The Board has remanded the claims for service connection for thoracolumbar disability and initial compensable rating for service-connected bilateral hearing loss due to incomplete service treatment records and inadequate medical opinions.
The deciding factor: Incomplete service treatment records and inadequate medical opinions rendered the determinations insufficient, necessitating further examination and opinion.
- Claimed conditions
- Thoracolumbar Disability
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 13, 2022
- Citation
- 22001862
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,810 · Granted: 23% (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 22001862.
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 Board has granted service connection for hypertension as secondary to the appellant's service-connected thyroid disability. Service connection for a thoracolumbar disability is denied.
- Denied
The Board has found that the Veteran's service connection claim for a thoracolumbar disability cannot be granted as there is no competent or credible medical evidence linking her current condition to service. The August 2010 VA examination report, which considered all available evidence and provided a clear rationale, concluded that it is less likely than not that the Veteran's current lumbosacral strain is related to any injuries she had in service.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claims for increased ratings for his service-connected lumbar myositis, psychoneurosis and conversion hysteria, residuals of shrapnel wounds of the left thigh and pelvis with retained foreign bodies and scars, and residuals of shell fragment wounds of the right thigh and left leg. The veteran was also denied entitlement to a total disability rating based on individual unemployability due to service-connected disabilities.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for an initial evaluation in excess of 10 percent for his service-connected coronary artery disease, finding that the evidence did not support a higher rating based on the severity of his condition.
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