 U.S.C. 5904(c)(1)), and where the work belongs; those instruments are merged into sources and the same paragraph leads message, behind the Veterans Crisis Line when need is crisis. Provenance is indexed rather than repeated: sources is the registry of full references, each with a stable id, and every guidance line and the boundary carry sourceIds into it. A line’s citation is the sources entry whose id it names, and its passage is line.quote when that field is present and that entry’s quote otherwise. An id is the citation for a regulation or statute (38 CFR 14.636(b)), a short slug for a VA page or form (va-find-accredited-rep, va-form-21-526ez), and product-boundary for the one entry that states what VeteranHQ does and does not do, which carries no url because there is no document to open. A form is cited by its number, with its name in title. One kind of provenance is absent from sources and stays on the line as authority: the state veterans agency page, which is one state’s own contact page and changes with the state argument.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| need | Yes | What the veteran is trying to do. Use general when the veteran has not said, and crisis when they describe a mental health emergency. | |
| state | No | Two-letter US state or territory code, for example CA, TX or PR. Adds that state veterans agency to the answer. Omit it when the veteran has not said where they live. | |
| urgent | No | True when the request is time sensitive, for example a letter, an exam notice or a date the veteran is worried about. It puts their first action at the top of the answer. It does NOT change the crisis routing: use need crisis when the veteran describes a mental health emergency. | |
| askedFor | No | What the veteran asked for, in their own words, when they are available. It changes nothing about the routing and does not withhold it. A request that this tool act as the veteran's representative, attorney or agent before VA, to prepare or file a claim, to choose a decision review lane for the veteran, or to supply words for a veteran or a clinician to use returns the same answer with a boundary object added, naming what VeteranHQ does not do, the accreditation and fee rules and where the work belongs; its kinds array lists every one of those classes the request crossed, in the precedence representation_request, words_for_testimony, review_lane_choice, preparation_request, and kind is the first of them. Ordinary requests for help are answered with no boundary object. |