The Board has remanded the case due to insufficient medical opinion regarding the etiology of the Veteran's genitourinary disorder, including recurrent urinary tract infections, pyelonephritis, and medullary sponge kidney. The examiner is instructed to address whether these conditions are related to active service.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner did not fully address the Veteran’s assertion that an in-service urinary tract infection with hematuria indicated kidney involvement that was misdiagnosed at the time.
- Claimed conditions
- genitourinary disorder, recurrent urinary tract infections, pyelonephritis, medullary sponge kidney
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 10, 2020
- Citation
- 20072597
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 961 · Granted: 20% (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 20072597.
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 the cause of his death, finding that there was no evidence linking any of the immediate or contributing causes of his death to his period of active duty service. The Board also found that the PACT Act did not apply in this case as the Veteran served prior to the period when herbicide agents were presumed used.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's claims for service connection for a genitourinary disorder and sleep apnea are being remanded due to the need for additional medical examinations and consideration of intermediate steps.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for service connection for a kidney disorder, including chronic urinary tract infection (UTI), pyelonephritis, nephrolithiasis, and medullary sponge kidney (MSK). The evidence did not support finding that these conditions began during service or were otherwise related to an in-service injury, event, or disease.
- Partly granted
The Board granted a 20 percent disability rating for cervical strain and a separate 10 percent rating for limited lateral excursion range of motion due to TMJD, while denying an initial rating higher than 70 percent for PTSD and dismissing the claim for a rating higher than 10 percent for allergic rhinitis as moot.
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