What Happens If You Miss a VA Appointment? C&P Exams and Claims

What happens if you miss a VA appointment depends entirely on what kind of appointment it was. Miss a routine primary care visit and the clinic will usually just try to reschedule you. Miss a Compensation and Pension exam tied to a disability claim and you could see your claim denied, your rating lowered, or your existing benefits reduced. The rules are strict, the timelines are short, and the response you need to take is different for each situation.

Missing a Routine Health Care Appointment

When you don’t show up for a scheduled VA health appointment, staff logs it as a no-show in the scheduling system and the clinic starts trying to reach you.¹ Expect phone calls and a mailed letter asking you to reschedule.² Arriving more than 30 minutes late without calling ahead counts as a no-show too, and the VA generally wants at least 24 hours’ notice if you need to cancel.

A single missed appointment isn’t going to cost you your VA health care. The problem is a pattern. If you no-show or cancel three appointments in a specialty clinic, the VA can discontinue your consultation there.² You aren’t banned from that specialty, but getting back in means a new referral from primary care and weeks or months of delay. Cancel a rebooked appointment twice in a row and some clinics will stop automatically rebooking you; you’ll have to call and ask to be put back on the schedule.

Mental Health Appointments

If the condition the VA is treating is what’s keeping you from making appointments, tell your care team. A missed appointment is never a reason to lose access to crisis support. The Veterans Crisis Line is available 24/7 by dialing 988 and pressing 1, texting 838255, or chatting online at veteranscrisisline.net.

Missing a Compensation and Pension Exam

This is where missing an appointment has real financial consequences. A Compensation and Pension exam, or C&P exam, is the medical evaluation the VA uses to decide whether your condition is service-connected and how severe it is. Your rating and your monthly compensation ride on it.³ The consequence of a no-show depends on what type of claim the exam was for.⁴

Original Compensation Claims

If you filed a first-time claim for service-connected disability compensation and miss the C&P exam, the VA rates your claim on whatever medical evidence is already in the file.⁴ That sounds neutral. It rarely is. The exam existed to document your current severity, and without it you’ll almost certainly get a lower rating than a full examination would have produced, which means less monthly compensation.

Supplemental Claims, Reopened Claims, and Claims for Increase

The rule is harsher for these. Miss a C&P exam scheduled for a supplemental claim, a previously denied claim you’re reopening, or a claim asking for a higher rating, and the VA denies the claim outright.⁴ Not rated on existing evidence. Denied. Many veterans assume the rules match those for an original claim. They don’t.

Reexaminations of Benefits You Already Receive

If the VA schedules a reexamination to confirm you still qualify for benefits you’re currently receiving and you don’t show, the VA sends a pretermination notice. It tells you the VA plans to reduce or stop your payments, the effective date, and your rights.⁴ You then have 60 days to say you’ll attend a rescheduled exam or to submit evidence showing why your payments shouldn’t change. Let the 60 days pass without responding and the VA reduces or discontinues your payments.

Contact the VA inside that 60-day window and agree to a new exam, and the VA will reschedule before cutting anything. Miss the rescheduled exam too, and payments stop immediately without another grace period.⁴

Good Cause for Missing a C&P Exam

The VA will reschedule your C&P exam without penalty if you can show “good cause” for missing it. The regulation lists these as examples:⁴

Illness or hospitalization that kept you from attending
Death of an immediate family member around the time of the exam
Homelessness that prevented you from receiving notice or reaching the exam site
Terminal illness

The list isn’t exhaustive. The VA can accept other circumstances case by case. Timing is what matters most: you need to give your reason before the VA issues a decision on your claim.⁵ Once a denial or rating decision is issued, you’re no longer simply rescheduling; you’re looking at an appeal.

If you’ve already missed two or more exams for the same claim, the VA is required to proceed with a decision rather than keep rescheduling. The adjudicator must explain in the decision why any reason you offered wasn’t accepted.⁵

How to Reschedule After a Missed Appointment

For a missed health care appointment, calling the clinic directly is faster than waiting for the outreach letter. You can also manage appointments through VA.gov, which lets you schedule, cancel, and review upcoming visits online and redirects you to My VA Health if your facility uses that portal.⁶ Secure messaging through VA.gov is another route to request a new time without waiting on hold.⁷

For a missed C&P exam, skip the online tools. Call the VA regional office handling your claim or the exam contractor (usually VES, QTC, or LHI) that scheduled the original exam. Explain what happened and give your reason. Move quickly, because the exam has to be rescheduled before a decision issues on the claim.

Travel Pay Won’t Cover a No-Show

The VA’s Beneficiary Travel Program reimburses eligible veterans at 41.5 cents per mile for approved trips to VA health care.⁸ You only collect that money if you actually attend the appointment. The Beneficiary Travel Self-Service System checks your travel claims against appointment records, and missing proof of attendance is a common denial reason. For community care visits at non-VA facilities, you have to provide documentation proving you attended, and travel pay claims must be filed within 30 calendar days of the appointment.⁹

How to Avoid Missing Future Appointments

The VA’s VEText system sends text reminders before appointments and lets you confirm or cancel by replying with a code.¹⁰ If your facility uses VEText and you have a mobile number on file, you’re probably already enrolled. Replying “C” to cancel opens the slot for another veteran immediately and updates the scheduling system without staff intervention.¹¹

Add your own calendar alerts as backup, one the day before and one an hour before. If transportation is the real problem, ask your facility about the Veterans Transportation Service, which provides rides to appointments at no cost, or the Beneficiary Travel Program for mileage reimbursement.⁹ The single most useful habit is canceling early when you know you can’t make it. Twenty-four hours of notice lets someone else use the slot and keeps a no-show off your record.¹

1
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Don’t Be A No-Show — Another Veteran’s Care Could Depend On It
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Department of Veterans Affairs. No Show Policy for Primary and Specialty Clinics
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Veterans Affairs. VA Claim Exam (C&P Exam)
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eCFR. 38 CFR 3.655 – Failure to Report for Department of Veterans Affairs Examination
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Official seal of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). M21-1, Part IV, Subpart i, Chapter 2, Section F – Failure to Report and Rescheduling Examinations
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Veterans Affairs. Manage Health Appointments
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Veterans Affairs. Send And Receive Secure Messages
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Veterans Affairs. Reimbursed VA Travel Expenses and Mileage Rate
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eCFR. 38 CFR Part 70 Subpart A – Beneficiary Travel and Special Mode Transportation Under 38 U.S.C. 111
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Veterans Affairs. VEText for VA Health Care Reminders and Updates
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VA Self-Service. VEText – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)