Board of Veterans Appeals (Attorney Advisor)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those jobs look like a nightmare. Imagine dealing with partners, billable hours (or whatever their equivalent is in private veterans law), client service, and all the baloney of private practice but at half the salary of BVA. It would be going from one black hole to another, lower pay black hole. No thank you!

+1 I agree. Unfortunately, the private sector pay for BVA attorneys is so low because most VA disability practitioners are non-attorney Accredited VA claims agents. These agents perform the same work as the attorneys in the firm, hence the low pay.

[Anonymous]

https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/house-sends-ai-powered-va-claims-automation-bill-senate

This will be interesting. It's only a matter of time before it is deployed at BVA.

Outside of old hand written docs, there's no reason AI can't do 90% of the job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/house-sends-ai-powered-va-claims-automation-bill-senate

This will be interesting. It's only a matter of time before it is deployed at BVA.

Outside of old hand written docs, there's no reason AI can't do 90% of the job.

It will be rolled out at the speed of government. BVA will see something barely useful in 2 years. It will become moderately useful another 2 years after that. It will not replace humans on anything critical for a looong time.

[Anonymous]

I hope there is a significant number of resignations during the first months of FY26. The new production requirements are not just bad news for employees. They are also bad news for veterans, whose cases will now get only a cursory glance at the BVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope there is a significant number of resignations during the first months of FY26. The new production requirements are not just bad news for employees. They are also bad news for veterans, whose cases will now get only a cursory glance at the BVA.

Resign and go where? SSA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope there is a significant number of resignations during the first months of FY26. The new production requirements are not just bad news for employees. They are also bad news for veterans, whose cases will now get only a cursory glance at the BVA.

Resign and go where? SSA?

Anywhere else, silly! You don't need to find a similar job.

[Anonymous]

Yes unfortunately quality will go down. When I started at the board it was 3.25 decisions for everyone, has it ever been 3.5?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes unfortunately quality will go down. When I started at the board it was 3.25 decisions for everyone, has it ever been 3.5?

What’s with these half numbers and quarter numbers? Just set a quota of four decisions a week and get it over with. Veterans are waiting!

[Anonymous]

It'll just mean more remands for stupid reasons by VLJs who are scared of being overturned.

For what it's worth, I'm not at the board anymore and went back into private practice. I just do some VA work on the side to help friends. I dropped an entire case file into a paid AI program I have through my firm. It was about 3,000 pages. I combined the various records (OPR, HAIMEs, etc) into single PDFs and OCR'd them before uploading. Within minutes, it found several missed Dx and treatment records the RO and examiner said don't exist. My prompt asks for pin cites to everything, and I manually verified what the AI found.

Implemented correctly, AI will make this job a breeze.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope there is a significant number of resignations during the first months of FY26. The new production requirements are not just bad news for employees. They are also bad news for veterans, whose cases will now get only a cursory glance at the BVA.

So what are the new numbers?

So glad to be out of that place!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope there is a significant number of resignations during the first months of FY26. The new production requirements are not just bad news for employees. They are also bad news for veterans, whose cases will now get only a cursory glance at the BVA.

So what are the new numbers?

So glad to be out of that place!

3 per week for GS-11s, 3.25 for 12s and 13s, 3.5 for 14s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope there is a significant number of resignations during the first months of FY26. The new production requirements are not just bad news for employees. They are also bad news for veterans, whose cases will now get only a cursory glance at the BVA.

So what are the new numbers?

So glad to be out of that place!

3 per week for GS-11s, 3.25 for 12s and 13s, 3.5 for 14s.

Do you still get proration? I can imagine an increasing number of folks taking mental health days and regular leave in order to reduce their numbers, and then working through those days. No joke, that's what one of our trainers told us they do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope there is a significant number of resignations during the first months of FY26. The new production requirements are not just bad news for employees. They are also bad news for veterans, whose cases will now get only a cursory glance at the BVA.

So what are the new numbers?

So glad to be out of that place!

3 per week for GS-11s, 3.25 for 12s and 13s, 3.5 for 14s.

Do you still get proration? I can imagine an increasing number of folks taking mental health days and regular leave in order to reduce their numbers, and then working through those days. No joke, that's what one of our trainers told us they do.

Proration is still provided for approved leave. Leadership is well aware that people work off the clock to make the quota. They do not care, so long as no one talks about it.

[Anonymous]

That new quota is insane. & I heard it’s to better serve veterans. Not necessarily the case common sense would tell ya. Are the incentive programs at least coming back like bonuses and overtime or are they axed too to further make you miserable while everything gets more expensive? I guess they shouldn’t worry about it impacting the budget as few people would qualify under these new standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That new quota is insane. & I heard it’s to better serve veterans. Not necessarily the case common sense would tell ya. Are the incentive programs at least coming back like bonuses and overtime or are they axed too to further make you miserable while everything gets more expensive? I guess they shouldn’t worry about it impacting the budget as few people would qualify under these new standards.

There were no monthly or quarterly incentives during FY25. Per my judge, year-end bonuses for FY25 are not even assured. I expect no incentives or bonuses for FY26, because why offer those when they don't have to?