they sufficiently inform the Board of the examiner ' s judgment and essential rationale . See Monzingo v . Shinseki , 26 Vet . App . 97 , 105 - 106 ( 2012 ) . Adequate attempts were made to obtain all private treatment records identified by the Veteran ; unfortunately , responses from these providers indicated that no records were found or was destroyed , and the Veteran was adequately notified of this fact . The Board finds that further attempts to acquire additional private records would therefore be futile . Gagne v . McDonald , 27 Vet . App . 397 , 403 ( 2015 ) ( A search is futile " where it is apparent that the sought - after records are either not in