The Board has remanded the case due to insufficient medical opinion regarding whether the Veteran's service-connected psychiatric disability was a principal or contributory cause of his death. The appellant must provide an adequate medical opinion with supporting rationale.
The deciding factor: The Board found the June 2018 amended death certificate inadequate as it provided no rationale for its conclusion and remanded to obtain one.
- Claimed conditions
- Cognitive Disorder, Severe (previously evaluated as schizophrenic reaction, paranoid type)
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 13, 2020
- Citation
- 20066196
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 the Veteran's claim for service connection for an acquired psychiatric disorder, finding that his diagnoses of depression, substance abuse disorder, and cognitive disorders were not related to service.
- Denied
The Veteran's claim for an increased rating greater than 70 percent for residuals of traumatic brain injury with cognitive disorder and other specified trauma and stressor-related disorder is denied. The claim for a compensable rating for tension headaches as a residual of TBI is also denied.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's claims for PTSD, major depressive disorder, cognitive disorder, and TBI, as well as residuals from scars on the forehead, are remanded due to lack of prior formal or informal application.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided to remand the case due to insufficient information about the in-service stressors. The Veteran's service records from July 1971 to April 1973 need to be obtained, and he is asked to provide more details about his claimed stressors.
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