The Veteran's claim for service connection for sleep apnea and for an effective date prior to June 27, 2015 for the grant of service connection for DDD of the lumbar spine is remanded.
The deciding factor: The evidence shows that the Veteran has a history of sleep apnea during his military service but no current diagnosis or treatment records have been provided. The effective date claim requires clarification on when the Veteran's entitlement to service connection was first recognized and whether it should be prior to June 27, 2015.
- Claimed conditions
- Degenerative Disc Disease (DDD) of the lumbar spine, Sleep Apnea
- How they argued it
- Not specified
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 19, 2019
- Citation
- 19130988
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,240 · 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 19130988.
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 sleep apnea, finding that the evidence did not support a link between the condition and service.
- Denied
The claims for PTSD, an acquired psychiatric disorder, memory loss/memory problems, chronic fatigue, sleep difficulties/sleep disturbances, and sleep apnea have been denied. The claim for service connection for residuals of testicular denervation and varicosectomy has been granted.
- Partly granted
The Veteran's asthma is currently rated at 30 percent, and the Board finds that a higher rating is not warranted.,The Veteran's sleep apnea claim has been remanded due to duty-to-assist errors.
- Denied
The Veteran's appeal for increased ratings and service connection claims have been denied. The Board found that the evidence did not support a higher rating for PTSD, denied service connection for CFS, mast cell activation syndrome, and sleep apnea as secondary to PTSD, and remanded TDIU.
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