Board of Veterans Appeals (Attorney Advisor)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is not 80 percent of all Board decisions but 80 percent that are appealed to the Court. Decisions are not automatically appealed and many people do not appeal at all.

Also, this study was prior to the enactment of AMA. The AMA has changed everything because the Board does not have a duty to assist under AMA.

This is correct, but the situation also is not exactly rosy. Only things that are appealed to the Court count here, and you cannot appeal a full grant or a remand, which is a very large percent of Board decisions. Historically, the percent of Board decisions appealed to the Court has been about 8% of the total of everything issued regardless of whether it contains a denial or not, though I believe it may have nudged upwards a bit in recent years. Maybe 10% now.

However, for that 10% things are pretty dire. The Court's annual reports show the outcomes for everyone to see: https://www.uscourts.cavc.gov/documents/FY2024AnnualReport.pdf. In FY24, out of 7862 appeals decided, 6531 were kicked back in some manner, which is 83%. If the Board issues 118,000 decisions in a year, and 10% of those are appealed to the Court, and of those 83% are kicked back, that's an extra 9,794 decisions that need to be issued. According to the Board's FY24 annual report, the Board's cost per case is $2405. That's just the cost of the Board issuing a single decision. So, the Court's kickbacks alone are costing the Board approximately $23.5m/year to adjudicate. And that's not counting the cost of the Court litigation itself to VA, which means VA General Counsel staff and EAJA payments. I suspect if you added all that up, the current Court remand rate is costing VA something in excess of $100m/year. The Board's requested budget for FY26 is $277m. So, we're looking at a situation where the quality situation is costing VA the equivalent of about 1/3 of the Board's entire budget.

[Anonymous]

I believe the Board may hit its goal of a 90-100 percent return rate from the CAVC after the massive quality dip we will see following the coming quota hike and loss of employees to attrition.

[Anonymous]

80% huh? Cite your source.

https://dho.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/Ho_HandanNader_Ames_Marcus.pdf

See page 241

This is not 80 percent of all Board decisions but 80 percent that are appealed to the Court. Decisions are not automatically appealed and many people do not appeal at all.

Also, this study was prior to the enactment of AMA. The AMA has changed everything because the Board does not have a duty to assist under AMA.

True. Some people made a career out of looking for reasons to remand based on the duty to assist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not 80 percent of all Board decisions but 80 percent that are appealed to the Court. Decisions are not automatically appealed and many people do not appeal at all.

Also, this study was prior to the enactment of AMA. The AMA has changed everything because the Board does not have a duty to assist under AMA.

This is correct, but the situation also is not exactly rosy. Only things that are appealed to the Court count here, and you cannot appeal a full grant or a remand, which is a very large percent of Board decisions. Historically, the percent of Board decisions appealed to the Court has been about 8% of the total of everything issued regardless of whether it contains a denial or not, though I believe it may have nudged upwards a bit in recent years. Maybe 10% now.

However, for that 10% things are pretty dire. The Court's annual reports show the outcomes for everyone to see: https://www.uscourts.cavc.gov/documents/FY2024AnnualReport.pdf. In FY24, out of 7862 appeals decided, 6531 were kicked back in some manner, which is 83%. If the Board issues 118,000 decisions in a year, and 10% of those are appealed to the Court, and of those 83% are kicked back, that's an extra 9,794 decisions that need to be issued. According to the Board's FY24 annual report, the Board's cost per case is $2405. That's just the cost of the Board issuing a single decision. So, the Court's kickbacks alone are costing the Board approximately $23.5m/year to adjudicate. And that's not counting the cost of the Court litigation itself to VA, which means VA General Counsel staff and EAJA payments. I suspect if you added all that up, the current Court remand rate is costing VA something in excess of $100m/year. The Board's requested budget for FY26 is $277m. So, we're looking at a situation where the quality situation is costing VA the equivalent of about 1/3 of the Board's entire budget.

The problem is a lot of the "errors" make no difference. The Board failed to discuss one instance of tingling pain in the arm and the person gets a JMR but that one instance of pain makes absolutely no difference in the rating. Or the Board failed to get medical records from 1984 that are related to back problem when the claim is for blood pressure. The Court will call an error and return it to the Board for a new decision and pay an attorney, but these "errors" are not actual quality problems. The only purpose is to make money for a law firm in Rhode Island. Then they make You Tube videos lamenting the horrible decisions like and wondering why it takes VA so long to issue a new decision that makes no difference. They are shysters of ths hughest order. You know which firm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not 80 percent of all Board decisions but 80 percent that are appealed to the Court. Decisions are not automatically appealed and many people do not appeal at all.

Also, this study was prior to the enactment of AMA. The AMA has changed everything because the Board does not have a duty to assist under AMA.

This is correct, but the situation also is not exactly rosy. Only things that are appealed to the Court count here, and you cannot appeal a full grant or a remand, which is a very large percent of Board decisions. Historically, the percent of Board decisions appealed to the Court has been about 8% of the total of everything issued regardless of whether it contains a denial or not, though I believe it may have nudged upwards a bit in recent years. Maybe 10% now.

However, for that 10% things are pretty dire. The Court's annual reports show the outcomes for everyone to see: https://www.uscourts.cavc.gov/documents/FY2024AnnualReport.pdf. In FY24, out of 7862 appeals decided, 6531 were kicked back in some manner, which is 83%. If the Board issues 118,000 decisions in a year, and 10% of those are appealed to the Court, and of those 83% are kicked back, that's an extra 9,794 decisions that need to be issued. According to the Board's FY24 annual report, the Board's cost per case is $2405. That's just the cost of the Board issuing a single decision. So, the Court's kickbacks alone are costing the Board approximately $23.5m/year to adjudicate. And that's not counting the cost of the Court litigation itself to VA, which means VA General Counsel staff and EAJA payments. I suspect if you added all that up, the current Court remand rate is costing VA something in excess of $100m/year. The Board's requested budget for FY26 is $277m. So, we're looking at a situation where the quality situation is costing VA the equivalent of about 1/3 of the Board's entire budget.

The problem is a lot of the "errors" make no difference. The Board failed to discuss one instance of tingling pain in the arm and the person gets a JMR but that one instance of pain makes absolutely no difference in the rating. Or the Board failed to get medical records from 1984 that are related to back problem when the claim is for blood pressure. The Court will call an error and return it to the Board for a new decision and pay an attorney, but these "errors" are not actual quality problems. The only purpose is to make money for a law firm in Rhode Island. Then they make You Tube videos lamenting the horrible decisions like and wondering why it takes VA so long to issue a new decision that makes no difference. They are shysters of ths hughest order. You know which firm.

Okay, but any one who has worked at the court knows that a lot of BVA decisions have substantive quality issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not 80 percent of all Board decisions but 80 percent that are appealed to the Court. Decisions are not automatically appealed and many people do not appeal at all.

Also, this study was prior to the enactment of AMA. The AMA has changed everything because the Board does not have a duty to assist under AMA.

This is correct, but the situation also is not exactly rosy. Only things that are appealed to the Court count here, and you cannot appeal a full grant or a remand, which is a very large percent of Board decisions. Historically, the percent of Board decisions appealed to the Court has been about 8% of the total of everything issued regardless of whether it contains a denial or not, though I believe it may have nudged upwards a bit in recent years. Maybe 10% now.

However, for that 10% things are pretty dire. The Court's annual reports show the outcomes for everyone to see: https://www.uscourts.cavc.gov/documents/FY2024AnnualReport.pdf. In FY24, out of 7862 appeals decided, 6531 were kicked back in some manner, which is 83%. If the Board issues 118,000 decisions in a year, and 10% of those are appealed to the Court, and of those 83% are kicked back, that's an extra 9,794 decisions that need to be issued. According to the Board's FY24 annual report, the Board's cost per case is $2405. That's just the cost of the Board issuing a single decision. So, the Court's kickbacks alone are costing the Board approximately $23.5m/year to adjudicate. And that's not counting the cost of the Court litigation itself to VA, which means VA General Counsel staff and EAJA payments. I suspect if you added all that up, the current Court remand rate is costing VA something in excess of $100m/year. The Board's requested budget for FY26 is $277m. So, we're looking at a situation where the quality situation is costing VA the equivalent of about 1/3 of the Board's entire budget.

The problem is a lot of the "errors" make no difference. The Board failed to discuss one instance of tingling pain in the arm and the person gets a JMR but that one instance of pain makes absolutely no difference in the rating. Or the Board failed to get medical records from 1984 that are related to back problem when the claim is for blood pressure. The Court will call an error and return it to the Board for a new decision and pay an attorney, but these "errors" are not actual quality problems. The only purpose is to make money for a law firm in Rhode Island. Then they make You Tube videos lamenting the horrible decisions like and wondering why it takes VA so long to issue a new decision that makes no difference. They are shysters of ths hughest order. You know which firm.

Okay, but any one who has worked at the court knows that a lot of BVA decisions have substantive quality issues.

Yes but if you weed out the ones where adding two sentences about the tingling arm or getting the pap smear from 1984 is irrelevant to cervical arthritis you would literally have hundreds of decisions.

[Anonymous]

And the attorneys at Shyster Inc know a lot of it is irrelevant but they want the EAJA money to pay alimony to their ex wives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And the attorneys at Shyster Inc know a lot of it is irrelevant but they want the EAJA money to pay alimony to their ex wives.

Speaking of exes, can we all say a prayer for our ex-union folks who will presumably have to return to decisions writing duties due to the termination of the CBA.

[Anonymous]

That 250 would be far easier to reach if BVA brought in some very basic document management and review tools that have been in use for decades in the private sector.

What I predict is that we see some unrealistic goals set, floundering, then a justification for the expenditure of a significant amount of money on improved technical infrastructure.

Start polishing your resumes, because it's going to be a long and painful road at BVA while they try to squeeze as much out as they can without any investment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That 250 would be far easier to reach if BVA brought in some very basic document management and review tools that have been in use for decades in the private sector.

What I predict is that we see some unrealistic goals set, floundering, then a justification for the expenditure of a significant amount of money on improved technical infrastructure.

Start polishing your resumes, because it's going to be a long and painful road at BVA while they try to squeeze as much out as they can without any investment.

Definitely this↑...if you have a crappy supervisor. If leadership asks for more in the same amount of time without providing any improvements or added assistance, they are signaling that they value quantity over quality. Crappy supervisors will not understand that and will expect the same quality from their attorneys. Good supervisors will understand the shift and will allow their attorneys to do what they need to do to meet the new goals (i.e., lower their quality to meet the new quantity goals).

[Anonymous]

Also, we can stop throwing around the 250 figure. That was put out there by an obvious troll and is beyond reason. The more realistic numbers are 169 for satisfactory, 185 for exceptional, which is what we had for a couple years two chairmen ago. Those numbers did not work, which is why they were eventually reduced to the current numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, we can stop throwing around the 250 figure. That was put out there by an obvious troll and is beyond reason. The more realistic numbers are 169 for satisfactory, 185 for exceptional, which is what we had for a couple years two chairmen ago. Those numbers did not work, which is why they were eventually reduced to the current numbers.

Don’t post on DCUM during work hours if you can’t effectively manage your workload. You could easily hit 250 if you spent time drafting decisions instead of posting incessantly on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, we can stop throwing around the 250 figure. That was put out there by an obvious troll and is beyond reason. The more realistic numbers are 169 for satisfactory, 185 for exceptional, which is what we had for a couple years two chairmen ago. Those numbers did not work, which is why they were eventually reduced to the current numbers.

Don’t post on DCUM during work hours if you can’t effectively manage your workload. You could easily hit 250 if you spent time drafting decisions instead of posting incessantly on DCUM.

But I'm an urban mom! Posting incessantly on message boards is what I DO!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, we can stop throwing around the 250 figure. That was put out there by an obvious troll and is beyond reason. The more realistic numbers are 169 for satisfactory, 185 for exceptional, which is what we had for a couple years two chairmen ago. Those numbers did not work, which is why they were eventually reduced to the current numbers.

Don’t post on DCUM during work hours if you can’t effectively manage your workload. You could easily hit 250 if you spent time drafting decisions instead of posting incessantly on DCUM.

The new doc review job must be pretty slow for you. Bad troll, bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, we can stop throwing around the 250 figure. That was put out there by an obvious troll and is beyond reason. The more realistic numbers are 169 for satisfactory, 185 for exceptional, which is what we had for a couple years two chairmen ago. Those numbers did not work, which is why they were eventually reduced to the current numbers.

Don’t post on DCUM during work hours if you can’t effectively manage your workload. You could easily hit 250 if you spent time drafting decisions instead of posting incessantly on DCUM.

The new doc review job must be pretty slow for you. Bad troll, bad.

Doc review? Been there, done that. Now, I’m a real attorney, a BVA attorney for that matter. Same as you!