Every entry in the Defense records system exists because some decision needed a documented basis, and DD Form 2526 is one of those instruments: DD 2526, Case Abstract for Malpractice Claims, February 2000, created to Case Abstract for Malpractice Claims. The reason it carries a DD number rather than a service designation is structural — the Department maintains a single body of forms for matters that arise identically in every service, so that a record created in one component remains intelligible in another.
The practical effect of Department-level issue is interoperability. not stated establishes the requirement across the Defense enterprise; not stated keeps the document current for all of it. No service maintains its own variant, which means a completed record travels between components — service to agency, agency to joint command — and arrives in a format the receiving office already knows how to read.
Current edition: not stated, status not stated. Understand why that date is worth attention here. When the Department reissues a form, the replacement takes effect across every component simultaneously, so an older copy is not merely locally out of date — it is out of date in every office that might receive it.
The form is laid out top to bottom in a sequence that reflects how the record will be read, not merely how it was drawn. Identification comes first because everything below it is understood in relation to a named person, unit or transaction; substantive entries follow; certification closes the document because certification attests to what precedes it. Filling out of order tends to produce internal inconsistencies — an entry that made sense before the header was settled and does not afterward.
Check the edition date before you type anything, against not stated. Old blanks accumulate in shared drives for years, and the cost of one is not obvious until a reviewer cannot find a field. Because DD forms are revised centrally and replaced across the Department in a single action, there is no component still tolerating the old layout as a local practice.
Where a specific field is genuinely unclear, the instructions printed on the form come first and not stated governs where the two do not agree.
Download the form
Formats available: PDF, across 4 pages and about 182 fields. That several formats coexist is a consequence of scale — the Department cannot standardize the software on every desk that needs this form, so it standardizes the document instead.
The difference between a fillable and a printable pdf is a difference in what the file contains. A fillable release carries an interactive layer: each box is a defined field with a name and a data type, and what you type is stored as data inside the document. A printable release has no such layer — it is an image of the page, and the only place your answers can go is onto paper. The distinction matters downstream, because a Department record often gets scanned and forwarded several times before it reaches its final file, and typed characters survive that chain in a way pen strokes do not.
What the form asks for
- Press this Reset button to clear the data from all fields.
- 2. Claimant last name.
- 3. Type of report. Press space bar to mark X in first box if initial, second box if correction or addition, third box if revision to action, or fourth box if void previous report.
- b. Ending date.
- 4. Date(s) of act(s) or omission(s) (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day). a. Beginning date.
- 1. Date of report (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day, no dividers).1. Date of report (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day, no dividers).
- 5. Date claim filed (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day, no dividers).1. Date of report (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 6. Date of judgment or settlement (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 7. Medical treatment facility. a. Name.
- b. DMIS code.
- 8. Practitioner information. a. Name (last, first, middle).
- b. Social security number. Do not include dashes.
- c. Date of birth (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- d. Name of professional school attended.
- e. Date graduated (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- f. Specialty code.
- g. Status. X first box if Army, second box if Navy, third box if Air Force, fourth box if PHS, fifth box if civilian GS, sixth box if partnership internal, seventh box if partnership external, eighth box if personnel services contract, or ninth box if non-personnel services contract.
- h. Source of accession. (1) Military. X if volunteer.
- X if Armed Forces Health Professional scholarship program.
- X if Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences.
- X if National Guard.
- X if Reserve.
- X if other.
- (2) Civilian. X if Civil Service.
Submission follows not stated and whatever local instruction supplements it. Make a copy before the original leaves. Department forms travel across organizational lines by design, and the administrative distance that makes them useful is the same distance that makes tracing a lost one difficult.
Forms referenced inside this one are located by number alone, and that simplicity is a direct product of Department-level numbering. Because the DD sequence is maintained centrally and not duplicated by service, a number is a complete address: one number, one document, throughout the Defense establishment.
It helps to see the DA and DD sequences as what they are: separate registries with separate custodians. One serves a single service under a service proponent, the other serves the Department under not stated or an equivalent office, and neither was ever indexed against the other. A number that appears in both systems points to two unrelated documents, which is why reading the prefix comes before reading the digits.
A form is downstream of the policy that requires it, and revision usually starts there: a directive is reissued, a collection requirement is altered, notice language is updated by statute. The form is republished as a consequence. Since none of that reaches individual users, an archived copy quietly becomes wrong, and verifying not stated each time you download is the whole remedy.
A word on what this page is. It distributes a published Department of Defense document and describes what the document contains and how it is completed. It is not the issuing authority, does not speak for one, and offers no legal advice; nothing written here determines whether a particular submission will be accepted, because that determination belongs entirely to the office receiving it. Questions of applicability, eligibility or procedure go to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office identified in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2526?
- DD 2526, Case Abstract for Malpractice Claims, February 2000
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?