Showing posts with label claim backlog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label claim backlog. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Media coverage of VA backlog ignores history of it

There are two quotes that need to be read about the VA Claims backlog
"The number of unprocessed veterans claims exceeds 915,000 — a 100,000 jump since the beginning of the year. In testimony two weeks ago before a House committee, VA officials said the current 162 days is 17 days less than one year ago, a sign that they are beginning to make process."
“Backlogs are at the point where veterans must wait an average of six months for a decision on benefits claims and some veterans are waiting as long as four years,”
Sounds really troubling considering the troops had been in Afghanistan since 2001 and in Iraq since 2003. The worst part is those quotes are not new. They came in testimony in June of 2009.

Do reporters remind anyone of what was going on before? Do they bother to correct anything so that the harm done to our veterans is not repeated? No, this is more of the political games being played across the country within the big media outlets.

If you think they really care, you'd be wrong. If they really cared, they would not drop the stories according to the political wind.

In 2001 there was a backlog of claims but no one thought to gear up the VA to take care of the veterans waiting for care even though experts warned the newer veterans could in fact crash the VA. No one in our government really cared and yes, that includes some members of congress.

If reporters stayed on the story back then the American public would have demanded action to take care of all our veterans, but they didn't and now they want to pretend all of this just happened overnight.
Veterans Administration backed up, falls under criticism from returning soldiers 
Across the country, members of the military returning to civilian life after fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are enduring enormous delays to have their initial disability claims adjudicated by the Veterans Administration.
BY JAMES WARREN AND CHRISTINA BOYLE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
TUESDAY, MAY 7, 2013

After two tours of duty with the Marines in Iraq, Anthony Pike returned home to Brooklyn with hearing loss, a ringing in his ears and profound stress.

Now there’s the galling, added stress he’s enduring in trying to get help from the New York office of the Veterans Administration.

“We executed our missions every day and met our objections. Then I come home and the VA, the one place I think I can go for help, doesn’t,” he said. “It’s devastating.”

Across the country, members of the military returning to civilian life after fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are enduring enormous delays to have their initial disability claims adjudicated by the Veterans Administration.

And the wait in New York City is longer than just about everywhere else — an average of 642 days, twice the national average of 320 days. It is exceeded only by the wait in Reno, Nev., where it is 680 days.

In a rare act of bipartisanship, 67 senators recently wrote President Obama and implored him to “take direct action and involvement in ending” the sky-high backlog that has grown to 600,000 cases nationwide.
read more here
Most of the claims in the backlog are Vietnam veterans and they have waited for far too long to receive the care they were promised. Part of the backlog comes from the change in rules to file claims for PTSD and Agent Orange. If they do not tell the truth on a subject this serious, what else aren't they telling the truth about?

Read THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR and know how it got this bad since all the reports came from the news stories they don't want you to remember.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Jon Stewart, there is nothing funny about VA claims

Jon Stewart, there is nothing funny about VA claims
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times
May 3, 2013

The Daily Show last night focused on the VA claim backlog. It is a serious subject. While claims are tied up, the obvious issue is the lack of income to cover their lost incomes due to service connected disabilities. What is not so obvious is what the denials and waiting does to these veterans and their families.

My husband's claim took six years. We couldn't pay our bills but that was not the worst thing. The VA took our tax refunds to pay for his care because our private health insurance would not cover his treatment. They said due to the diagnosis, it was the responsibility of the VA to take care of him. When did that happen? He filed his claim in 1993 and it was not approved until 1999! The stress added to his PTSD, the very thing that he was seeking treatment for. He had great doctors and they worked with me helping him get through all of that.

While Stewart is focusing on the "issue" now, it is not a new problem and there are many reasons for the backlog being increased. It is about as bad as it was in 2008.
By March of 2007, the Boston Globe reported that the backlog of claims had gone from 69,000 in 2000 to 400,000 in 2007 taking 177 days to process an original claim and 657 days to process an appeal. The news got worse with a staggering 915,000 in 2009 with 803,000 with the Board of Appeals.

“Backlogs are at the point where veterans must wait an average of six months for a decision on benefits claims and some veterans are waiting as long as four years,” number of unprocessed veterans claims exceeds 915,000 — a 100,000 jump since the beginning of the year.” (Have VA Pay old claims automatically, Rick Maze, Marine Corps Times, June 30, 2009)


The VA has a weekly release of the claims. As of Monday, 60% are "supplemental claims" because while the veteran has received some benefits, most of the time they have to appeal for a higher rate or have other illnesses that may be service connected as well.

Then there is the breakdown of who is filing the claims. Pending Claims has 865,989 claims with 37% coming from Vietnam Veterans, 23% from Gulf War Veterans, 20% from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans, 11% listed as Peacetime and 9% from "Other Veterans." There are 606,007 considered "backlog" claims. They breakdown pretty much the same way.

Characteristics of the pending Compensation Inventory
VA tracks claims that make up the pending Compensation Inventory by a Veteran’s era of service. As of Dec 31, 2012, claims from Veterans of the following eras make up VA’s inventory (total number of claims) and backlog (claims pending for more than 125 days):

Source: Dept. Veterans Affairs, 3/28/13
Backlog: Claims pending longer than 125 days
Post-9/11 (Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts) claims make up 21% of the total inventory and 22% of the backlog
Gulf War (definition) claims make up 23% of the total inventory and 21% of the backlog Peacetime (period between end of Vietnam and Gulf War) claims make up 11% of the total inventory and 11% of the backlog
Vietnam claims make up 37% of the total inventory and 38% of the backlog
Korean War claims make 4% of the total inventory and 4% of the backlog
World War II claims make up 3% of the total inventory and 3% of the backlog
Other era claims make up 1% of the total inventory and 1% of the backlog

Original vs. Supplemental Claims
VA’s current Inventory of compensation claims contains both "original" claims—those submitted by Veterans of all eras who are claiming disability compensation from VA for the first time, and “supplemental” claims—those submitted by Veterans of all eras who have previously filed for disability compensation with VA. Below is a breakout of the original and supplemental claims in the current VA inventory:

60% of pending claims are supplemental, 40% are original.
77% of Veterans filing supplemental claims are receiving some level of monetary benefit from VA.
11% of Veterans filing supplemental claims already have a 100% disability rating (receive $2800 or more per month) or qualify for Individual Unemployability (compensated at the 100% disabled rate).
40% of Veterans filing supplemental claims are already rated at 50% disability or higher. 43% of supplemental claims are from Vietnam-era Veterans; 19% are from Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
There are 3.9 million Veterans of all eras who are currently in receipt of disability benefits from VA. Of those, 10% have a supplemental claim in the pending compensation inventory. In fiscal year 2012, VA delivered $54 billion in compensation and pension benefits.

The VBA's Office of Performance Analysis and Integrity is responsible for compiling these spreadsheets. Questions or comments should be e-mailed to VBA's Office of Field Operations which is responsible for regional office management.


There was a backlog of claims already but the rules were changed to help Vietnam veterans and they were encouraged to file claims previously denied for Agent Orange and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. As you can see, the claims backlog was already at this rate without doing the right thing for Vietnam veterans.

Stewart seems to think he is doing some good by focusing on the problem that is leaving veterans and their families suffering but unfortunately, while he may have thought it was a good thing to do, making fun of a serious issue like this did no one any service but Stewart.

We should feel grateful that he is at least talking about this but unless the public is informed on what is really going on and how long it has been happening, we will repeat the same mistakes years from now.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Senior VA executives won't get bonus money after all!

No performance bonuses for Veterans Benefits Administration senior executives
By Leo Shane III
Stars and Stripes
Published: April 26, 2013
27 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — Senior executives from the Veterans Benefits Administration will not receive any performance bonus awards for fiscal 2012 because of lingering problems with the veterans claims backlog, department officials confirmed Friday.

A VA spokesperson said department leaders remain confident that those senior executives are “dedicated to our nation’s veterans,” but the money set aside for those awards would be reinvested in efforts to fix the backlog.

Department leaders reiterated their goal of zeroing out the backlog over the next two years.
read more here

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Vietnam "burn pit" veteran wins appeal after reporter took action

Vietnam veteran to get his benefits
VA rules on appeal after more than two years
Paul Muschick
The Watchdog
April 6, 2013

I've shown repeatedly how the Department of Veterans Affairs doesn't move swiftly to process veterans' claims for benefits. Maybe veterans would accept that pace if they knew the agency made up for it with accuracy.

Vietnam veteran Matthew Ford had been waiting an inexcusable two years and seven months on his latest appeal for disability benefits when I wrote about his case three weeks ago.

Eight days after that column, the agency granted Ford his benefits, saying a previous denial was "legally erroneous."

"Why didn't you guys catch this in the first place?" said a frustrated Ford, who had been seeking benefits since 1995 for breathing problems he contended were the result of his Army service.

The VA had ruled against him several times. Each time he appealed, and each time his claim was remanded, keeping it alive. That led to his most recent appeal in 2010, which had been languishing without explanation.

The wait ended March 25 when the Board of Veterans' Appeals ruled in his favor.

Veterans law Judge Jeffrey Parker said a previous board decision in 2010 that denied Ford benefits for bronchial asthma "was clearly and unmistakably erroneous."

Parker said the board improperly discredited the opinions of Ford's private physicians, who said his lungs could have been damaged when he burned human waste with gasoline in a camp cleanup detail in Vietnam in 1970.

"They were not supposed to rely on their own VA doctor," said Ford, of Hanover Township, Northampton County. "That is the law, and that is what they did."

Why it took the Board of Veterans' Appeals so long to decide his appeal is one of those Washington mysteries. For five months, his case was unaccounted for somewhere in the system.
read more here

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Department of Veterans Affairs should draft temps

Department of Veterans Affairs should draft temps
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
March 30, 2013

The claims backlog problem didn't start last month or last year, but started a long time ago. It got worse because as Afghanistan and Iraq were creating more and more disabled veterans, older veterans who were waiting for far too many years joined them after their claims had been denied.

This isn't from this year but from August 2008.
More than half of wounded troops slipping through the cracks
"The VA needs aggressive, pro-veteran leaders, for more additional funding for staff, office space and for screening and treatment equipment," said Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense. "The VA needs more streamlined policies so that veterans don't need to fill out a 20 page form in order to get care."

Sullivan said his organization decided to file suit when it became clear the agency wouldn't take action on its own. Before helping to found Veterans for Common Sense, Sullivan monitored disability claims for the VA. In 2006, he resigned in protest.

"In 2005, while working at VA, I briefed senior VA political leaders that VA was in a crisis of a surge of disability claims of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans," he said. "I recommended in writing that the VA hire more claims processors to make sure the veterans get their benefits faster instead of facing six month delays or even longer."

"The VA didn't do anything to help the veterans. What the VA actually did was several things to lock the doors and block veterans from getting mental health assistance from VA," Sullivan added.

There is a lot more that has been going on for a very long time.
Stressed soldiers sue for disability benefits
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Soldiers: Army denied them disability rating, so they were denied benefits
Lawsuit filed by veterans advocacy group on behalf of vets with PTSD
In October, Army ordered all future PTSD sufferers to be eligible for benefits
Soldiers want eligibility to go back six years

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Army intentionally denied benefits to soldiers suffering from a widespread stress disorder after they returned from service in Iraq and Afghanistan, a veterans advocacy group charges in a suit filed Wednesday.

The lawsuit, filed by the National Veterans Legal Services Program, accuses the Army of illegally cutting off benefits to thousands of veterans and their families by refusing to assign a proper disability rating to those veterans after they had been discharged with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

As a result, the veterans have been denied benefits, including, among other things, lifetime monthly disability payments and free medical care for themselves and their families.

"I experience firsthand the horrors of war" said Juan Perez, an Iraq veteran and one of five plaintiffs in the lawsuit. "My expectation was that the military would be there for me, and my country would be there for me. Instead, the way I was treated felt more like a slap to the face."
There was also this report when President Bush's Administration fought a lawsuit to get veterans the care they needed.
During an interview given in November for the original CBS story, Dr. Katz told reporter Armen Keteyian that "There is no epidemic in suicide in the VA, but suicide is a major problem." When pressed for an answer to explain the VA's inability to come up with any suicide statistics among veterans, Katz replied "That research is ongoing."

However, "After a public records request, the VA provided CBS News with data that showed there were a total of 790 attempted suicides by VA patients in the entire year of 2007." This number does not match up at all with a private email sent by Dr. Katz to a colleague in which he states that the VA has identified "about 1000 suicide attempts a month in patients we see at are medical facilities," a far cry from his public estimate of 790 a year.

So how to we fix the backlog and take some extra stress off of PTSD veterans and other disabled vetearns? Draft and Army of temps to get things moving.

During a conference in Orlando a couple of years ago a VA representative stated that it takes two years to train a claims processor. We don't have two years. Some say that temps can't deal with the sensitive data of veterans. I think they are wrong.

One of the temp jobs I had was for a social services organizations to help them transfer data from one program that didn't work with the new one. All the data had to entered in for millions of files. The agency hired 20 of us to work as temps and get them caught up freeing the other employees to keep the flow going so that people didn't have to wait for it to get done.

The key is, we were fast and accurate. They tested us to see how well we did before they hired us on. Very few mistakes were made and we were able to get the data in weeks ahead of what they originally thought it would take.

We had sensitive information but were removed from the subjects we were entering the data for. It was straight out data with no emotional connection to the cases.

The DOD and the VA have programs that do not work together. There are not enough claims processors and it will take too long to get them trained and ready to go. Instead of making veterans wait, they should take the files that need to be transferred and get temps to get the job done.

That will free the processors up so they can work on the claims instead of doing the task of entering information. Keep the temps on until the backlog is cleared up and hire the good ones. It sure will cost a lot less than hiring a contractor to do it and then being faced with data breaches and delays. Veterans have waited far too long while one hand of the VA is trying to make up for mistakes of the past and the other is trying to figure out how to get today done.

This is from a Vietnam veteran talking about his county Veterans Service Officer and the debate about replacing a retiring officer.

I served my country during the Viet Nam conflict. In 1997, I had a heart attack. In 2009, I had another heart attack. My hearing is not good. When I heard about Nellie, I went to see her. She helped me sign up at the VA, which was one of the best things to happen to me. I received hearing aids from the VA. I also found out my heart problems are caused by Agent Orange. I was set at 60 percent disabled and receive compensation from the VA. In January of this year, I had double bypass surgery. Nellie helped me file another form and now my disability has been raised to 100 percent.

Backlog at a 20th century Veterans Administration

Backlog at a 20th century Veterans Administration
MSNBC
Jack Jacobs
03/29/2013

It has been more than two decades since the Veterans Administration was elevated to a cabinet department. But its dreary public image endures and not without reason: veterans wait a staggering average of nine months for their disability claims to be processed and the delay gets longer all the time.

In a stark departure from how he has operated until now, Secretary Eric Shinseki, who oversees the administration, is seeking to change the public perception. I interviewed him on March 27th during his visit to a veterans’ jobs fair in New York City.

Shinseki, a retired Army general, was twice wounded in Vietnam. As Army chief of staff, he incurred the opprobrium of the Pentagon’s civilian leadership in 2003 by delivering news it didn’t want to hear: A large number of American troops would be required to secure Iraq once Saddam Hussein was deposed. So, although he is a shy, modest man, he’s not necessarily a shrinking violet.

Nevertheless, amid the inability of the VA to cope with the logjam of claims, Shinseki has not been much of a visible presence outside his department. Until now.

Shinseki’s main message for the public, and his critics, is that veterans who need medical care are enrolled for treatment right away. While the quality of care varies from hospital to hospital, and veterans in sparsely populated areas need to travel some distance to a facility, there seem to be no bureaucratic impediments to timely medical care.
read more here

My comment
Thank you for adding in what was done for Vietnam veterans in talking about the backlog, however, it would have been better if you also added in what was going on when troops were coming home wounded from two wars. Less workers for more claims and then there was this piece of news. "In 2000 the VA had 578,000 claims but went to 838,000 in 2008. That same year the VA was trying to do online claims. It was also later in the year of 879,291 in backlog including 148,000 Vietnam veterans who finally filed claims in 2007."

Friday, March 29, 2013

Support the troops? Then pay attention all the time!

Last night I put up an old post I found on the fact the Army Medical Corps had downsized to a lower rate than they had after the Gulf war when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were creating more wounded. Medical technology had caught up enough so that even some quadruple amputees survived. But was you can see there were still problems most people didn't know about.
As more wounded soldiers return from war, critics say staff shortages and turnover have affected the quality of health care at Army posts across the nation.

Overall, the Army’s Medical Corps has downsized significantly since the Persian Gulf War in the 1990s, dropping from 5,400 to 4,300 physicians and from 4,600 to 3,400 nurses.

According to the Department of Defense, more than 29,000 service members have been wounded in action in Iraq or Afghanistan in the last six years, compared with fewer than 500 in Operation Desert Storm.
I got upset with the Daily Show's Jon Stewart because while he was rightly paying attention to what is happening to our veterans today, it had been going on for a very long time.
Apr 24, 2008 “Since 2006, the number of claims has grown 15 percent. The amount of time it takes to make decisions on disability claims is two to three year. On an average, it takes four years to get an appeals decision.”
That is the biggest problem this nation has when they keep chanting "USA Support the Troops" when they want to but when they need to, they are just too busy doing something else.
According to the American Federation of Government Employees, the VA employed 1,392 Veterans Service Representatives in June 2007 compared to 1,516 in January 2003. But what would have happened if after the troops were being sent into a second war, the VA was prepared to take care of them with their claims as well as their wounds? Would older veterans have suffered even longer than they already had? Would it have helped to know all their years of fighting to make sure PTSD was treated for all veterans was worthy of their efforts?
“U.S. soldiers serving repeated Iraq deployments are 50 percent more likely than those with one tour to suffer from acute combat stress, raising their risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Army's first survey exploring how today's multiple war-zone rotations affect soldiers' mental health.” (Repeat Iraq Tours Raise Risk of PTSD Army Finds, Washington Post, Ann Scott Tyson, December 20, 2006)
The VA's mental-health experts started pushing for specialized PTSD programs in all medical centers in the 1980s. Top VA officials agreed "in concept" that it would be a good idea. But in 2005 and 2006, despite telling Congress that it was setting aside an additional $300 million for expanding mental-health services, such as PTSD programs, the VA didn't get around to spending $54 million of that, according to the Government Accountability Office.”
• Despite a decade-long effort to treat veterans at all VA locations, nearly 100 local VA clinics provided virtually no mental-health care in 2005.
• Mental-health care is wildly inconsistent from state to state. In some places, veterans receive individual psychotherapy sessions. In others, they meet mostly for group therapy. Some veterans are cared for by psychiatrists; others see social workers.
• The lack of adequate psychiatric care strikes hard in the western and rural states that have supplied a disproportionate share of the soldiers in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — often because of their large contingents of National Guard and Army Reserves.
Moreover, the return of so many veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan is squeezing the VA's ability to treat yesterday's soldiers from Vietnam, Korea and World War II.
"We can't do both jobs at once within current resources," a committee of VA experts wrote in a 2006 report, saying it was concerned about the absence of specialized PTSD care in many areas and the decline in the number of PTSD visits veterans receive. (McClatchy 2007)

Department of Veteran Affairs promising to beef up its mental health services in response. Veterans of previous conflicts continue to have problems as well, and the VA has estimated that a total of 5000 suicides among veterans can be expected this year.
However, CBS News has now completed a five-month study of death records for 2004-05 which shows that the actual figures are "much higher" than those reported by the VA. Across the total US veteran population of 25 million, CBS found that suicide rates were more than twice as high as for non-veterans according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide accounted for 32,439 deaths in 2004. (Stunning Veterans Suicide Rate, David Edwards, Muriel Kane, CBS, November 13, 2007)
But that same year officials in the Department of Veterans Affairs spent $2.6 billion on their credit cards as reported by the Associated Press Hope Yen. What did they spend the money on? $3.1 million purchases including casinos, high price hotels, movie tickets, and high end stores.

By 2008 another $2.7 million was handed over to a contractor to make phone calls. Yep~phone calls! 570,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were supposed to be called to find out why they hadn’t gone to the VA.

“The first calls will go to about 17,000 veterans who were sick or injured while serving in the wars. If they don’t have a care manager, the VA says they will be given one.

The next round of calls will target 555,000 veterans from the wars who have been discharged from active duty, but have not reached out to the VA for services. For five years after their discharge from the military, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have access to health care at the VA. The effort will cost about $2.7 million and will be handled by a government contractor.

The agency has faced complaints that a backlog in claims and bureaucratic hurdles have prevented some recent veterans from getting proper mental and physical care. Earlier this week, two Democratic senators accused the VA’s top mental health official of trying to cover up the number of veteran suicides and said he should resign.” (VA to call Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, Associated Press, April 24, 2008)
As for the reports on military and veterans committing suicide, hope of actually doing something eroded when the media refused to correct their published numbers. If they can't even get that right, and the public doesn't spend their time tracking news reports, nothing will change and when the next round of Congress takes their chairs, when the next Administration takes the Oval Office, the men and women risking their lives will face more and more suffering and some other TV personality will be complaining about what hasn't happened. The ugly truth is, they are paying the price for their service no matter who is in the chair.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

VA’s appalling failures not recent

VA’s appalling failures not recent
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
The Picayune Item
March 27, 2013
STARKVILLE, Miss. — While recent national press attention to ongoing problems at Mississippi’s G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery Veterans Administration Medical Center in Jackson is welcome and needed, the failures of the overall VA service apparatus in Mississippi are not recent problems.

In short, former U.S. Rep. Sonny Montgomery — Mississippi’s “Mr. Veteran” and author of the modern G.I. Bill that bears his name — must be spinning in his grave. There have been significant failures and poor service to veterans documented by state and local media since 2008.

This month, the New York Times focused a national spotlight on complaints from five federal whistleblowers who accused the Jackson VA of missed diagnoses of fatal illnesses, improper sterilization of medical instruments and, in some cases, criminal conduct.

The newspaper article documented alleged abuses going back to 2009 and VA investigations and reports based on those allegations. In addition, the federal Office of the Special Counsel documented allegations that VA managers instructed public affairs employees to tell the press that “no violations were found to have occurred.”

On June 2, 2008, I wrote a lengthy news story for the Clarion-Ledger outlining the claims of a Mississippi whistleblower that brought to light improper benefit denials and poor service to veterans at the VA’s Jackson Regional Office.

In that report, I uncovered documents that showed that that claims for Mississippi’s then-233,888 military veterans — including Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans — weren’t being processed in a timely manner. Those claims led to a VA and congressional investigation.

The information documented that in April 2008, claims at the U.S. Veterans Affairs’ Jackson Regional Office were processed 53 percent slower than the national and regional average. That included claims from combat veterans seeking help for combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder.

read more here
Sid Salter is right. It is not new and last night I was watching the Daily Show as Jon Stewart got angry about all of this but I left this comment about what had been happening.

VA assistant secretary blames others
I track all these reports and last night I was glad it was covered but wow are you wrong. The number of VA Service Reps was 1,516 in January of 2003 but in 2007 there were only 1,392. In 2000 the VA had 578,000 claims but went to 838,000 in 2008. That same year the VA was trying to do online claims. It was also later in the year of 879,291 in backlog including 148,000 Vietnam veterans who finally filed claims in 2007. That same year, the a defense contractor was given a contract for $2.7 million to make 555,000 phone calls to veterans to find out why they had not gone to the VA. Obama changed the rules for PTSD claims and Agent Orange Claims but with the mess that was there before, Congress didn't increase funding enough or hire enough staff to even catch up. Suicides are up and there are 900 DOD suicide prevention programs congress finds the money for but they are not working. RAND took a look among other researchers and found why they failed but DOD won't listen.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

VA Assistant Sec. Tommy Sowers blames others

UPDATE
March 28, 2013
Last night Jon Stewart of the Daily Show showed how angry he is over what is happening to our veterans coming home from Afghanistan joining the line of Iraq veterans. I like to watch the Daily Show before I finally go to sleep. Last night was not one of the nights when he got my mind off what I do all day long. I was too angry. Not angry about what usually gets my blood boiling. I was angry over Stewart forgetting how bad it has always been for our veterans.

I left the Daily Show this comment
I track all these reports and last night I was glad it was covered but wow are you wrong. The number of VA Service Reps was 1,516 in January of 2003 but in 2007 there were only 1,392. In 2000 the VA had 578,000 claims but went to 838,000 in 2008. That same year the VA was trying to do online claims. It was also later in the year of 879,291 in backlog including 148,000 Vietnam veterans who finally filed claims in 2007. That same year, the a defense contractor was given a contract for $2.7 million to make 555,000 phone calls to veterans to find out why they had not gone to the VA. Obama changed the rules for PTSD claims and Agent Orange Claims but with the mess that was there before, Congress didn't increase funding enough or hire enough staff to even catch up. Suicides are up and there are 900 DOD suicide prevention programs congress finds the money for but they are not working. RAND took a look among other researchers and found why they failed but DOD won't listen.
You should be angry at what is going on, but we've been angry all along.


If you doubt he is telling the truth, then you need to read what happened in 2008.
Veterans Affairs lauds technology, blames predecessors for 2-year claim wait
Jane C. Timm
9:35 AM on 03/27/2013

Veterans Affairs’ Assistant Secretary Tommy Sowers blamed the previous Veterans Affairs administration for the recently revealed 700-day wait that many veterans face when claiming disability.

The crux of the problem, Sowers said, is that they inherited an inefficient, paper-based claims system.

“Why are we still using paper in 2013?” Morning Joe‘s Mike Barnicle asked.
“Why in 2009 were we still using paper?” Sowers fired back. “When we came in, there was no plan to change that; we’ve been operating on a six month wait for over a decade.”

The wait now tops 600 days in many places.
read more here
Buried under backlogs
By GREGG CARLSTROM
February 25, 2008

At the start of the Bush administration in 2001, VA had more than 400,000 pending claims for disability ratings, which determine a service-disabled veteran’s employability and disability benefits. The department made progress reducing that number: By 2003, the backlog was down to around 250,000.

But then the nation went to war.

“VA was kind of cruising right along with a certain volume of claims until the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Then the volume of claims increased,” said Belinda Finn, VA’s assistant inspector general for auditing. “We still had the same processes for handling a lower workload, and the system just hasn’t been able to handle the increase in claims.”

And so the backlog started creeping up. By 2008, VA once again has more than 400,000 pending claims for a disability rating. About 25 percent of those are officially considered backlogged, meaning they have been pending longer than six months.

“The number of claims that we receive each year has been going up pretty steadily,” said Michael Walcoff, VA’s associate deputy undersecretary for field operations. “In 2000, we got 578,000 claims, and last year got 838,000.
Apr 24, 2008 “Since 2006, the number of claims has grown 15 percent. The amount of time it takes to make decisions on disability claims is two to three year. On an average, it takes four years to get an appeals decision.”
Pilot Program to Cut Red Tape for Veterans' Disability Claims
VA Launches Pilot Program to Cut Red Tape for Veterans' Disability Claims
KWTX Channel 10 (Texas)
June 13, 2008 - The Texas Veterans Commission will assist the Department of Veterans Affairs Waco Regional Office in a pilot program aimed at faster processing of disability claims, the state Veterans Commission announced Friday.
The Waco VA Regional Office and the TVC was selected for the pilot program because “they are well known for working together with exceptional effectiveness,” the TVC said in a press release Friday.
Veterans counselors from TVC will use their unique understanding of VA claims processes to assist veterans in more quickly obtaining the evidence needed to support their claims,” said Acting Under Secretary for Benefits Patrick W. Dunne.
June 22, 2008
VA reported 879,291 claims were in backlog
June 22
Increased VA budget to quicken disability claims
BILL SMITH VIEWS ON VETERANS
THE HOUSE OF Representatives and the U.S. Senate approved legislation in March that would increase the VA budget by $3.2 billion, which is more than what the Administration offered in February. According to the June issue of DAV magazine, this move could set the VA’s total budget at $93.6 billion for 2009, indicating a $5.22 billion increase from this year. The two bills, H. Con. Res. 312 in the House and S. Con Res. 70 in the Senate, passed March 13 and 14 respectively.
From comments in the June issue of the VFW magazine: “The $3.2 billion increase is in line with the veterans health care recommendations that were laid out in the Independent Budget,” said Dennis M. Cullinan, director, National Legislative Service, Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, when referring to a budget developed by the VFW, Paralyzed Veterans of America, AMVETS and Disabled Veterans. “Both the Senate and House versions reject the proposed co-payment and fee increases, which the VFW strongly opposes.”
July 16, 2008
VA Announces On-Line Claims Applications
Wonder if this has anything to do with Lockheed Martin messing up the claims process? That just made the news yesterday.

VA Announces On-Line Claims Applications
WASHINGTON (July 16, 2008) - The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced today that on-line applications are now accepted from veterans, survivors and other claimants filing initial applications for disability compensation, pension, education, and vocational rehabilitation and employment benefits without the additional requirement to submit a signed paper copy of the application.
Effective immediately, VA will now process applications received through its on-line application website (VONAPP) without the claimant's signature. The electronic application will be sufficient authentication of the claimant's application for benefits. Normal development procedures and rules of evidence will still apply to all VONAPP applications.
All of this led to this
House passes 8 veterans’ benefits bills
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jul 30, 2008 17:26:37 EDT
Veterans with disabilities clearly connected to military service, such as amputated limbs as a result of combat wounds, would get speedy approval of claims to receive veterans’ benefits under a bill approved Wednesday by the House.
The Disability Claims Modernization Act, sponsored by Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y., is one of eight veteran-related bills that the House of Representatives rushed to pass before leaving town for a summer break that will stretch into early September and feature a lot of campaigning by lawmakers seeking re-election as well as the Democratic and Republican presidential nominating conventions.

Lockheed Martin mistakes caused $20 million in benefits errors to disabled veterans, Kucinich says
By Stephen Koff, Plain Dealer Washington Bureau Chief
on October 23, 2008
WASHINGTON -- A federal contractor's mistakes have caused $20 million in errors affecting severely disabled military veterans, according to U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
It's too early to tell how much of that represents money denied to severely disabled veterans, compared with excessive payments that the government made to veterans who should not have qualified for as much.
But according to Kucinich, citing an audit by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, between 1,782 and 1,985 severely disabled veterans were wrongly denied a payment, while as many as 2,514 such veterans received inaccurate payments. This only includes payments exceeding $2,500, since smaller ones are not part of the DFAS review.
In terms of the number of veterans involved, this means the contractor, Lockheed Martin, "mis-computed and mishandled the VA Retro pay awards of the equivalent of a whole combat brigade," Kucinich said Wednesday.
If you read Wounded Times you get the news like the above without the political bull. You can know the facts. If you subscribe, you get it all first.  Remember it is free!

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

More bad news for veterans, thanks to Congress

VA backlog continues to mount; no clear solutions in sight
By Leo Shane III
Stars and Stripes
Published: February 26, 2013

WASHINGTON — VA Secretary Eric Shinseki pledged Tuesday that his department will make progress toward ending the benefits backlog this year. House and Senate leaders promised to tackle the issue in upcoming hearings. Veterans groups are lobbying lawmakers this week on the depth of the problem.

But exactly how anyone can fix the mounting headache remains unclear.

As of last week, the benefits backlog – the number of claims pending for more than 125 days – sat above 600,000 cases, up about 7 percent from a year ago. The average claim takes about 270 days to process.

Department officials have offered a host of solutions over the last year, but have no positive trend to show for it. More claims adjusters, different processing methods and closer coordination with veterans groups have yet to pull down the overdue case numbers.
read more here

VA protected from sequester cuts, but veterans will feel the pain
By Leo Shane III
Stars and Stripes
Published: February 26, 2013

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs will be spared when sequestration hits March 1.

But veterans will not.

Despite assurances that veterans benefits and services will be exempt from the budget cuts, veterans and their families will share the suffering along with military counterparts. The result could mean more homeless veterans, less help for those looking for work, and tens of thousands of furloughed veteran struggling to make ends meet.

“There’s a very large concern about the secondary effects (of sequestration) on veterans programs nationwide,” said Joe Davis, spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “We still don’t know all the ways veterans might be hurt.”

VA programs and payouts are exempt from the mandated spending cuts. White House and department officials have promised that that disability benefits, veterans education funds and health care services will continue uninterrupted.
read more here

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Congressman Miller face the facts on veterans

Congressman Miller face the facts on veterans
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
February 9, 2013

Congressman Miller, face the facts and then you'll be able to do something for the veterans. This is not a new problem for our veterans. It is an old one no one did much about.

In 2007 we had to deal with this. Neglect? The VA's current backlog is 800,000 cases
And then by December of 2007, there were these reports.
The agency’s new plan to hire at least 150 new appeals judges to whittle down the backlog, which has soared to 755,000 from 311,000 in 2000, will require $100 million more than the president requested this year and still more in the future. The plan has been delayed by the standoff between Congress and the White House over domestic appropriations.
148,000 Vietnam Vets sought help in last 18 months
Followed by this one.
VBA's pending compensation and claims backlog stood at 816,211 as of January 2008,
Followed by this one
VA reported 879,291 claims were in backlog
And ending 2008 with this one.
806,000 Veterans backlog claims listed
And then this
VA Claim backlog hit 915,000 on May 4, 2009
As you can see, none of this is new. While it would have been easy to just deal with the backlog of cases and ignore the veterans left behind from Vietnam, the rules were changed to try to do the right thing even though it meant the challenge would be greater especially when Congress did not do their job and make sure the funding and staffing were all in place.
The backlog has been exacerbated by the administration’s 2010 decision to accept 260,000 previously denied and new claims associated with Agent Orange exposure.


As advocates like me were pushing for veterans to get help with PTSD, more filed claims and an increase in wounded coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan greeted by a Congress not taking action to make sure they were cared for.

Now that all that is out of the way perhaps it will be a good time to stop blaming this administration and do the right thing for veterans.

There are 1.7 million veterans here in Florida and most of them are waiting for Congress to do the right thing. They suffer and wait while Congress holds hearings on the problems but don't seem to interested in holding hearings on what works, what is already in place and how to expand on the good. Congressman Filner was not interested in deploying older veterans and their spouses to help the newer generation living with PTSD and we saw them suffer the way we did. Any idea what all of this does to whole families? Do you know all the stress adds to the ravages of PTSD, suicides, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence and homelessness?

House Veterans' Affairs chair wants to cut VA claims backlog
Feb 9, 2013
Written by
Ledyard King
Democrat Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Republican Rep. Jeff Miller, the Pensacola-area Republican who chairs the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, wants to speed up the time it takes to process veterans’ disability claims.

It’s one of two main priorities Miller outlined in an interview Wednesday in his Capitol Hill Office. The other is providing veterans greater access to mental health services, possibly by allowing them to access the TRICARE system that serves active-duty military personnel.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has set a goal that, by 2015, no disability compensation claim will take more than 125 days to fully process and that 98 percent will be accurate. As of August, it took an average 260 days to process each claim, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office.

That’s up from 161 days in 2009. The accuracy rate is currently about 85 percent, according to Miller’s office.

One million service members are expected to become veterans within the next five years, further straining the agency’s capabilities.

The GAO called the VA’s ability to process claims in a timely manner “a daunting challenge.”

Some 1.7 million veterans live in Florida.

The agency processes about 1 million disability benefits claims nationally a year, but there’s another 1 million they can’t get to, said Miller of Chumuckla.
read more here


With all due respect, it is time to learn the facts before you doom veterans to mistakes repeated.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Veterans in Maryland seeking disability benefits can face a perilous wait

Veterans in Maryland seeking disability benefits can face a perilous wait
Washington Post
By Steve Vogel
February 03, 2013

BALTIMORE — Veterans across Maryland who have filed disability claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Baltimore office may wait more than a year for a decision and even then face a 25 percent chance that their claims will be mishandled, according to agency figures.

Nationally, the system is struggling with a backlog of more than 900,000 claims, the result of a sharp increase in filings by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as well as by older generations. The Baltimore regional office’s performance is among the nation’s worst, with claims filed by veterans seeking disability compensation pending 429 days on average, six times VA’s goal of 70 days, and 162 days longer than the national average.
read more here

Friday, July 20, 2012

Texas to create 'strike force team' to reduce VA benefit claims backlog

Texas to create 'strike force team' to reduce VA benefit claims backlog
By Jeremy Schwartz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, July 19, 2012

Three days after officials detailed massive backlogs of disability claims for Texas veterans, state leaders on Thursday authorized the creation of a special team of counselors to help the Department of Veteran Affairs reduce the number of pending claims.

It wasn't immediately clear how much money officials would put toward the "State Strike Force Team," but a spokeswoman with the Texas Veterans Commission said the team would probably be similar to one created in 2009 that reduced pending claims by about 17,000.

That $400,000 effort utilized about a dozen counselors over several months.

On Monday, veterans commission officials revealed that the number of pending claims in Texas had doubled since 2010 and now sits at 107,279 claims.

More than 75 percent of those claims in Texas have been idling for more than 125 days, a higher rate than the national average of 66 percent.
read more here

$2.5 million in Texas Lottery proceeds to benefit veterans

All states do not treat this nation's veterans the same

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Issa says "Decades-old VA claims backlog inexcusable" so what's his excuse?

UPDATE
Last night I was mulling this over and remembered something that Issa didn't seem to understand along with the history of claim backlogs.

Obama: New PTSD rules 'long overdue step'
July 09, 2010
By the CNN Wire Staff

The Department of Veterans Affairs is making it easier for veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder to get benefits, a development President Barack Obama calls a "long overdue step."

In his weekly address Saturday, Obama said Veterans Affairs will launch new rules for easing PTSD documentation requirements starting next week.

Current department rules require veterans to document events like firefights or bomb explosions that could have caused the disorder. Such documentation was often time-consuming and difficult, and sometimes was impossible.
read more here

or this
VA Starts Paying New Agent Orange Claims
November 04, 2010
Terry Howell

On November 1, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced that they had begun distributing disability benefits to Vietnam Veterans who qualify for compensation under new expanded Agent Orange exposure rules.
This means that up to 200,000 Vietnam Veterans may now be eligible to receive VA disability compensation for medical conditions recently associated with Agent Orange.

The expansion of coverage involves B-cell (or hairy-cell) leukemia, Parkinson’s disease and ischemic heart disease.

According to the VA it will likely take several months for them to begin paying the initial payments or increases to existing payments. As reported on Military.com in March of this year, it is very important for those who were exposed to Agent Orange and suffer from one of the three diseases to submit their claims as soon as possible.
read more here


Why wouldn't he mention these? Simple. At the same time President Obama and his team were trying to do something good to help veterans, Congressmen like him were saying "cut the deficit" so they were not hiring people to handle all of these expanded claims to be processed.

Gee, does Issa remember a thing like this?
Jan. 11: Victory for Veterans - Judge Rules in Favor of VCS in Case Against VA
Veterans for Common Sense
Jan 11, 2008

January 10, 2008, Washington, DC – The U.S. District Court in San Francisco today handed an enormous victory to veterans who sued the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) over lengthy delays for medical care and disability benefits. The Judge’s ruling means our class action lawsuit against VA will move forward, with the first court hearing scheduled for next month.

“We won this round against VA. Veterans will have our day in court. The VA must now release documents under discovery about their deliberate attempts to deny and delay medical care and disability benefits for all veterans, especially our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans,” said Paul Sullivan, the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense (VCS), the lead plaintiff organization that filed suit against VA.

On July 23, 2007, VCS and Veterans United for Truth (VUFT) filed a class action lawsuit against VA in order to force VA to provide prompt and high-quality medical care and disability benefits to veterans, especially those with mental health conditions such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). “Our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are committing suicide while waiting for VA to answer their pleas for medical care. VA must make sure all our veterans receive prompt and high-quality medical care and disability benefits. The long waits at VA must end,” added Sullivan.
go here for the rest

That's the problem with politicians forgetting a thing called an archive because things like this are in it just like this one.
President Bush's VA Budget is $3 Billion Short

Vietnam Veterans of America: President Bush's VA Budget is $3 Billion Short
February 13, 2008 - "The annual exercise of debating the merits of the President's proposed budget is flawed," said John Rowan, National President of Vietnam Veterans of America, before the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. "Medical Center directors should not be held in limbo as Congress adjusts this budget and misses, yet again, the start of the fiscal year.


I could go on posting even more but I think you get the idea. While veterans were coming home screaming for help, people like Issa didn't even care it was happening.

Rep.: Decades-old VA claims backlog inexcusable

By Rick Maze
Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jul 18, 2012

The Veterans Affairs Department announced Wednesday that almost 1.7 million people are using its online eBenefits information system — but that wasn’t sufficient to ward off continuing complaints from Congress about the backlog of claims.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Investigations Committee, said the average 188-day wait for a claim to be processed and an error rate of 16 percent on claims decisions are unacceptable.

But he doesn’t blame the Obama administration for the problem. “The system was broken in the Vietnam War when I enlisted, and it was never fixed,” said Issa, who joined the Army as a senior in high school, and later became an officer as a result of an ROTC scholarship.

Issa, who said he has no service-connected disability and has never filed a claim, said veterans are weary of promises with no results. “VA continues to claim it will get better, but they have not gotten better,” he said.
read more here

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

DAV and American Legion have concerns on claims scanning

Official: VA Would Need Staff of 4,000 to Scan All Its Backlogged Benefit Records
By Bob Brewin
Nextgov.com
Updated: June 19, 2012


Jeffrey Hall, assistant national legislative director for Disabled American Veterans, said “NARA's decision to stop performing this work caught [the Veterans Benefits Administration] somewhat by surprise.”


The Veterans Affairs Department would have to employ 4,000 more workers in order to scan billions of pages of paper benefit claims, William Bosanko, a top executive at the National Archives and Records Administration, told a hearing of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

NARA has performed sophisticated scanning operations for the department at five sites for the past two years under contracts valued at $9.7 million, Bosanko told lawmakers at the hearing. The system NARA developed for VA not only scans documents, but also has been taught to recognize and compile data from 170 different forms the Veterans Benefits Administration uses, he said. VA’s contracts with NARA expires next week.

Bosanko said NARA has recommended VA seek help from the private sector for meeting its systemwide scanning requirements.

VA holds records on millions of veterans dating as far back as World War II. Bosanko estimated the department would have to scan 60 million pieces of paper a month so that records could be used with VA’s new paperless claims-processing system, the Veterans Benefits Management System -- a feat that would require a staff of 4,000. He did not say how long the process could take.
read more here

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Veterans Face Ruin Awaiting Benefits As Wounded Swamp VA

UPDATE May 25, 2012
My two cents
After having lived with some of these same problems, it is heartbreaking to know so little has changed. My husband didn't want help from the VA when he got home from Vietnam. He wanted to work. He adopted his father's attitude that the VA was for "guys that couldn't work" especially the veterans missing arms and legs. No matter how hard I tried to get him to go to the VA, it took ten years from the time we met for him to go to a Veterans Center. The fight to have his claim approved took 6 years.

What veterans and their families go through is a pile of bills that cannot be paid getting higher as someone at the VA says, "Well once the claim is approved, you'll get all the money prorated" as if all the suffering means nothing.

First comes denial. The veteran says they don't need help. It isn't that bad. They just need time to get over it. As their family is falling apart, their job is in jeopardy, they begin to think they should get some help. They look at veterans living with physical wounds and think they don't deserve the same kind of help for their own wounds. A bullet wound leaves a visible scar but you can't see the whole damage done. A bomb blast leaves scars on the body but you can't see what lives beneath the flesh. PTSD and TBI can't be seen with your eyes. You have to see them with your heart and know the human you see lived through something you probably will never have to experience because they did it for you.

Then there is the stigma they don't want to face. They don't want the label they still don't understand. As claims are denied, they begin to think that whatever is going on inside of them is their fault and not because they survived combat. After all, the VA is there for them and if the VA is turning down their claims, well then, it has to be their fault. It is like a knife in their back.

Somehow they find the courage to file an appeal. They may even get some help from organizations like the DAV to help them with all the paperwork that has to be done exactly right. More time goes by, more damage done to their families and to them but still they find just enough hope to keep fighting for what they wouldn't need help with if they didn't serve. The world no longer makes sense to them. A lot of veterans end up homeless because of the stress placed on them and their families. Everyone is at the end of their endurance. A VA doctor told me many years ago for ever 10 veterans filing a claim, 8 drop out from frustration, but it also could be because they lose the support of family members and friends. None of this is good. Most of it makes PTSD worse and for a veteran with TBI they cannot fight alone. What are we if we cannot take care of our disabled veterans and stop putting them through more hell than they survived during combat?

Veterans Face Ruin Awaiting Benefits As Wounded Swamp VA
By William Selway
Bloomberg News
May 23, 2012

Rebecca Tews sat at her kitchen table in North Aurora, Illinois, stared into her laptop and tried to find a place for her family to live.

The 43-year-old psychologist spent seven years fighting for disability benefits for her husband, Duane Kozlowski, after he left the U.S. Army, unable to hold a job because of brain damage and post-traumatic stress. She borrowed $20,000 from her father’s and grandfather’s retirement accounts, stopped paying her student loans and ran up tens of thousands of dollars in bills for Duane’s tests and medical care.

While she eventually got the benefits, her credit is in ruins. This month, an eviction notice was taped to the door of her rented 5-bedroom home. She’s worried about finding a landlord willing to rent to her, Duane and five children.

“It’s basically been like a tornado,” she said of her struggle with the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department. “It’s wiped out our future. It’s wiped out our relationship with our extended family. It’s wiped everything out and we’re starting out again below ground.”

Tews and Kozlowski, 44, are among thousands of former soldiers and their families suffering the effects of a Veterans department overwhelmed by a decade of fighting overseas. With the Iraq war finished and troops returning from Afghanistan, record numbers of former service members are turning to the federal government for disability pay, adding to a backlog of claims and delays that have dogged the agency for years.
read more here

Thursday, January 26, 2012

557,460 wait more than 125 days for VA claims

VA sees 'paperless' claims as critical to ending backlog
By TOM PHILPOTT
Special to Stars and Stripes
Published: January 26, 2012
The only way to achieve VA Secretary Eric Shinseki’s goal for 2015 -- that every disability compensation claim gets processed within 125 days and with 98 percent accuracy -- is to shift to a paperless claims system. And that transformation has begun.

That was the testimony Tuesday by VA’s top claim processing official before the House veteran affairs’ subcommittee on disability assistance.

Tom Murphy, director of compensation service for the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), an agency for the Department of Veterans Affairs, acknowledged the claims backlog has grown in recent years.

Compensation and benefit claims pending at VA, as of Jan. 23, totaled 852,127 and 65 percent of them – 557,460 – had been filed by veterans more than 125 days ago, which means they are in “backlog” status.
read more here

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Veteran trapped in 800,000 paperwork backlog

Screaming doesn't help anymore. I wish I could say this horrible situation is new, but it isn't.

VA claims backlog ready to hit 1 million
The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jun 18, 2009 10:56:07 EDT
WASHINGTON — This isn’t the same as getting a free duffel bag for being the millionth person to go through the turnstiles: The Department of Veterans Affairs appears poised to have hit the 1 million milestone on claims it still hasn’t processed.

This unwelcome marker approaches as the agency scrambles to hire and train new claims processors, which can take two years. VA officials are working with the Pentagon under orders from President Barack Obama to create by 2012 a system that will allow the two agencies to electronically exchange records, a process now done manually on paper.

Meanwhile, veterans, some of whom were severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, continue to endure financial hardship while their claims are processed. They wait more than four months on average for a claim to be processed, and appealing a claim takes a year and a half on average.

Adding to the backlog are factors ranging from the complexity of processing mental health-related claims of Iraq veterans, to a change that made it easier for Vietnam veterans exposed to the Agent Orange herbicide to qualify for disability payments. The VA says it’s receiving about 13 percent more claims today than it did a year ago.

Obama: New PTSD rules long overdue step
July 09, 2010
By the CNN Wire Staff

The Department of Veterans Affairs is making it easier for veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder to get benefits, a development President Barack Obama calls a "long overdue step."

In his weekly address Saturday, Obama said Veterans Affairs will launch new rules for easing PTSD documentation requirements starting next week.

Current department rules require veterans to document events like firefights or bomb explosions that could have caused the disorder. Such documentation was often time-consuming and difficult, and sometimes was impossible.
When Agent Orange and PTSD claims were made easier to file, the staff already processing claims was overloaded. New hires were made but it takes two years of training for them to be ready to know what they are doing, so processing was slowed down.

On Friday at a DAV conference in Lake Mary Florida, I sat listening to VA employees talking about the flood of claims they have been facing. I wanted to scream when I heard that as older VA workers retire, they cannot hire new ones to replace them.

Why at a time when the government is trying to honor and return dignity to our disabled veterans?

GOP wants to impose hiring freeze on non-security federal workforce

By Ed O'Keefe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 24, 2010
House Republicans want to stop hiring federal employees not working on defense, homeland security or veterans concerns, a proposal long anticipated by federal worker unions and supportive Democrats.

GOP lawmakers pledged Thursday to "impose a net hiring freeze on non-security federal employees and ensure the public sector no longer grows at the expense of the private sector." The proposal is part of the 21-page "Pledge to America," a set of proposals to cut government spending, reform Congress and repeal President Obama's health-care reform legislation.

Although Republican lawmakers have targeted the federal workforce this year in separate proposals, the "Pledge" nationalizes the idea of curtailing the federal workforce and makes it likely that some Republican congressional candidates will talk up the idea as Election Day nears.

While cutting payrolls may have sounded good at the time coupled with talking about taking care of our veterans, this doomed every effort made to get there. No one can honestly say that denying a suffering Vietnam Veteran compensation from Agent Orange exposure is a good way to save money any more than they can say denying claims for PTSD is the right thing to do. Honoring the veterans in this country should never be a budget matter open to debate blowing with the party in control. When Tea Party Republicans shout about government spending, do they think about the troops or veterans?

Most of the bills meant to do the right thing for veterans were done between 2008 and 2010 with Republicans voting along with Democrats to pass them but then they turned around and decided that while they voted for them, they would not fund them or increase staff to take care of claims flooding in to an already overloaded system.

When my husband came home from Vietnam in 1971, PTSD was hitching a ride. He finally went to the VA in 1993 and filed a claim. It took six years of hell waiting for the government to do the right thing over a paperwork error. I can tell you that those years were nearly impossible to get through with bills to pay and trying to keep a roof over our heads. My Mom helped as much as she could but there are many families out there unable or unwilling to help. Does anyone care what happens to the veteran and his/her family while they are waiting for their claim to be approved?

The fact remains they were there when they were called on. They didn't say to the nation we had to wait for them so why does the nation say to them they have to wait for us to do the right thing after they were injured for our sake?
Veteran trapped, like many, in paperwork backlog
By Tony Leys, The Des Moines Register


GREENFIELD, Iowa — Joel Klobnak still looks like a proud Marine — from his buzz-cut hair down to the red-white-and-blue prosthetic that replaced the leg he lost in Iraq in 2006.

But he feels forgotten.

The Department of Veterans Affairs slashed his disability pay two years ago over what he says was a misunderstanding. The former Marine is trying to support a family of four on $1,557 a month while he waits to hear whether the government will reinstate full disability pay for his gruesome injury and the mental anguish that accompanied it.

His appeal is trapped in a paperwork backlog that is delaying payments to injured veterans across the country.

Government doctors determined that he couldn't work because of the pain in his leg and the post-traumatic stress disorder that troubled his mind. The determination entitled him to full disability payments, which amounted to $3,103 a month. But in April 2009, he received a letter telling him his payments were being halved because he missed an appointment with a VA doctor.

A national expert said Klobnak's frustrations are the norm. Richard Cohen, executive director of the National Organization of Veterans' Advocates, said the VA has a backlog of 800,000 initial disability claims and 200,000 appeals.
read more here
Veteran trapped in paperwork backlog



Unless congress manages to actually take care of our veterans today, this is about to get a whole lot worse with more and more coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan wounded for our sake and suffering for the sake of politicians flexing their misdirected values.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

"Innovation Competition" Begins at Veterans Affairs

Recent VA News Releases


http://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel

"Innovation Competition" Begins at Veterans Affairs


VA Employees Asked to Submit Recommendations for Transforming Service to
Veterans

WASHINGTON (Sept. 10, 2009) - To speed its transformation into a 21st
Century organization that is Veteran-centric, results-oriented and
forward-looking, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has launched
one of the largest innovation competitions in the agency's history. The
competition solicits ideas from VA employees and co-located Veterans
Service Organizations who are on the front lines of the Veterans
Benefits Administration (VBA) and encourages them to submit entries
addressing everything from claims processing times to better process
transparency.




"The men and women of VA know that many Veterans are often asked to wait
too long for the critical services they have earned while defending our
Nation," Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki said. "These
employees who grapple with the claims process every day have the first
hand knowledge and experience necessary to help us understand
inefficiencies and improve the system. We are confident that our team
will come forward with many creative and original ways to accelerate
processes and better deliver services for our nation's Veterans."



The on-line proposal period began on Tuesday, Sept, 8, and will conclude
after Veterans Day. Employees from the agency's 57 regional offices
have been encouraged by the Secretary to submit entries via a secure
online platform. At the close of the competition, VA administrators
from each regional office will select the winning ideas, which will be
reviewed by a team chaired by Patrick W. Dunne, the VA Under Secretary
for Benefits. The final selections will receive full funding for
project development and execution at the Regional Offices submitting the
idea.



President Obama announced the innovation competition while speaking to
the Veterans of Foreign Wars in August. "We're going to fund the best
ideas and put them into action, all with a simple mission: cut those
backlogs, slash those wait times, deliver your benefits sooner," said
Obama.



VA and the White House will share the winning entries with the public
after selection.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

$70 million project but veterans still waited

When I write/talk about what went on over the last eight years, how there are some people in this country deciding they didn't want to talk about it, I have been deadly serious. This should have never, ever gotten as bad as it did and it wouldn't have if everyone in this country actually acted like adults, valued truth over spin and maybe spent some time tuning into CSPAN to actually find out what was really going on.

Now think of this. All this money allocated, veterans wait even longer and who was in charge when all of this was happening? Read this and if your blood is not boiling, then keep reading.

Report: No oversight for $70M program at VA

By Kimberly Hefling - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Aug 27, 2009 17:22:40 EDT

WASHINGTON — The inspector general for the Veterans Affairs Department says that agency managers were aware of serious problems with a $70 million project to replace its hospital appointment system several years before the VA dropped the program.

The VA announced the project in 2000 after complaints from veterans about long waits to make appointments. It was halted this year.

The inspector general says that managers didn't take timely and appropriate action to address problems, even as millions more were put into the program.

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki has since ordered improvements in the VA's information technology management. But the IG says that the VA still needs more qualified staff.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/08/ap_va_oversight_082709/

But 2003 there was still a huge problem going on.

H.R. 3094, the “Veterans Timely Access to Health Care Act”
H.R. 3094 would establish standards of access to care within the VA health system. Under the provisions of this legislation, the VA will be required to provide a primary care appointment to veterans seeking health care within 30 days of a request for an appointment. If a VA facility is unable to meet the 30-day standard for a veteran, then the VA must make an appointment for that veteran with a non-VA provider, thereby contracting out the health care service. The legislation also requires the Secretary of the VA to report to Congress each quarter of a fiscal year on the efforts of the VA health system to meet this 30-day access standard.

Access is indeed a critical concern of PVA. The number of veterans seeking health care from the VA in recent years has risen dramatically. Since 1995, the number of veterans enrolled in the VA has risen from approximately 2.9 million to more than 5 million. Despite the Secretary’s decision to close enrollment of Category 8 veterans earlier this year, the numbers of enrolled veterans only continues to increase as we begin adding new veterans from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, VA health-care resources do not meet the increased demand for services and the system is unable to absorb this significant increase. With tens of thousands of veterans on a waiting list, waiting at least six months or more for care, VA has now reached capacity at many health-care facilities and closed enrollment to new patients at many hospitals and clinics. Additionally, VA has placed a moratorium on all marketing and outreach activities to veterans and determined there is a need to give the most severely service-connected disabled veterans a priority for care.

To ensure that all service-connected disabled veterans, and all other enrolled veterans, are able to access the system in a timely manner, it is imperative that our government provide an adequate health-care budget to enable VA to serve the needs of veterans nationwide. Access standards without sufficient funding are standards in name only. PVA is concerned that contracting health care services to private facilities when access standards are not met is not an appropriate enforcement mechanism for ensuring access to care. As we stated with regard to H.R. 2379, paying for contract care out of an already inadequate VA health care appropriation draws even more resources away from the funds needed to pay for VA’s core services. Likewise, contracting out to private providers will leave the VA with the difficult task of ensuring that veterans seeking treatment at non-VA facilities are receiving quality health care. We do think that access standards are important, but we believe that the answer to providing timely care is in providing sufficient funding in the first place in order to negate the impetus driving health care rationing. For these reasons, PVA cannot support H.R. 3094.

PVA appreciates the efforts of this Committee to ensure that veterans receive timely access to care. However, we must emphasize that the VA will continue to struggle to provide timely access without adequate funding provided by this Congress. We look forward to working with this Committee to ensure that veterans not only receive timely access to care, but high quality care as well.
PVA would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I would be happy to answer any questions that you might have.
read more here
http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/schedule108/sep03/9-30-03/cblake.html
Oh but that's not all. While some people in this country were fully supporting their elected just because they said they supported and cared about veterans, this is what was going on.

This was from 2005.

Snapshot of How VA Budget Shortfall is Hurting Veterans’

Access to Safe and Timely Care across the Nation



The VA claims that by shifting funds dedicated to replace old equipment and conduct maintenance the department can address its budget shortfall and meet veterans’ demand for timely, high–quality health care. The following snapshots from across the nation reflect the stark reality of the budget shortfall on veterans’ access to safe, high quality care.



The 3 surgical operating rooms at the White River Junction VAMC in Vermont had to be closed on June 27 because the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system was broken and had not been repaired due to the siphoning of maintenance funds to cover the budget shortfall.


The VAMC in San Antonio could not provide a paraplegic veteran with a special machine to help clean a chronic wound because the facility did not have the equipment dollars.


The VAMC in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, closed its Geriatric Evaluation and Management Unit which does extensive case management to help elderly veterans increase their functioning and remain at home.


The Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) needed to meet veterans’ increased demand for care in the North Florida/South Georgia VA Healthcare System have been delayed due to fiscal constraints. The Gainesville facility has made progress in reducing its wait lists, but as of April there were nearly 700 service-connected veterans waiting for more than 30 days for an appointment.


VA Medical Centers in VISN 16, which includes Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Louisiana and part of Texas, have stopped scheduling appointments for many veterans who are eligible for care, pending available resources.


Even though the VA Palo Alto, California, Health Care System has used $3 million in capital funds for operating needs, as of March 1 more than 1,000 new patients had to wait more than 30 days for a primary care appointment. A third of these new patients had to wait more than 3 months. More than 5,000 patients had to wait more than 30 days for a specialty care appointment. Roughly 1,400 had to wait more than 3 months.


The replacement of the fire alarm system at the Loma Linda VAMC in California won’t be done this year because the facility is using most of its capital funds to cover operating expenses.


The White River Junction VAMC in Vermont struggling with a $525,000 shortfall in its prosthetics budget.


Because the FY 2005 budget is inadequate, the facility has not been allowed to hire 3 additional mental health care staff and 3 additional Registered Nurses for the ICU. Nurses in the ICU have been forced to work double shifts, which this Committee has found to be an unsafe patient practice.



Even though the San Diego VAMC expects to exceed its goal in medical care cost collections, it will divert $3.5 million of non-recurring maintenance funds to partially cover operating expenses, and has delayed filling 131 vacant positions for 3 months. The facility has a waiting list for patients of 750 veterans.


Because the Iowa City VAMC had to shift maintenance funds and equipment funds to cover a FY 2004 million shortfall of $3.2 million in medical care expenses in FY 2004, the facility is facing severe infrastructure problems and a larger shortfall of $6.8 million in FY 2005 that puts patient care and safety at risk. The facility wanted to spend $950,000 in non-recurring maintenance funds last year to prevent a mechanical failure of the electrical switcher, which would close the facility, but was required to use those funds to cover a budget shortfall in medical care last year. As a result in FY 2005, the VA must divert $1.5 million of medical care funds to maintain the key electrical switchgear for the hospital.


Recently, a motor failed on a hospital bed, which the VA planned to replace but couldn’t because of the shortfall, causing a fire with the patient on the bed. Fortunately the patient was able to get out of the bed safely, but the facility was forced to expend $700,000 of medical care dollars to replace all the beds, which thanks to the diligence of VA staff lasted 7 years beyond their life expectancy. The facility could not use capital funds to replace the very old beds because the money had already been siphoned off to cover medical care.



To bring the shortfall down to $6.2 million the facility has delayed hiring staff for 4 months. The deliberate short staffing of nurses on the psychiatric ward – as a means to correct the budget shortfall -- has forced the VA to cut the beds available for treatment in half.



As a result of cost cutting measures to make up for the shortfall in FY 2005, the Portland, Oregon, VAMC is delaying all non-emergent surgery by at least six months. For example, veterans in need of knee replacement surgery won’t be treated because of the budget shortfall.


Since FY 2002, the Portland VAMC has had to use its equipment and non-recurring maintenance funds to cover medical care expenses. For FY 2005 the facility needed $13 million for medical and clinical equipment but only received $2 million.



The facility is reducing staff as a cost-cutting measure and is now short at least 150 hospital staff, including nurses, physicians, and social workers. As a result of budget cuts for staffing, the VA has cut the number of medical beds available to care for veterans.



Veterans in need of outpatient psychiatric treatment at the Portland facility are on a waiting list because of the budget shortfall.



The Biloxi, Mississippi, VAMC has diverted maintenance dollars to meet operating expenses for the past two years but the facility will not be able to balance its budget without reducing staffing levels at a time when the Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System has approximately 100 new veterans seeking enrollment each week.


Fifty percent of all the veterans receiving home health care through the San Antonio VAMC will now have to fend for themselves. This cost-cutting measure means that some 250 veterans, including those with spinal cord injuries, will no longer be provided this care.


The VA Connecticut Healthcare System is facing a major budgetary challenge of sending veterans to non-VA facilities for hospitalizations because the VA has a shortage of beds to care for veterans and staff.


Due to the budget shortfall, the VA facility in Bay Pines, Florida, has been forced to put veterans who have a service-connected illness or disability rating of less than 50% on a waiting list for primary care appointments. As of late April, some 7,000 veterans will be waiting longer than 30 days for a primary care appointment.

Prepared by the Democratic staff of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee
http://veterans.house.gov/democratic/budget/snapshot6-29-05.htm


Now put it all together and then try to remember a time when you heard about any of this on cable TV show you watch or the talk radio show you listen to. They thought you'd never find out. So are you finally getting the message that all of these false outrages are cover ups from people that just don't care about veterans but do care about power? As bad as these reports are, it only got worse. Do you still want to defend Republicans or Democrats no matter what they've done or do you now plan on defending veterans?