The Board remands the claim for a medical opinion addressing whether the Veteran's pre-existing psychiatric disorders worsened beyond their normal progression due to military stressors.
The deciding factor: The July 2023 VA examiner did not address the specific questions required by the Board, necessitating a remand for an addendum opinion.
- Claimed conditions
- bipolar I disorder, unspecified depressive disorder with anxious distress
- How they argued it
- Aggravation of a pre-existing condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 29, 2025
- Citation
- A25093775
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,456 · 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 A25093775.
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 has denied the Veteran's claims for service connection for unspecified depressive disorder with anxious distress and alcohol abuse, finding that there is no evidence of a current disability or a link to active service.
- Denied
The Veteran's disability picture, primarily due to Parkinson's disease and related manifestations, does not meet the criteria for SMC at the statutory housebound level as his other disabilities do not yield a combined rating of 60 percent.
- Denied
The Veteran's disability picture, primarily due to Parkinson's disease and related manifestations, does not meet the criteria for SMC at the statutory housebound level as his other disabilities do not yield a combined rating of 60 percent.
- Granted
The Veteran's unspecified depressive disorder with anxious distress is found to be proximately due to his service-connected coronary artery disease, and thus granted on a secondary basis.
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