The Board has determined that additional development is needed to determine if the Veteran's arthritis of the left foot is caused or aggravated by his service-connected limitation in extension, left knee.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner only addressed causation and did not consider aggravation.
- Claimed conditions
- arthritis of the left foot
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 5, 2019
- Citation
- 19126239
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 denied service connection for various conditions, including arthritis of the entire skeletal system (other than cervical spine, right shoulder, bilateral hands, and left foot), a left knee condition (other than arthritis), and other specific joints. The claims were not granted.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the issues of whether there was clear and unmistakable error (CUE) in prior rating decisions that denied service connection for various conditions, as an SOC has not yet been issued.
- Partly granted
The Board granted service connection for tinnitus and remanded the claims for an acquired psychiatric disability, a sleep disorder, type two diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, vertigo, hypertension, migraine headaches, arthritis of various joints, and kidney disease.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claims for service connection for arthritis of the left foot, increased ratings for his left hip disability and dysthymic disorder. The veteran did not have a current diagnosis of arthritis in the left foot. His left hip disability was rated as 10 percent disabling since November 12, 2004, effective date of service connection. The Board found that he did not meet the criteria for higher ratings under the applicable diagnostic codes.
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