EAJA fees are awarded by the courts in cases where the governments position is substantially unjustified. The BVA, DRO, and RO therefor can't award them. Additionally, the fees only cover the portion of the work done on the matter before the court. So if your attorney did fifty hours of work on the case, thirty done for the BVA portion and twenty for the court portion, then they can only recover foe the twenty hours done for the court portion. Further, the EAJA must offset the attorneys fees of past due benefits dollar per dollar, and if EAJA fees are more then the past due amount the attorney gets, then they only recoe e EAJA fees.
Your case seems odd since the attorney fee was for over twenty percent. It this case the VA is not supposed to with hold any fees. Fees are only withheld if the twenty percent per se reasonable limit is not exceed. This encourages attorneys to charge is amount by ensuring that the federal government pays them and illuminates the need for them to pursue collections.
As far as asking for a discount, be careful. You signed a binding contract and attorney fee agreements for the VA fall under the jurisdiction of the court of veterans appeals. If your attorney sees you as attempting to breach the contract they can go to the court to enforce it. If your agreement imposes a losing party liability for the fee agree,met, you will be on he hook for their legal fees to cover the dispute. Also, if you need any legal help in the future you might run into problems. Most attorneys would probably be hesitant to deal with the trouble client who is always asking for adjustments to the fee contract for arbitrary reasons.