Hearing loss grants hinge on two facts: documented noise exposure in service (MOS/rate with presumed exposure helps enormously) and current audiometric thresholds meeting 38 CFR § 3.385. Delayed-onset hearing loss is recognized — a normal separation audiogram does not defeat the claim.
Top 5 recent grants
Ranked by decision date. Each card shows verbatim Findings of Fact and Reasons & Bases pulled directly from the Board's published decision — no summarization, no AI rewording.
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
1. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Regional Office (RO) granted entitlement to service connection for irritable bowel syndrome, a gastrointestinal condition, in a December 2024 rating decision. There was no indication of clear and unmistakable error. 2. The RO also granted entitlement to service connection for OSA in a December 2024 rating decision. There was no indication of clear and unmistakable error. 3. The evidence is in approximate balance that the Veteran's vertigo was caused or aggravated by her service-connected conditions.
Reasons & Bases (verbatim from decision)
The Veteran served honorably on active duty in the United States Army from February 2006 through February 2010, with additional reserve service. She had over 1 year and 5 months of foreign service, including in Afghanistan, and was awarded the Afghanistan Campaign Medal (w/ Campaign Star), Joint Service Commendation Medal, Joint Service Achievement Medal, among others.
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
For the period on appeal prior to August 2, 2022, the Veteran's bilateral hearing loss is manifested by hearing acuity to no worse than Level IV in the right ear and Level VI in the left ear.
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
The probative medical evidence of record reflects that the Veteran's bilateral hearing loss is etiologically linked to conceded hazardous noise exposure during service.
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
There is an approximate balance of positive and negative evidence as to whether the Veteran's current bilateral hearing loss is related to his active-duty service.
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
1. Resolving any reasonable doubt in favor of the Veteran, his depressive disorder causes total occupational and social impairment. 2. The Veteran's focal mononeuropathy with winged scapula, long thoracic nerve manifests in severe incomplete paralysis. 3. Resolving all reasonable doubt in favor of the Veteran, his left ear hearing loss is related to in-service acoustic trauma.
Reasons & Bases (verbatim excerpts from decision)
Left Ear Hearing Loss […] Regarding the third element, a medical nexus, the October 2015 examiner found that Veteran's left ear hearing loss is at least as likely as not caused by or a result of an event in military service. Specifically, the examiner noted that there was no audiometric data on the Veteran's exit from service to compare with the entrance exam. Therefore, due to the lack of audiometric data upon exit, the Veteran's current hearing loss cannot be rules out as a service-related hearing loss. The Veteran underwent another VA examination in April 2024. The examiner found that it was less likely than not that the Veteran's hearing loss was the result of service. Specifically, the examiner stated that the Veteran did not report the onset of his hearing loss until around 20 years after separation. Although noise exposure was conceded and the relationship between noise, auditory damage and hearing loss is well documented, auditory damage and hearing loss are not conceded based on noise alone. The examiner concluded that there is no evidence to support a nexus to relate the Veteran's current hearing loss to military noise and not another etiology.
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The decisions above are the most recent grants — they may not match your specific nexus theory or fact pattern. The NexusVetClaims Precedent Brief runs a semantic search on your exact situation and returns 10 decisions (8 closest analogous matches + 2 instructive contrasts) as a filed-ready PDF with suggested citations and placement guidance for every VA form.
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How to use these decisions in your claim
- ›DD-214 MOS/rate + the VA's Duty MOS Noise Exposure Listing can establish exposure presumptively.
- ›A separation audiogram within normal limits is NOT fatal. Board routinely grants when current thresholds meet § 3.385 and the vet has a high-noise MOS.
- ›Hensley v. Brown: the Board must consider whether current hearing loss is related to in-service noise even if no in-service audiogram showed threshold shifts.
- ›BVA decisions are non-precedential under 38 CFR § 20.1303 but the Board and rating officials regularly find recent analogous decisions persuasive — especially when your facts materially match.
- ›Paste the suggested-citation line into VA Form 21-4138 (Statement in Support of Claim), then attach the full decision PDF as an exhibit.
More BVA grant guides
BVA decisions are public-record Department of Veterans Affairs rulings. Under 38 CFR § 20.1303 they are non-precedential but may be cited as persuasive evidence of how the Board has treated similar facts. NexusVetClaims provides software, not legal representation. This page shows retrieval output from the nexusvetclaims.com BVA corpus and is updated as new decisions are indexed.