The Board has decided to remand the Veteran's claims for service connection for bilateral hip conditions, finding that the VA examination opinion is inadequate and VCAA notice is needed. The Veteran's bilateral hip replacements are secondary to his service-connected back condition.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner did not provide sufficient rationale regarding the relationship of the Veteran’s bilateral hip osteoarthritis to his service-connected back condition and did not address aggravation by the service-connected back condition.
- Claimed conditions
- right hip replacement, left hip replacement
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 18, 2019
- Citation
- 19130297
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,104 · Granted: 28% (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 19130297.
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.
- Dismissed
The Veteran's appeals for service connection were denied due to the late filing of the appeal requests, and thus the appeals are dismissed.
- Denied
The Veteran's claims for effective dates earlier than October 26, 2014, for service connection and TDIU were denied.,The Veteran's claim for DEA benefits was also denied.
- Dismissed
The Veteran's appeal was dismissed due to their death during the pendency of the appeal.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the claims for service connection due to pre-decisional duty to assist errors, including obtaining records from the Veteran's final hospitalization and seeking VA medical opinions on the cause of death and right hip replacement.
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