Filing a Sciatic Nerve Claim: The ITF → 526EZ → DBQ Sequence

The short version

Four steps, in this order. The first three protect your money and your evidence; the fourth is VA's move, not yours:

1. File an Intent to File (VA Form 21-0966) — locks in your effective date today, even though it isn't a claim yet.
2. Consider a private DBQ — if your own physician completes one, it gathers the medical evidence while your Intent to File clock is running.
3. File your claim (VA Form 21-526EZ) — within one year of step 1, with whatever evidence you have attached.
4. Attend the C&P exam if VA schedules one — this happens after you file, not before.

Do it out of order — especially skipping step 1 — and you can lose months or years of back pay for no reason other than paperwork sequencing.

Step 1: Intent to File (VA Form 21-0966)

An Intent to File is not a claim. It requires no medical evidence, no diagnosis — just a statement that you intend to file. It locks in your effective date: the date VA received it becomes the date VA uses to calculate retroactive pay if your claim is approved.

How to submit it (pick one):

• Online, fastest: Start VA Form 21-526EZ at VA.gov and save it — VA.gov automatically creates an Intent to File the moment you save a started application.
• By phone: Call 1-800-827-1000 (TTY: 711), Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–9 p.m. ET, and ask them to note your intent to file. Get a reference number.
• By mail: Complete VA Form 21-0966 and mail it, certified with return receipt — the effective date is the date VA receives it.

The clock: one year from receipt to file the completed claim, or the Intent to File expires and you lose that earlier date.

Step 2: Consider getting a private DBQ

There are two ways a Peripheral Nerves Conditions DBQ gets completed, and only one of them is available to you before you file.

Your own physician can complete one now. This is what the Intent to File year is useful for. A privately completed DBQ goes in with your claim as evidence, and in some cases means VA doesn't need to schedule its own exam for that condition.

A VA examiner completes one only after you file. VA orders a Compensation & Pension exam as part of developing a claim it has already received. That's step 4.

You are not required to get a private one. Filing with treatment records and a lay statement is perfectly valid.

But here is why this form rewards a careful examination more than most. The Peripheral Nerves DBQ runs fourteen pages and eighteen sections, and five of them are hands-on testing: muscle strength, reflexes, sensation, trophic changes, and gait. Those sections are not paperwork — they are the difference between one rating tier and another, for reasons the next guide explains in detail.

An unhurried appointment with a physician who actually performs all five is worth a great deal here. A rushed one that records your symptoms and skims the testing is worth much less, whoever completes it.

Step 3: File the claim (VA Form 21-526EZ)

File within your one-year window with whatever evidence you have attached: a privately completed DBQ if you obtained one, plus treatment records, imaging if you have it, and a lay statement on VA Form 21-10210. If you don't have a DBQ yet, file anyway — the claim is what causes VA to schedule the exam that produces one.

Filing methods are the same as the Intent to File: online at VA.gov (fastest, and you can upload evidence directly), by mail, or with help from an accredited VSO or claims agent.

Step 4: The C&P exam, if VA schedules one

After your claim is filed, VA decides whether it needs its own examination. If it does, you'll be scheduled for a Compensation & Pension exam that produces a DBQ completed by a VA or contracted examiner.

This is not optional, and missing it without rescheduling can cost you the claim.

Two things worth doing before any exam

Note which days are bad, and why. Nerve symptoms fluctuate. If your leg is worse after standing a full shift, or in the morning, or after driving, write that down with dates. An examiner seeing you on a good day at 9 a.m. is seeing one point on a curve.

Notice what you have stopped doing. Nerve damage shows up in behavior before people put words to it. Holding a handrail you didn't used to need. Watching your footing. Not trusting the leg on a ladder. Catching a toe on the stairs. Buying different shoes. These are not complaints — they are observations, and they describe function in a way "my leg hurts" does not.

What's next

Move to the Sciatic Nerve DBQ explainer — the five hands-on sections that set your rating tier, and the rule that quietly caps a claim at 20% when the exam records nothing but symptoms.