The Board has ordered a remand to determine if the Veteran currently has Lyme disease and whether it is related to service. The current status of his service treatment records complicates this determination.
The deciding factor: The examiner needs to consider the Veteran's reported history of tick bite during service and provide an opinion on the likelihood of a service connection for Lyme disease based on the available evidence.
- Claimed conditions
- Lyme disease
- How they argued it
- Not specified
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 2, 2018
- Citation
- 18147268
This is a plain-language summary generated by AI from a public Board of Veterans’ Appeals decision. It can contain errors — always verify against the original. Look up the original decision on VA.gov (opens in a new tab) using citation 18147268.
What this means for you
A remand is not a loss. The Board sent the case back for more development — often a new exam or missing records — before making a final decision. Many remands later end in a grant, and the decision spells out exactly what the Board wanted to see.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Board has denied service connection for the claimed conditions, finding that they are not related to active duty service or any period of ACDUTRA/INACDUTRA service. The appellant's claims are based on secondary service connection due to a non-service-connected condition (Lyme disease), but the evidence does not support this claim.
- Granted
The Veteran's Lyme disease is granted as service connected, with evidence linking his symptoms to a tick bite during training in 2013.
- Partly granted
The Board granted an initial 60 percent rating for coronary artery disease (CAD), status post myocardial infarction, and a total disability rating based on individual unemployability (TDIU) effective May 27, 2021.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claims for a compensable rating for service-connected Lyme disease, TDIU, and SMC based on housebound status due to errors in the previous decision.
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