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DA Form 4256 belongs to the DA series of Department of the Army publications. Its official title is DOCTORS ORDERS, and its stated purpose is doctors orders. Edition in force: 04/01/1979. Publication status: ACTIVE. Length is unknown page(s), with roughly unknown fields available for entry.
Proponency for the form rests with TSG. The governing authority is AR 40-66, which establishes the circumstances of use and the required routing. Preparation falls to the individual named in the entries or to the unit administrator acting on that individual's behalf; review and signature follow the chain set out in the governing authority.
Distributed formats: none published here. The layout is common to all of them; what varies is the method of entry. The pdf is the reference version. In the fillable pdf the entry areas are live objects that accept typing; in the printable version the same areas are inert and are filled by hand after printing.
The pdf displays in current browsers and in any reader application. For fillable use a full reader is preferable to a browser viewer, since viewers vary in whether entered data is retained.
All formats are free to download and no registration is involved. The files are the published documents, distributed unmodified.
The blocks are worked through in the order they appear on the sheet. At the head sit the identifying entries: name, identification number, unit, date. Because the filed record is indexed on these, they precede everything substantive.
Fillable fields accept typing directly. Tab advances from one field to the next in the order the form was built, which is normally the reading order of the page. Check boxes and option buttons are clicked; where a set of options is exclusive, selecting one clears the rest. Fields sized for a single line will not wrap, and text exceeding the width is truncated in print even where it remains visible on screen. Long entries belong in the remarks area or on a continuation, not compressed into a narrow field.
Signature comes at the end, applied in ink or by an accepted electronic method. Until it is applied the document is a draft. Additional signatures — reviewer, approver, witness — are taken in printed block order, each dated when signed rather than when the form was drafted. The commonest error is a mandatory field left blank; where nothing applies, the entry is marked accordingly instead of being skipped. Transposed identification digits, day and month reversed in dates, and carried-over data from a reused working copy account for most of the remainder.
A Privacy Act statement appears on the form where personal information is collected. It sets out the authority for collection, the purpose, the routine uses, and whether disclosure is mandatory or voluntary. The statement is read before entry, not after. Completed copies carry personal data and are handled and stored under the safeguards applicable to that data.
The completed form is routed as the governing authority prescribes: to the office named in the directive, through the unit administrative channel, or into the individual's file, depending on the case. A copy is retained by the preparer. Filing and retention follow the records schedule applicable to the series rather than local practice.
Related forms are found by series and number. Documents in the DA series sharing a proponent or a prescribing directive commonly travel together, and a form referenced within the body of another is usually filed with it. Continuation sheets, cover sheets, and transmittal documents belong to this group and are collected before submission rather than after.
Revision by the proponent supersedes an edition. Version is read from the edition date printed on the form itself, and a stored copy is compared against the current edition before it is used again. Documents already executed under an earlier edition are not redone because of the change.
The documents on this page are reproductions of published Department of the Army forms, offered for download. This is an independent site with no connection to the Department of the Army and no authority to issue forms. Nothing stated is legal advice, and no assurance is given regarding acceptance by any office. Doubts about a specific entry, requirement, or eligibility are resolved by the proponent or by the servicing administrative office.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 4256?
- DOCTORS ORDERS
- Which edition is current?
- 04/01/1979
- Who is responsible for this form?
- TSG
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- No file published here