The Board has remanded the Veteran's claims for service connection for low back and neck disorders due to inadequate medical opinions in the April 2017 VA examination.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner did not consider post-service treatment records showing ongoing neck pain and a diagnosis of C4-5 herniated nucleus pulposus, which is necessary to establish a link between service and current symptoms.
- Claimed conditions
- Low Back Disorder, Neck Disorder
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 11, 2019
- Citation
- 19128118
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,088 · Granted: 33% (granted or partly granted, in the vetted decisions on this site)
Judge attribution: 2025 complete; earlier years partial.
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 19128118.
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.
- Remanded (sent back)
The reduction of the disability rating for headaches from 50% to 30% is not proper and is void ab initio. Effective dates are denied for various service connection claims.,Multiple issues related to initial disability ratings, effective dates, and earlier effective dates for higher ratings are remanded.
- Dismissed
The Veteran withdrew his appeals for higher ratings in excess of 10 percent for his service-connected right knee disability and low back disorder. As a result, the cases are dismissed.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided to remand the Veteran's claims for service connection for a back disorder, neck disorder, and right shoulder disorder due to deficiencies in the VA medical opinions provided. The Veteran will need new VA medical opinions to determine if his current disorders are related to his military service.
- Denied
The Board has denied service connection for right shoulder disorder, low back disorder, and bilateral knee disorders as these conditions are not shown to be related to military service.
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