Number Of Bva Decisions

[Vetsforvets]

Does anyone know how many BVA decisions are made per month or a year?

[FormerMember]

The BVA Fuehrer Eskinazi has stipulated each VLJ shall complete one a day. 60 VLJs=60 decisions. We also have up to 45 Acting VLJs who can do the same for 90 day stints so (very) roughly, 135 decisions per day=26,200 per year. Sadly, they are arriving at the rate of 45,000 a year. Do the math.

[Gastone]

With that said and considering the current Appeals backlog, I still think it's better to attempt a DRO Hearing, filing the NOD sooner rather than later. Not unusual for a BVA Hearing, depending on type, to take in excess of 4 years. Then there's the Remands to contend with and whatever time that adds to the decision.

My DRO Hearing took 4.25 yrs and went my way. So I'm somewhat biased. During that time, I filed a few other claims, requested my C-File and about 5 months before the VA notification of the actual Hearing date, requested a "DRO Informal Evidence Conference." Exactly how any of that impacted the Hearing date, who knows, not me.

Semper Fi

Gastone

[broncovet]

The link to the BVA chairmans report for various years are here:

http://www.bva.va.gov/Chairman_Annual_Rpts.asp

Some numbers from the Chairmans report:

( I rounded off some numbers to save space):

The way I read the report the BVA received 52,860 I 9's (fy 2013).

They project 59,000 in 2014

They project 69,000 in 2015

Time frame as of 2013, its worse now:

Notice of Disagreement Receipt to Statement of the Case Statement of the Case 295 days (AOJ)

SOC to issue of Form 9 40 days

Substantive Appeal Receipt to Certification of Appeal to Board 725 days (AOJ)

Total time at AOJ 1060 days

Receipt of Certified Appeal to Issuance of Board Decision* Board 235 days

Total time from NOD to decision from BVA 1295 days, of which 40 days is the appealant to file form 9. This (40 day appeal time) will likely be cut to 30 days or less because this is "too long" according to VA).

The VA's solution to the backlog is to require a Veterans to reduce the time to file an I9 from 60 days to 30 days. "Blame the Veteran" Its Veterans fault, for taking to long to file I9, and for too many Veterans appealing.

Edited August 4, 2015 by broncovet

[broncovet]

In short, you can expect your BVA appeal to take MORE than 1295 days, because the backlog is worse in 2015 than 2013. Expect your RO to "dilly dally" your appeal more than 1060 days before they even send it to the Board.

[Vync]

No matter how much cash the VA throws at it, I don't see any real improvement. Each of my two major appeals took approximately five years to be resolved. My first one started in 1995. My second one started in 2008. I don't mean just receiving the letters back from the VA, but the five years involved all of the back and forth and red tape and getting the VA to look at evidence correctly and provide accurate ratings.

[FormerMember]

If it is time-consuming and takes years, then maybe the Vet will give up and go home. As you say, Vync, if it's stupid but it works, then how stupid is it? Conversely, how stupid is VA? 1.4 million file. 85% lose. 69,000 choose to appeal to the BVA. 4,000 who lose take it to the CAVC and 65% of those win or get a do over. My take is either 1,190,000 Vets file bogus claims...or... 4.1% of us are intelligent enough to even appeal an unjust denial to the BVA. Either way, the statistics are abominable if only .036% of Vets appeal to the Federal level with a 65% chance of winning.

In the absence of anything better to do with about two months (off and on) a year to devote to an appeal, it seems like an extremely profitable enterprise. VA hopes you never see it that way which is why I advocate for Win or Die (trying).