VA overpaid disabled vets by up to $1.1B

If you have a VA claim for something that will not get better, like an amputation, then you'll receive a "permanent and total" disability rating.

VA overpaid disabled vets by up to $1.1B
Army Times
By Rick Maze
Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Feb 5, 2013

In a reversal of normal complaints about the Veterans Affairs Department being too slow to pay disabled veterans, a House subcommittee is investigating overpayments to veterans who were temporarily rated 100 percent disabled but were not reevaluated to see if their conditions improved.

The loss to the government could be as much as $1.1 billion, according to VA auditors, who estimate the 27,500 veterans were not properly re-evaluated.

Rep. Jon Runyan, R-N.J., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee’s disability assistance panel, said the “unacceptable” problem needs to be fixed — especially now, when federal spending is tight.

VA policies allow 100 percent disability ratings to be assigned to veterans undergoing surgery or some other treatment that prohibits them from working, making them eligible for disability compensation. When their treatment or recovery period ends, a follow-up medical examination is supposed to be requested to determine if they still have any disability for which they should continue to receive compensation.

Disability pay can be up to $3,214 a month at current rates for a veteran with a 100 percent rating.

The IG found no regional office within VA that fully followed established policies requiring reevaluations. Error rates were as high as 100 percent in Wyoming. The “best” regional offices, in Lincoln, Neb., and Des Moines, had an error rate of 27 percent.
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Military suicide reports do not add up!

When I posted this, 516 suicides across all branches for 2012 from a news report, I ended up with a lot of questions because everyone else had the "349" number but number had already been reached in December reports for November figures.

The number of soldier suicides this year has outnumbered combat deaths.
Combat-related deaths in Afghanistan were down to 212 this year, compared to over 400 in 2011, but the number of soldiers taking their own lives continues to rise. According to stats cited by CBS from the Department of the Army, 303 active-duty, Reserve and National Guard soldiers committed suicide.

Here's some more facts. First this report is missing Marines, Air Force and Navy. This was the latest from the Army suicides at 303. There was another report from the Army with this piece of news.

For 2012, there have been 126 potential not on active-duty suicides (84 Army National Guard and 42 Army Reserve): 97 have been confirmed as suicides and 29 remain under investigation.

Bad enough for you yet? Add this in. Of that total, the Army accounted for 168, surpassing its high last year of 165

53 sailors took their own lives, one more than last year.

The Air Force and Marine Corps are only a few deaths from record numbers. 56 airmen had committed suicide as of Nov. 11, short of the 60 in 2010.

There have been 46 suicides among Marines, whose worst year was 2009 with 52.
Military suicides by the numbers
168 Army
84 National Guards
42 Army Reserves
46 Marines
53 Sailors
56 Airmen
This was as of November 2012 and in January this number was released.

Military suicides hit record year

Pentagon figures obtained Monday by The Associated Press show that the 349 suicides among active-duty troops last year were up from 301 the year before and exceeded the Pentagon's own internal projection of 325. Statistics alone do not explain why troops take their own lives, and the Pentagon's military and civilian leaders have acknowledged that more needs to be done to understand the causes.

Navy SEALs commander commits suicide in Afghanistan
Published: 24 December, 2012

There were more but you get the point.

5 things to know about PTSD CNN got wrong

Sniper killing aftermath: 5 things to know about PTSD
By Ashley Fantz
CNN
February 5, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
PTSD is marked by hyper-vigilance, a fear that a trauma will occur again
Rates of PTSD among the general population are low
Virtual reality is being used to treat PTSD sufferers

(CNN) -- When police caught up with alleged killer Eddie Ray Routh last weekend, the 25-year-old ex-Marine was crying, shirtless, shoeless and smelling of alcohol.

"I'm hurting," he told them.

Not long before, at a Texas shooting range, police say, Routh had gunned down Chris Kyle, the Navy SEAL who called himself America's deadliest military sniper.

As he sits in a Texas jail cell, details about Routh's psychological make-up have surfaced, including claims that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition that affects a number of current and former members of the U.S. military.

Of course, combat duty doesn't automatically lead to PTSD. And it's not even clear that Routh served in a combat zone during his four years in the Marines.
read more here

While there are good parts to this report, there are many wrong ones. Like this.

"We need to remember that while substantial numbers of vets have mental health conditions," Cozza said, the majority do not.

Because it does not mention the fact less than half of the veterans needing help for PTSD seek in early because of the stigma attached to it coupled with the notion they will just "get over it" with time. Take a look at the number of Vietnam veterans in their 60's seeking help for the first time because they have retired and were no longer able to focus on jobs after a life changing event.

Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who struggle with anger are twice as likely as other vets to be arrested for crimes, according to the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, which published a study last year.

Missing the fact that many veterans are arrested for domestic violence that happened when they were having a nightmare or flashback and their spouse unknowingly tried to shake them awake or yell at them. They ended up with broken noses and black eyes because they didn't know enough to get up out of bed and their husband landed in jail on a domestic violence charge. Missing the fact that arrests for alcohol and bar fights are included too. Then missing the medication aspect that in many cases has fueled violent reactions.

Exposure therapy often helps the person with PTSD revisit or re-experience their trauma as a means of lessening the effect the memory has on them, said Rizzo, who is with the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California.

Missing the point that this kind of therapy only works when they get the veteran to see the whole event and not just part of it so they can make peace with what happened.

But this may have done more damage to PTSD veterans.

"What happened this weekend with the death of former Navy Seal sniper Chris Kyle at a gun range is exactly the opposite of the evidence-based approach to treating PTSD," termed 'prolonged exposure' or 'virtual reality exposure' therapy, he said. "Chris Kyle, while well trained in his field, had no clinical training in conducting therapeutic exposure."

There would be no "evidence-based" approach if people didn't try different things. There would be no training if Vietnam veterans didn't push it to begin over 40 years ago and families like mine living through all of it discovering on our own how to help because there were only a few experts on this back then.

This is also missing the point that none of this is new even though it is "news" to them!

American Idol contestant exposed for fabricating horror Iraq war injuries

We all remember Tim Poe America's Got Talent wounded veteran faker and it looks like American Idol has one too now.

American Idol contestant exposed for fabricating horror Iraq war injuries
The Sun
By JO SAYER
Published: 6 hrs ago

A SHAMELESS American Idol contestant has been forced to make a grovelling apology after falsely claiming he was injured in a bomb blast while serving in Iraq.

At his audition Matt Farmer described how he was seriously injured by an explosion while on patrol in the city of Ramadi.

He told how after waking up in hospital he was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. He went on to say how he was told the medication he was prescribed could make him sterile.

As he held his daughter in his arms, the tearful 26-year-old told host Ryan Seacrest her birth was a miracle.

But his lies were soon exposed by his former colleagues in the military.

On a website used by servicemen and women they told how he had never even been deployed to Iraq. One commentator described him as a “pathological liar that has used the blood, sweat and tears of real, hard working, tough, brave and honorable Infantry soldiers to paint himself as somone he most certainly is not."

Farmer initially tried to justify himself by claiming Idol producers had taken his words out of context.
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Veteran suicides comes from limited data

Latest VA estimate of veteran suicides comes from limited data
By MEGAN MCCLOSKEY
Stars and Stripes
Published: February 5, 2013

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs is making strides in tracking veteran suicide, but figuring out how many former servicemembers take their own lives is still largely a guessing game. The latest analysis points to an average of 22 veteran suicides per day in 2010, according to a recently released VA study. That’s up from an estimated 18 each day in 2007.

But the stats are based on an incomplete collection of national data. The VA used death certificates from only 21 states – not including California or Texas, home to the largest population of veterans. Women, as well as young, single veterans, are often missing from the data.

Extrapolating a national average from that limited data is premature, said Rajeev Ramchand, a behavioral scientist at the Rand Corporation, a think tank in Washington.

“It’s too much to make that leap,” said Ramchand, who studies military suicide.

Researchers with the VA study acknowledge the shortcomings and warn that the estimates should be “interpreted with caution.” The conclusions derived from the 21 states “may not be [able to generalize] to the larger veteran population,” the researchers wrote.

This is despite the most comprehensive effort ever undertaken to review veteran suicides.
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