hello and welcome to cck on air i'm brad hennings partner with chisholm chisholm
and kilpatrick and also joining me today is managing attorney christine clements
today we're going to be discussing the increasing backlog at the board of veterans appeals
now the board decides all the appeals within the department of veterans affairs itself
at the beginning of each year the board sets a goal for the number of decisions it will decide
and the board's year begins on october 1st and runs through september 30th so for this year
which began on october 1st 2021 the board stated its goal was to decide 111 500 decisions so what
let's discuss a little bit about how the board is doing so as of january 16 there were a total
of nearly 202 a thousand appeals pending at the board of veterans appeals that's a tremendous
number of appeals about 85 000 of those are pending in what they call the legacy system
meaning the claims were filed prior to february 2019 and are in the old va appeal system and
about 117 000 appeals are in the new appeal system the appeals modernization act system or the ama
now the bva's goal the board's goal for this fiscal year from october 1st 2021 to september
30th 2022 is to decide and mail 111 500 decisions the problem is that as of january 16th the board
has only processed 25 000 appeals for fiscal year 2022 across both legacy and ama so that means
there are about 2 200 fewer decisions than this time last year and there are about 5 700 decisions
behind their goal here's the bottom line the board of veterans appeals is experience a massive
backlog of appeals due in part to factors such as covid19 mail delays issues with cnp exams and more
so with respect to legacy appeals brad during the first week of august 2020 it was reported
that bva was working on appeals with docket dates up to july of 2019 and they said that
that was due to a large volume of legacy cases that were coming in um and that date i believe
you mentioned this earlier but that date applies to the working docket and not hearings this is
significant though because the docket date had been april 2020 just a week prior um and
interestingly enough the legacy docket the current legacy docket decision date stands at august 2019.
so that marks approximately 18 months of no movement in the processing of legacy appeals
well what about ama wondering about maybe their working ama appeals um the promise of the ama
was to eliminate the backlog and that has not happened um we've continued to see backlog we've
now see we're seeing backlog in both systems the direct docket was promised
to issue decisions within 365 days that's not happening unless you're filing a motion to advance
you know we're not seeing decisions in 365 days typically it's about 18 months or longer
and that 18-month window is really what the evidence docket was supposed to be but it hasn't
been that either there really isn't data on how long the evidence docket is taking but speaking
from experience it's definitely taking longer than 18 months um so va is just the board's not meeting
any of the targets that it had set so why has the docket date barely moved since august 2020 and why
isn't bva further along with ama appeals so that's a great question christine and so let's let's talk
about what the board itself has said it is claimed that the delays in the ama appeal decisions
are due to the board's focus on the on legacy appeals they're prioritizing the legacy appeals
which makes sense the problem is that the legacy appeal backlog hasn't gone down nearly as much as
they wanted it to either so is this truly the case that this is the reason why the ama cases aren't
being decided because the legacy docket continues to be virtually stagnant so here based upon
information and belief is is what cck knows about this issue the board is focusing on remanded cases
meaning cases that are returned from the regional offices after additional development has been done
and it's returned to the board of veterans appeals there are so many of those cases out there
that they're not able to get to some of the more recent cases and they're not able to get through
the legacy backlog there's just been a slowdown in the number of cases being decided we talked about
it before the board is thousands of cases behind where they were last year so they're not even
meeting last year's numbers much less the higher number that's required for this year some of that
is due to them hiring new veterans law judges as well as new attorneys however the interesting
thing about them hiring new veterans law judges is that many of the judges that they're hiring
have zero experience in deciding veterans benefits cases you've heard me correctly they have zero
experience my and as a former veterans law judge myself i think it's disgraceful that these folks
are being hired to decide these cases when this is an area a complex area of the law and it can take
two to four to seven years to really get this under your belt properly it's it's not good
uh furthermore the board has been focusing on hearings because there was a huge hearing backlog
however many of those hearings um have been affected by the covid situation and therefore
they've been doing them uh remotely which is great they they have been making progress on
the hearing backlog but conducting hearings and deciding appeals are the board's mission that
it's been doing since the 1930s it should be able to do both it is like walking and chewing
gum at the same time this is the board's mission it has to figure out how to do both
and then finally the board's algorithm is supposed to only release 20 percent of ama cases per week
meaning that the board will devote 80 of their resources to legacy cases
and 20 of their resources to ama cases however we know that that's not always the case
we know that some cases are operating outside of that algorithm including attorney fee cases
which are getting decided much faster so it raises some questions as to the accuracy of
this algorithm and whether it's actually doing what it's supposed to be doing in fact cck
has submitted a freedom of information act request to determine exactly how this algorithm works
and whether it's doing what the agency says it's actually do so what christine given all
of this and this is not good news this is really disappointing because it certainly seems like the
board is failing to meet its goals it's failing to meet its mission so what can veterans do
unfortunately there are no real courses of action directly related to the backlog that
veterans can take to have their board appeal decided faster some veterans might be eligible
to advance their case on the board's docket if they're terminally ill age 75 or older
facing severe financial hardship such as being evicted foreclosed upon etc
if they faced a natural disaster or another qualifying circumstance but that's not going
to apply to most veterans in the system one thing that they might think about doing is reaching out
to a congressperson getting them involved va has made promises publicly to congress they've asked
for resources they've received uh allocation of funds for those resources that they requested and
they're still failing to meet the goals they're failing to make these promises to veterans so
congress should be involved in um in holding va accountable and the way that they get information
is from their constituents so veterans can um and should reach out to them um but unfortunately
there's not a whole lot more that they can do other than wait um and you know one thing
that i always like to remind people is it's a long process so don't give up you're entitled
to these benefits and you should be receiving them don't let va off the hook we won't either
we'll keep providing information on it um but you know just keep um just keep trucking along
so as these delays continue hundreds of thousands of veterans are left without access to the
benefits they rightfully deserve and often depend upon to support themselves and their families
so if you require assistance from a decision from va at the board or appealing a board decision at
the court of appeals for veterans claims or anything related to the va after you've
received the decision and you think you've been wrongfully denied please contact us here at cck
we're available via social media you can check us out on our website ccka-law.com
if not us find an accredited representative to help you be a veteran service organization
accredited attorney or agent to help you through the process we offer complimentary consultations
to determine if we can help and um do you have any any final words christine before we go it's not a
great situation um but veterans aren't alone and i think you hit the nail on the head make sure that
you have uh accredited representative to guide you through it to at least bounce ideas off of
and don't give up well thank you all for tuning in again i'm brad hennings for christine clemens and
the entire team here at cck we really appreciate you tuning in we're going to keep our eyes on this
topic and we will report back with additional information as we can thank you very much
you