Find secondary conditions
find_secondary_conditionsUse this when a veteran names a service-connected condition and asks what other conditions can follow from it. Returns the records whose own primary condition is the one searched for, each with the strength of the supporting evidence, the medical rationale, key studies, filing notes, the diagnostic codes involved, and the primary condition the record itself names, so a row can be read against the query it answers. Other primary conditions that the search terms reached are summarised separately under relatedPrimaries, with the term that matched and a count, rather than being returned among the rows. Each row carries its provenance: the paragraph of 38 CFR 3.310 the link rests on, the rating schedule section and diagnostic code its evaluation comes from, the eCFR URLs for those sections, and the date the codes and percentages were checked against the rating schedule. That check establishes that a code exists in the schedule and that an evaluation is one the schedule offers for it, which is a question of validity rather than of whether a code fits a particular veteran. The key studies were drafted from published research and have not been verified citation by citation, which every row states in its provenance note. The limit parameter sets how many records one response carries, default 5 and maximum 15, and offset is how many records of the same result are skipped before the first one returned, default 0 and maximum 100000. Records are ordered by strength of evidence and then by their primary and secondary condition names, so the order is the same on every call. A response is also held to a size budget of about 12 KB: when the records within the limit would exceed it, the last of them are left out whole rather than shortened, a response with any record to serve carries at least one, and responseTrimmedForSize is true. totalExactCount is every record on file for the search, count and exactCount are the records in the response, hasMore says whether any records follow them, and nextOffset is the offset that returns the next records and is null when none follow. relatedPrimaries is returned whole on every response. A totalExactCount of 0 means nothing is on file for that search term, not that no link exists. An offset past the last record returns no records, while totalExactCount still counts the records on file. It does not diagnose, it does not establish that a particular veteran's condition is secondary, and it does not supply the medical nexus opinion a secondary claim needs.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| limit | No | How many secondary-condition records one response carries, 1 to 15, default 5. A response is also held to a size budget of about 12 KB, so it can carry fewer records than the limit, whole ones only; responseTrimmedForSize is then true and nextOffset gives the offset of the first record it left out. | |
| offset | No | How many records of the same result to skip before the first one returned, 0 to 100000, default 0. Records keep the same order on every call, so the nextOffset one response reports returns the records that follow it. | |
| primaryCondition | Yes | Primary service-connected condition to search against (e.g., "PTSD", "Lumbar strain"). Partial matches supported. |