The Board remands the claim for a heart disability to obtain an adequate medical opinion regarding its etiology, including considering exposure to herbicide agents and PFAs.
The deciding factor: The April 2024 private opinion was found incomplete due to lack of rationale, and the VA examination report was also deemed inadequate as it did not address all claimed exposures or consider the Veteran's contentions.
- Claimed conditions
- Heart disability
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- Agent Orange / herbicides
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 3, 2025
- Citation
- A25031041
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,645 · Granted: 19% (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 A25031041.
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 service connection for a heart disability, finding that the Veteran's current heart diagnoses are not related to his military service.
- Denied
The Veteran's claim for an effective date prior to March 2, 2015, for TDIU was denied as the evidence did not show actual worsening within one year prior to his March 2, 2015, claim.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has denied service connection for a right shoulder disability and remanded the case for further action on heart disability. The decision regarding right shoulder disability is that it was not incurred in or aggravated by service.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's request to reopen his claim for service connection for a heart disability, claiming chest pains. The May 1997 rating decision found that new and material evidence was not submitted within the required timeframe.
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