The Board has remanded the Veteran's claims for service connection for bilateral hand joint pain due to inadequate examination and duty to assist error.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner did not consider the Veteran's diagnosed inflammatory polyarthropathy or provide an opinion as to whether his claimed hand disability may be a manifestation of an undiagnosed illness or medically unexplained chronic multisymptom illness.
- Claimed conditions
- left hand joint pain, right hand joint pain
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 17, 2024
- Citation
- A24066899
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,188 · 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 A24066899.
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.
- Dismissed
The Board has dismissed the Veteran's appeals because they were not filed within one year of the rating decisions, and no good cause was provided for the delay.
- Granted
The Veteran's claim for service connection for PTSD with major depressive disorder was granted. Claims for other conditions were denied or remanded.
- Dismissed
The Veteran's appeals for service connection for left hand joint pain and right hand joint pain have been dismissed due to his withdrawal of the appeal during a hearing before the undersigned.,Service connection has been granted for degenerative arthritis of the lumbar spine, cervical spine, headaches, and PTSD.
- Denied
The Veteran's claims for service connection for left hand joint pain, right hand joint pain, diabetes mellitus, type II, and squamous cell carcinoma (skin cancer) were denied. The claim for increased rating of radiculopathy of the LLE sciatic nerve was granted at 40 percent prior to June 9, 2017.
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