Is the VA Appeals Management Center a failure?

The DAV thinks so. This information was taken from Senate testimony. 

The Appeals Management Center (AMC) is essentially a failure and should be disbanded.

The AMC received nearly 20,000 remands from the Board in fiscal year (FY) FY 2008. By the end of FY 2008, the AMC had slightly over 21,000 remands on station.

By the end of January 2009, they had approximately 22,600 remands on station.

The AMC completed nearly 11,700 appeals, out of which 9,811 were returned to the Board, 89 were withdrawn, and only 1,789 were granted.

In fact, 2,500 appeals were returned to the AMC at least a second time because of further errors in carrying out the Board’s instructions, over a 25-percent error rate.

This means the AMC’s error rate was higher than its grant rate. Such a poor record of performance cannot be allowed to exist anywhere in the VA claims process.

Returning these cases to their respective jurisdictions will help ensure accountability, and most likely reduce the number of cases that proceed to the Board.

Are the VA Regional Offices (VARO) any better? Rightardia has suggested that the VAROs institutionally low ball veterans because they do not comply with US U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) Guidance.

VARO raters start at the lowest end of the rating scale for a particular Disability Code (DC) and works up. If the VARO raters believe a veteran doesn't meet one of the examples in the DC rating scale, it drops the veteran to a lower level contrary to CAVC precedent rulings.

According to US Congressional (public) law, the Veteran is alway supposed to get the benefit of the doubt on ratings.
 
Justice for the veteran starts with the  BVA

The BVA is a 58-member Washington-based review body that holds formal hearings on appeals from the RO. In 2004, it received 39,956 new cases and disposed of 38,371 cases. Vets had a 73% win rate before the BVA in 2004.

The veteran has a greater chance of success if he or she is represented by an attorney than if the vet goes it alone or is represented by a National Service Officer.

The BVA can overrule the VARO and AMC decision, but either the VARO or AMC has to rerate the veteran's claim. The remands take months and years to resolve at the VARO and the AMC levels and the vets can be expected to be low balled again in the black holes of the AMC and VAROs.

This means the veteran may have to appeal the decision back to the BVA that was remanded back to the AMC or a VARO .

The CAVC

The seven-member U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) Appeals is a true appellate court that reviews BVA decisions for errors of law. In 2005, more than 58% of appeals from the BVA to the CAVC were filed without a lawyer’s help; 29% were decided without a lawyer’s help. When a lawyer presents an appeal, the success rate is 80% or greater.

Generally, the CAVC is the last level in the VA appeals process.

Conclusions: The BVA appears to be the workhorse of the VA and this is the best opportunity for the veteran to get justice. If a veteran has a well-documented claim, he or she should prevail.

The bad news is the claim must go back to the AMC or VARO to be re-rated. This is where the VA process moves to a crawl and the veteran is most likely to be disappointed with the outcomes.

However, Some vets have had to go back to the BVA four times to get the claim resolved correctly.The moral of this article: be persistent!

source: http://veterans.senate.gov/hearings.cfm?action=release.display&release_id=0feb2deb-9fa3-49ae-a6de-1153012d4a13

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