The Veteran's claim for service connection for an acquired psychiatric disability, including schizophrenia and unspecified anxiety disorder, is being remanded due to errors in duty to assist. The issue has been expanded to include the Veteran's stressor allegations.
The deciding factor: Errors occurred in the duty to assist, particularly regarding the verification of the Veteran’s periods of active duty, active duty for training, and inactive duty for training.
- Claimed conditions
- schizophrenia, unspecified anxiety disorder
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 21, 2020
- Citation
- A20015853
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.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claims for service connection for unspecified anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder to obtain an adequate medical opinion regarding their etiology.
- Partly granted
The Veteran's award of total disability based on individual unemployability (TDIU) is granted effective from April 15, 2017, solely based on his unspecified anxiety disorder. The claim for an earlier effective date for service connection for right lower extremity radiculopathy was denied.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claim for service connection for an acquired psychiatric disorder, diagnosed alternatively as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder, due to an inadequate VA examiner's opinion and a failure to fulfill the duty to assist in obtaining relevant medical records.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claims for increased ratings for his unspecified anxiety disorder, finding that the evidence did not support a rating in excess of 50 percent prior to October 4, 2023 and 70 percent from that date.
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