DOD: Private Healthcare Providers Saw 795,000 Under Tricare?

Navy aims to mimic Wal-Mart, Delta to get more sailors choosing military health care
The Virginian-Pilot
By Brock Vergakis
Dec 25, 2016

The military has achieved a 97 percent survival rate for wounded personnel during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he doesn’t want to see those numbers drop in future conflicts.

By comparison, the survival rate was about 80 percent in World Wars I and II, and about 84 percent during the Vietnam War, according to various studies cited by the Navy.

The Navy’s top doctor wants more sailors, Marines and their families to get their health care from the military so its medical personnel will be well-trained for the next conflict, and he’s eyeing private-sector methods to achieve his goal.

Vice Adm. Forrest Faison, the service’s surgeon general, said in a recent interview at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center that he’s working to make accessing care more convenient, to improve patient experiences and to leverage technology in an effort to appeal to young people.

He said about three of every four sailors were born after 1986, making them digital natives who are changing expectations of how health care should be delivered.

“We’ve got to adapt to that,” Faison said, mentioning videoconferencing and mobile apps.

Sailors, Marines and their family members are allowed to use the federally subsidized Tricare health program to seek treatment from private providers, and Faison is on a quest to recapture some of those patients.

Throughout the Defense Department, military facilities saw 250,000 inpatient admissions in the 2015 fiscal year; private facilities in the care network had more than three times as many – 795,000.

Faison said the Navy needs a variety of patients at home so its doctors, nurses and hospital corpsmen are prepared for anything that comes up during a deployment.
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Veteran Chaplain-Priest Removed For PTSD?

Where is Fr. Robert? Archdiocese owes an explanation 
Poughkeepsie Journal
Dennis Maloney December 26, 2016

Where is Father Robert Repenning? On July 1, the Archdiocese of New York removed Father Robert, pastor of Holy Trinity in Poughkeepsie, because they learned he suffered from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder as his reward for serving his country as Army chaplain. 

He, unlike most, served in active combat and is a decorated veteran.

He never hid his PTSD and sought treatment for it at the Veterans Affairs upon homecoming. Not good enough for the Archdiocese! 

They wanted him to go to St. John Vianny, where they send pedophiles to “evaluate” his PTSD by them. Don’t they trust the VA?

Five months after removing him for evaluation, they have not done it! Why?

It’s not important to them that he brought new life to a dying parish. It’s obvious they want to punish him for daring to become a Chaplain!
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BACKGROUND: Priest with PTSD fights to stay at Holy Trinity Church

BACKGROUND: Priest with PTSD serves last day — for now — at Holy Trinity

PARISHIONER'S VIEW: Repenning did right by church, but still got ousted

Female Soldier Proved Doctors Wrong And Did the Unxpected

A soldier's story of trauma, triumph and tomorrow
WCSH 6 NBC News
ELLE OUSFAR
December 23, 2016

Gardner has proven wrong every doctor who told her it couldn't be done. While in rehab Gardner started playing sled hockey and eventually made the USA women's Sled Hockey team.

LEWISTON, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Army Sergeant Christy Gardner was injured in the line of duty while serving overseas as a military police officer. She suffered skull and facial fractures as well as a spinal cord injury that left her without the use of her legs.

Since then, Gardner, a native of Lewiston, Maine has been through 22 surgeries. Her doctors gave her a three-page list of things she would never do again. “They said I'd never live alone or be independent,” Gardner said. “They said I wouldn't walk or ride a bike or even be able to bathe alone.”

But Gardner was on a mission. Beneath the shock and anguish, she was determined to live her life to the fullest, no matter the challenge.

“I'm highly competitive and there was no way I was going to settle for my wheelchair and sitting on the couch."

After years of physical and speech therapy, Gardner’s medical team decided it would be in her best interest to have her legs amputated. She had the left removed in the summer of 2015, and her right leg the next year.
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Nitty-Gritty-Pesky Facts Skipped on PTSD Reporting

Yet One More Infomercial on PTSD Program
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
December 26, 2016

This is the claim being made. "A ground-breaking program hopes to help soldiers with PTSD like no one has ever has done before." Ok, well then I guess everyone in this for the last four decades did not exist. That is when all the real "ground breaking" started. Since then, it has been more like digging a hole in the ground and veterans falling into it.

Just a reminder, I wrote about the "collateral damage" being done to our troops and spawning the suffering of millions of veterans right along with their families back in 2015. It got into the nitty gritty pesky things called facts and historical reports tying most of the results to the deplorable "resilience training" our troops were receiving. 

The number of enlisted was higher, yet the number of suicides were lower before they started this. There were also two full-force wars being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Top that off with the fact the DOD kept saying most of the suicides happened with non-deployed troops taking their own lives. Yep, after getting the same "training" everyone else got.

The geniuses thought it would work on combat forces deployed multiple times when it didn't even work for stateside folks? But they kept doing it anyway. As the number of enlisted went down and the number of suicides went up, they pushed the training harder.

But the press never bothered to investigate why any of this was happening or the fact that Congress kept writing FUBAR bills that simply repeated what had already failed. Well, BOHICA on yet one more case of the press not doing their jobs with this latest report. It leaves so many questions it is hard to know what the goal of this was.

Packers Don Barclay hopes to spread word of his uncles’ ground-breaking PTSD therapy program
ABC News
By Aisha Morales
Published: December 23, 2016

Green Bay, Wis. (WBAY) – A new program and the only one of its kind is hoping to change the way veterans and active duty military members with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental health struggles are treated.

It’s a four-week intensive program based in Virginia created by Doctor Tim Barclay, uncle of Don Barclay of the Green Bay Packers.

Dr. Tim Barclay has seen the issue up close and personal and thinks it’s time to make a change.

“In treating veterans I’ve always been frustrated that not being able to deliver the type of care that is actually needed to treat like traumatic brain injury, PTSD, depression, and anxiety, and common things that they struggle with, simply because of insurance benefits are so limiting,” said Dr. Barclay.

This passion was the start of Collateral Damage Project, a non-profit program that will survive solely on donations.

“We’re hoping to launch our first group of participants in the Spring, so we’re just in our intensive fundraising mode to get all the things that we need to get in place,” said Dr. Barclay.
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Specialized Intensive PTSD Programs (SIPPs) already exist.

SIPPs provide PTSD treatment services in an inpatient or residential setting. Length of stay varies across programs and is based on the needs of the Veteran. SIPPs include:

Evaluation and Brief PTSD Treatment Units (EBPTUs)
PTSD Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Programs (PTSD RRTP) and PTSD Domiciliary Programs (PTSD DOM)
Specialized Inpatient PTSD Units (SIPUs)
Women's Trauma Recovery Programs (WTRPs)

The Miami VA has something that is "intense" therapy for PTSD

Inpatient PTSD Programs include four basic types of services conducted while veterans reside in hospital units providing 24-hour nursing and psychiatry care:

Specialized Inpatient PTSD Units (SIPUs) provide trauma-focused evaluation, education, and psychotherapy for a period of 28 to 90 days of hospital admission.

Evaluation and Brief Treatment of PTSD Units (EBTPUs) provide PTSD evaluation, education, and psychotherapy for a briefer period ranging from 14 to 28 days.

PTSD Residential Rehabilitation Programs (PRRPs) provide PTSD evaluation, education, and counseling, and case management emphasizing resuming a productive involvement in community life. PRRP admissions tend to be 28 to 90 days.

PTSD Substance Use Programs (PSUs) provide combined evaluation, education, and counseling for substance use problems and PTSD. PSU admissions range from 14 to 90 days.

Yet, there were problems with this program.

A drug abuse rehabilitation program at Miami’s Veterans Affairs hospital failed to monitor patients, provide sufficient staff, control access to the facility or even curb illicit drug use among patients — culminating with the death of a combat veteran in his 20s who overdosed on cocaine and heroin, according to a federal report.

So, back to the claim being made. How is it that a program that hasn't even started get a headline like this? You read how they are looking for funding and want to find ten patients to do it in the spring. Where is the evidence? What exactly is different about this? The interview video is about looking for psychologist on top of everything else. Shouldn't the headline be more like, "Yet one more group jumps onto the bandwagon" for Heaven 's sake?

Our troops and veterans committing suicide after surviving combat should be an important enough topic that they merit real reporting instead of an infomercial.

Gang Dresses Up as Soldiers, Gets Confronted by Real Veteran

UK Fake Soldiers pretend to be with Invicted Foundation after they said "Invictus" 

'YOU ARE NOT EX-FORCES' Shocking moment war veteran confronts a gang of ‘conmen dressed in army uniform pretending to be from a homeless charity’

Ex-para Colin Eastaway confronted the men after he spotted them collecting money in Nottingham city centre

VIDEO

The Sun

BY COREY CHARLTON

25th December 2016

THIS is the shocking moment an ex-para confronts a gang of youths dressed in army uniform apparently posing as a charity helping homeless veterans at Christmas.

Colin Eastaway – who served with Parachute Regiment in Afghanistan – spotted the lads dressed in camouflage collecting coins in a bucket in Nottingham city centre.

But he claims they were not serving soldiers, making it an offence to wear the colours, and bamboozled them with questions about their military history, IDs and charity permits. 

Colin recorded the angry exchange on his phone as the youths become aggressive when told them: “You’ are not ex-forces,” in front of stunned passersby.

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