Thanks to investments from Congress, the Board was able to hire substantially more judges, attorneys, and staff during FY 2022 – FY 2024 to help reduce pending appeals and decrease wait times.

As shown in the graph below, the increased personnel have allowed the Board to issue exponentially more AMA decisions in the past two years (FY 2024 and FY 2025). For example, the Board averaged just over 25,000 AMA decisions from FY 2021 through FY 2023, representing just over 25 percent of the Board’s total decision output during those years. With decision rates increasing and additional resource capacity available for AMA appeals, the Board averaged nearly 90,000 AMA decisions in FY 2024 and FY 2025, an increase of over 250% compared to the three preceding years. To put that into perspective, in FY 2025 alone, the Board issued more AMA decisions than the combined totals of the first five years (FY 2019 through FY 2023) post-AMA implementation.

The three-year ramp-up of personnel provided enough staff to fundamentally transition the Board from predominately adjudicating the older Legacy appeal system cases to predominately adjudicating AMA appeals filed since the new law went into effect in February 2019. Before FY 2023, the persistently large inventory of pending Legacy appeals kept displacing newer AMA appeals that could be adjudicated. The following graph shows that the Board was able to change that dynamic substantially during FY 2024. 

Understanding these emerging workload trends

While it took the Board 5 years to change the decision output ratio from 99% Legacy appeals versus 1% AMA appeals to a 50/50 ratio in February 2024, it only took 7 months to flip that workload trend to roughly 87% AMA appeals adjudicated vs. 13% Legacy cases adjudicated. The Board’s Annual and Congressional Reports from FY 2023 predicted this switch from predominately Legacy appeal adjudications to most of the case output being AMA appeals decisions. The graphic above highlights the very rapid changes in the pace of AMA adjudications that occurred during FY 2024.

Understanding these emerging workload trends is important to address stakeholder concerns about AMA timeliness. After AMA implementation, the Average Days Pending (ADP) for those appeals continued to consistently climb as the Board was still required to predominantly focus on Legacy system appeals and Advance on Docket (AOD) workloads. Once the Board was able to focus more resources on adjudicating higher numbers of AMA cases, especially the larger percentage of non-AOD AMA appeals that had been pending the longest, the Average Days to Complete (ADC) metrics started to rapidly climb because the Board was finally adjudicating these mostly older cases.

It is also important to recognize the relationship between the Board’s reported ADP and ADC metrics for each of the Board’s dockets. The ADC is simply an average of how long it took the Board to adjudicate a group of cases decided during a specific period time. In other words, the ADC is just a measure of how long it took to decide a group appeals during the past week, or month, or year. It is not a measure of how long the average appeal has been waiting, which is conveyed as the ADP for all appeals not yet decided. Thus, trend changes in the ADP numbers are a leading indicator that the Board is successfully reducing the number of non-AOD AMA cases, starting with the ones waiting the longest. Put another way, the ADP falls as the Board adjudicates more non-AOD AMA cases that have been pending the longest and the ADC will belatedly follow the same pattern, as newer cases get worked after the older cases are adjudicated.

A note of caution: ADC numbers can vary drastically, especially because the Board is currently adjudicating the oldest pending non-AOD cases under AMA at a very accelerated rate. For example, the monthly ADC for AMA Direct docket (for Veterans and dependents) cases was around 372 days in January 2024, then rose very rapidly during the next 6 months…up to nearly 1,050 days during July 2024. Of course, the Board didn’t get 600 days slower in adjudicating cases during that 180-day period, but it understandably might appear that way to someone reviewing a table of publicly reported ADC numbers. While the Direct docket ADC was hovering near the 365-day goal in January 2024, it was doing so because a very high percentage of the cases being worked at that time were AOD appeals. However, overall wait times (ADP) for all Veterans with pending appeals on that docket was over 600 days.

The figure below illustrates a three-year trend for ADP and ADC for Veterans and dependents appeals on the AMA Direct docket. It shows the rapid changes that began occurring during February 2024 as the Board was able to begin adjudicating much higher numbers of AMA Direct docket appeals, starting with those that had been waiting the longest. For Veterans and dependents choosing the Direct docket, the fastest appeal option, wait times are now at an all-time low at just under 7 months—well below the 365-day requirement for that docket.

Note: Graph excludes 3rd party contractors, attorneys and other non-Veterans appeals.

When the Board established the average days to complete (ADC) timeliness goals for AMA cases which were published in the Chairman’s FY 2021 Annual Report in January 2022, the Board was careful to transparently address anticipated challenges it would encounter to meet those goals. Specifically, the Board identified the backlog of pending Legacy appeals, AOD cases, and Court remand cases which would continuously prevent Board adjudication of pending non-AOD AMA cases and thus the number of pending AMA appeals would continue to grow. Since September 2022, the Board’s public website has included graphical trend data and explanations for all Veterans, VSOs, and all other stakeholders to add more transparency about these challenges. As the Board has previously cautioned on its public website and in other public reports, the ADC did increase to levels that exceeded the initially set timeliness goals under AMA before cresting and then ultimately falling below those goals on the Direct and Evidence dockets.

As predicted, both the ADP and ADC for the Direct docket crested during FY 2024 and then fell sharply after the oldest waiting cases were adjudicated first. The graphic above shows the annualized ADC for Veterans and dependents on the Direct docket peaked at well over 900 days in July 2024 before cresting and then dropping sharply. Because the monthly ADC dropped so much during FY 2025, the monthly ADC was well below the 365-day goal by September 2025 and the ADC for deciding appeals of those who have waited longest has remained around 300 days throughout FY 2026.  Correspondingly, the ADP for those with pending Direct Docket appeals has remained below 220 days for most of FY 2026 and was 212 days as of March 2026. Again, these trends show how quickly the Board is now adjudicating the older AMA appeals for those Veterans who waited the longest.

Once the Board achieved the timeliness goals for the Direct docket, this allowed the Board to focus on addressing wait times for the Evidence docket in an effort to reduce wait times below the 550-day goal. As projected, a similar pattern of rapidly declining wait times occurred. The ADP for those waiting in line peaked in March 2025 at 691 days and then began to slowly fall as the ADC numbers rapidly spiked while the longest waiting Veteran appeals were being adjudicated. The Board adjudicated over 35,000 Evidence docket appeals for Veterans and dependents from April through December 2025. This reduced the appeals pending on that docket by 67% and, more importantly, wait times were dramatically reduced with the ADP dropping down to 260 days through March 2026. As shown in the figure below, both the ADC and ADP for the Evidence docket are well below the 550-day wait time goal established years ago.

The figure below also demonstrates how these drastic reductions in Veteran wait times followed the same pattern of successes achieved on the Direct docket:

Note: Graph excludes 3rd party contractors, attorneys, and non-Veterans appeals.

With the Board now consistently deciding cases well below timeliness goals for both the Direct and Evidence dockets, this has allowed the Board to devote more resources to improve wait times for Hearing docket cases. This shift began in late December 2025 and the Hearing docket is now following the same pattern of improvement experienced on the other two AMA dockets. The ADP peaked in January 2026 and then began to fall while the ADC rapidly spiked up as the longest awaiting cases were rapidly adjudicated. Through March 2026, the ADC completed its cresting phase and has started to fall. It will continue to decline until the Board achieves the established 730-day goal for that docket. The figure below demonstrates the dramatic improvements in wait times that have occurred during the past two years and the same emerging trend for the Hearing docket: 

Note: Graph excludes 3rd party contractors, attorneys and other non-Veterans appeals.