The Board remands the claim for service connection for a psychiatric disorder, to include bipolar disorder, due to pre-decisional errors in considering all of the Veteran's psychiatric diagnoses and failing to obtain an adequate medical opinion.
The deciding factor: Remand is required to ensure that an adequate examination is conducted and to clarify the exact psychiatric diagnoses under the DSM-5.
- Claimed conditions
- bipolar disorder, psychosis, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, unspecified bipolar and related disorder, anxiety and depression due to Adjustment Disorder with mixed anxiety and depressed mood, substance-induced (cocaine) psychotic disorder with hallucinations, substance-induced persisting dementia
- How they argued it
- Reopened with new and material evidence
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- June 3, 2025
- Citation
- A25049011
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,242 · Granted: 27% (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 A25049011.
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 has remanded the case due to insufficient evidence regarding the Veteran's acquired psychiatric disorders, including bipolar disorder and PTSD. The Veteran will be asked to provide additional medical records and undergo a VA examination.
- Granted
The Veteran's schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, resulted in occupational and social impairment with deficiencies in most areas from November 15, 2016, to August 10, 2021.,Beginning August 11, 2021, the disability caused total occupational and social impairment.
- Granted
The Board has granted service connection for a back disability and an acquired psychiatric disorder, finding that the evidence supports a link between these conditions and the Veteran's active duty service.
- Granted
The Veteran's bipolar disorder was rated at 50% and then reduced to 30%. The Board has now granted a 70% rating effective November 23, 2021, based on the improvement in her symptoms.
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