The Board denied the Veteran's claim for payment or reimbursement of unauthorized medical expenses incurred during a private hospitalization at St. Joseph’s Hospital South on April 17th – 18th of 2018, finding that VA facilities were feasibly available and an attempt to use them beforehand would have been reasonable.
The deciding factor: The Board determined that the Veteran could have used VA facilities in Tampa for her medical emergency without delay or cost, making it feasible for VA to provide care.
- Claimed conditions
- nondisplaced second rib fracture, chest contusion
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 25, 2019
- Citation
- 19189054
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,156 · Granted: 29% (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 19189054.
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
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- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the case for additional development to determine if the veteran's current low back and chest disabilities are related to his service.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claims for increased ratings for his service-connected lumbar myositis, psychoneurosis and conversion hysteria, residuals of shrapnel wounds of the left thigh and pelvis with retained foreign bodies and scars, and residuals of shell fragment wounds of the right thigh and left leg. The veteran was also denied entitlement to a total disability rating based on individual unemployability due to service-connected disabilities.
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