The Board remands the claims for additional disability under 38 U.S.C. § 1151 due to October 2017 VA medical care (panniculectomy) and secondary service connection theories.
The deciding factor: Remand is necessary to obtain addendum medical opinions that consider the Veteran's theories of causation, as well as a secondary service connection opinion for eustachian tube disability, dizziness, and infection disability.
- Claimed conditions
- abdominal thickening, abdominal abscess, abdominal scarring, asymmetry of the abdomen, umbilical scar thickening, eustachian tube disability, dizziness, infection disability, manifested by symptoms of fever, chills, and coughing, tachycardia, blood disability (other than anemia)
- How they argued it
- Not specified
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- July 1, 2025
- Citation
- 25008632
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 claim for service connection for dizziness to obtain an adequate medical opinion addressing whether it is related to service or a service-connected disability.
- Partly granted
The Board granted a 60 percent rating for prostate cancer with residuals, denied ratings in excess of 10 percent for tachycardia and an initial compensable rating for erectile dysfunction, and granted service connection for a psychiatric disability.
- Partly granted
The Board granted restoration of a 20 percent rating for the service-connected lumbosacral strain, effective May 1, 2023. The other claims were denied.
- Denied
The Board has denied service connection for multiple conditions and denied higher initial ratings for several service-connected disabilities.
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