The Board has decided to remand the cases for further development and examination due to insufficient medical opinions regarding the Veteran's neck and back disabilities.
The deciding factor: Insufficient medical opinions were provided regarding whether the Veteran’s current neck and back disabilities are related to service, including his in-service low back strain and plantar fasciitis.
- Claimed conditions
- Degenerative disc disease of the cervical spine (neck disability), Lumbar disc disease (back disability)
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- December 23, 2019
- Citation
- 19195766
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,341 · 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 19195766.
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 a bilateral hearing loss disability and denied increased ratings for various disabilities, including left upper extremity radiculopathy, right knee tendinopathy, left knee tendinopathy, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), generalized anxiety disorder, degenerative disc disease of the cervical spine, degenerative arthritis of the right shoulder, degenerative arthritis of the left shoulder, and plantar fasciitis in both feet.
- Denied
The Veteran's neck disability is rated at 10 percent, which does not meet the criteria for a higher rating as of July 14, 2014.
- Granted
The Board has granted service connection for a neck disability and awarded a maximum 30 percent rating for IBS, finding that the Veteran's symptoms of severe alternating diarrhea and constipation with constant abdominal distress meet the criteria for these conditions.
- Denied
The Veteran's claims for increased evaluations of his service-connected neck and back disabilities were denied as the evidence did not meet the criteria for a higher evaluation under the applicable rating schedule.
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