38 U.S.C. § 5125
Section 5125 · Acceptance of reports of private physician examinations
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case 22 Vet. App. 295 - Angel S. Nieves-Rodriguez v. James B. Peake (2008)
Most recently applied in Mathis v. McDonald (August 2016)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
For purposes of establishing any claim for benefits under chapter 11 or 15 of this title, a report of a medical examination administered by a private physician that is provided by a claimant in support of a claim for benefits under that chapter may be accepted without a requirement for confirmation by an examination by a physician employed by the Veterans Health Administration if the report is sufficiently complete to be adequate for the purpose of adjudicating such claim.