In this category you pay a clinician to review your records and, if the evidence supports it, write an opinion connecting your condition to service. You are buying the review — not the conclusion, and not the decision. Understanding that distinction is the difference between a useful few hundred dollars and a wasted few thousand.
Check this first: if VA has scheduled or already conducted a C&P exam, and your treating provider is already documenting the condition, you may not need to buy an opinion at all. A free VSO rep can tell you whether your record already has the link.
Find a free VSOAsk every vendor in this category the same six. The answers should be in writing, before payment.
| What to check | Why it matters | What a good answer sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| Who signs it | VA weighs the qualifications and reasoning of the person giving the opinion. | A named, licensed clinician, with credentials and a specialty you can verify with the state board. |
| Can they say no | An opinion that was guaranteed before the review is worth less to VA, not more. | “If the records do not support a link, we will tell you — and here is what happens to the fee.” |
| Total price | Per-condition pricing multiplies quickly across a multi-issue claim. | A written quote per condition, plus the price of revisions and addenda. |
| Refund terms | Most fees are for the review, and the review happened regardless of the outcome. | A refund policy in the agreement, not a verbal assurance on a call. |
| What they need from you | A clinician cannot link what they never saw. Incomplete records produce weak opinions. | A specific records list — STRs, current treatment notes, prior exams, and your own statement. |
| Records handling | You are sending your full medical history to a third party. | Named storage, a retention period, and a deletion path you can actually use. |
VeteranAI does not employ clinicians and does not sell medical opinions. What we do here is narrower, and different in kind: we read your records and draft the letter — the diagnosis, the service link, VA's “at least as likely as not” standard, and a rationale argued from the medical literature with a citation behind every line.
The medical judgement is not ours. Your own clinician reviews the draft, edits it to match what they actually believe, and signs it — or declines to. A vendor in this category sells you the finished opinion; we sell software that prepares the draft, and the opinion stays your clinician's to give or withhold.
We do not publish price ranges for individual evidence vendors unless the vendor publishes them itself. When one does, the number appears on that vendor's review page with a source link and the date we checked.
We publish a brand page only when every factual line on it has a primary source and a date we checked it. That is why this list is short and why it grows slowly.
Each review covers published prices, guarantee terms, accreditation status, privacy terms, and public record — and says plainly who the company is a good fit for.
More reviews publish as each fact sheet clears review. We would rather have three complete pages than fifteen half-empty ones.
These apply to us too. If a company will not answer any one of them in writing, that is your answer.
Not always. A nexus opinion matters when the connection between service and your current condition is not already established in your records. If the condition is presumptive, or your service treatment records already document the injury and your current provider documents the diagnosis, you may be buying something your file already has.
No, and anyone saying otherwise is selling, not advising. The opinion is evidence. VA weighs it against the whole record, and a short conclusory letter carries less weight than a reasoned one that cites your records by name.
Usually not. The fee generally covers the clinician's review and opinion, which happened either way. Ask for the refund terms in the written agreement before you pay, and ask specifically what happens if the clinician declines to write a favorable opinion.
We write the draft; we do not hold the medical judgement. From the records you upload we produce a complete letter — the diagnosis, the service link, VA's “at least as likely as not” standard, and a rationale argued from PubMed and NIH literature with the citation behind every line. It goes to your own clinician with instructions on what to verify, change, or strike. It becomes a medical opinion only when they sign it, and that call is theirs. We do not employ clinicians, we do not sell opinions, and we never send anything to VA.
Before you pay for an opinion, read the file. You may already have the link — or know exactly which gap to close. What a nexus letter has to prove.