Citation Nr: 21025874 Decision Date: 04/29/21 Archive Date: 04/29/21 DOCKET NO. 16-04 854 DATE: April 29, 2021 REMANDED Entitlement to a rating in excess of 40 percent for bilateral hearing loss is remanded. REASONS FOR REMAND The Veteran served on active duty in the United States Army from October 1950 to December 1951.    This matter comes before the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (Board) on appeal from a September 2013 rating decision of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Regional Office (RO).  The Veteran died during the pendency of this appeal in November 2016 and the Veteran’s spouse has been deemed eligible for substitution of the Veteran and has become the Appellant in this case. In March 2021, the Appellant testified at a hearing before the undersigned Veterans Law Judge (VLJ); a transcript is of record.    This appeal has been advanced on the docket.  38 C.F.R. § 20.902.    Entitlement to a rating in excess of 40 percent for bilateral hearing loss. The Appellant contends that a higher rating for the Veteran’s bilateral hearing loss is warranted. For the reasons that follow, the Board finds that additional development is needed prior to adjudication. In this regard, the Veteran underwent a VA audiological examination in April 2012 and August 2013. However, neither VA examiner could test puretone thresholds or Maryland CNC speech discrimination due to inconsistent responses from the Veteran. The evidence of record also includes a private audiological examination in July 2013. On examination, puretone thresholds (in decibels) and speech discrimination scores appear to be as follows: Hertz  1000 2000 3000 4000 Average Right ear  65 80 105 110 90 Left ear  60 80 115 115 92.5   As shown in the table, objective testing appeared to produce a puretone average of 90 decibels in the right ear and 92.5 decibels in the left ear. Word recognition score were recorded as 20 percent in the right ear and 52 percent in the left ear. No exceptional patterns of hearing impairment were noted, and the examiner did not indicate that the speech discrimination test was not appropriate. As such, neither ear examination results meet the criteria of § 4.86 and the application of TABLE VIA to those results is not warranted. Applying the right ear results to TABLE VI yields a numeric designation of Level XI hearing impairment and Level VIII hearing impairment for left ear. Entering Level XI hearing impairment for the right ear and Level VIII hearing impairment for the left ear into TABLE VII yields a 70 percent rating. 38 C.F.R. § 4.85, DC 6100. However, a December 2015 Statement of the Case (SOC), in response to the Veteran’s December 2013 Notice of Disagreement (NOD), denied an entitlement to a rating in excess of 40 percent for his bilateral hearing loss. The AOJ based this decision on the fact that it is unclear that the July 2013 private audiological examination is in compliance with VA regulations requiring an examination for hearing impairment for VA purposes to be conducted by a state-licensed audiologist and to include a controlled speech discrimination test (Maryland CNC) and a puretone audiometry test. When a private examination report is unclear or not suitable for rating purposes and the information reasonably contained in the report otherwise cannot be obtained, VA has a duty to ask the private examiner to clarify the report, or the Board must explain why such clarification was not needed. See Savage v. Shinseki, 24 Vet. App. 259 (2011). Accordingly, a remand is needed for clarification of the July 2013 private audiological examination report. This matter is REMANDED for the following action: 1. After obtaining any authorization deemed necessary, contact the examiner/medical facility who conducted the July 2013 audiological examination to request a clarification as to whether the examination was conducted in compliance with VA regulations, to include speech discrimination test (Maryland CNC), puretone audiometry test and the examiner’s state license. All efforts made should be documented. C. CRAWFORD Veterans Law Judge Board of Veterans’ Appeals Attorney for the Board A. Kuzniar, Associate Counsel The Board’s decision in this case is binding only with respect to the instant matter decided. This decision is not precedential and does not establish VA policies or interpretations of general applicability. 38 C.F.R. § 20.1303.