The Board has remanded the claims for service connection for a heart disability, including valvular heart disease, implanted cardiac pacemaker, and pulmonary hypertension due to exposure to Agent Orange. The TDIU claim is also being remanded.
The deciding factor: The medical evidence of record is inadequate to render a decision on the Veteran's heart disability claim as the VA examiner did not address the notation of 'past ischemic heart disease' in the Veteran’s treatment records and failed to provide a specific opinion regarding whether his diagnosed left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is proximately caused or aggravated by his service-connected diabetes mellitus, type II.
- Claimed conditions
- heart disability, valvular heart disease, implanted cardiac pacemaker, pulmonary hypertension
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 14, 2020
- Citation
- 20003057
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.
- Granted
The Veteran is granted a 100 percent rating for valvular heart disease based on MET testing showing that at a workload of 3 METs or less, the condition results in fatigue and breathlessness.
- Partly granted
The Board granted service connection for squamous cell cancer and denied the claims for an earlier effective date, service connection for implanted cardiac pacemaker, and several other conditions.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for a heart disability as the evidence did not support that it began during active service or was related to an in-service injury.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claim for an initial rating higher than 30 percent for the service-connected heart disability to correct an error by the AOJ in not informing the Veteran of his right to a pre-decisional hearing.
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