“The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.” General Douglas MacArthur
Report: VA failed to properly screen up to 1,600 doctors and nurses
GAO finds that some community health care providers treating vets had revoked or suspended medical licenses.
GAO report: VA needs to do better at screening providers who treat vets
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WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs needs to do a much better job screening private community medical care providers who treat vets, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The GAO, in a report published this week, found the VA needs to strengthen its ability to identify unqualified and incompetent doctors and nurses.
The GAO said the VA may have mistakenly allowed 1,600 potentially ineligible providers to treat vets, including some with revoked or suspended medical licenses.
"We found that basically, VA was cutting corners in the vetting of providers," said Seto Bagdoyan, director for audit services in the department's Forensic Audits & Investigative Service mission team.
He continued: "Having ineligible providers poses a risk to veterans' health. The bottom line here is VA should take the issue of provider eligibility seriously and act decisively."
The GAO published ten recommendations for improvement, including that the VA enhance existing controls, consistently implement controls as described in standard operating procedures, and assess the fraud risk of invalid provider address data.
The Veterans Choice Program was enacted by law in the wake of the 2014 VA wait-time scandal.Veterans Affairs Durham
Once again, Department of Veterans Affairs bureaucrats are making a concerted effort to prevent veterans from using our health-care benefits at community-based providers outside the VA system — despite a law requiring them to do so.
Seven years ago, while suffering from excruciating pain, I attempted to make a primary-care appointment at a VA hospital. In the week between Christmas and New Year’s, no one at my Durham, N.C., VA facility answered the phone. In January, it took two weeks to get a new provider assigned and an appointment scheduled. The earliest they could offer was April 15, 90 days out.
At that point, inflamed joints throbbing, I asked if I could use my Choice card, which had arrived in November with the promise it gave me access to private, local health care in the event “the Veteran is told by his/her local VA medical facility that he/she will need to wait more than 30 days from his/her preferred date or the date medically determined by his/her physician.”
No dice.
The Veterans Choice Program was enacted by law in the wake of the 2014 VA wait-time scandal. Nevertheless, the VA denied me the Choice option until after my appointment in 90 days.
A sample of a VA myChoice card show that the card does not provide pre-approval.Veterans Affairs
With the team at Concerned Veterans for America, I worked hard to help pass that bill and believed the program would make a difference. Alas, faceless bureaucrats undermined its implementation every step of the way.
So we went back to work.
In 2018, Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed the VA Mission Act, which bolstered veterans’ health-care options, providing access standards that shortened the requirements for veterans seeking private care to those who could not get a VA appointment within 20 days or who had to drive more than 30 minutes to a VA facility.
It was a positive reform. But again, we see VA bureaucrats working, despite the law, to limit veterans’ ability to access care.
In 2020, some Trump administration officials expressed public doubts about using community care during the COVID pandemic. That was all career bureaucrats needed to hear. It’s been on the rocks ever since.
After a lawsuit filed this year, the VA finally responded to Freedom of Information Act requests that it account publicly for wait times and veterans’ ability to access community care.
In 2018, Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed the VA Mission Act, which bolstered veterans’ health-care options.CNP/startraksphoto.com
The results were startling and add to concern about the 20 million appointments that have been canceled, denied or delayed since the pandemic’s start.
The FOIA documents revealed the VA’s failure to follow the law and its own regulatory requirements as it refuses to refer eligible veterans for community care, possibly cancels appointments without patient consent and dissuades veterans from seeking community care in call scripts.
In January 2020 at the Prescott, Ariz., facility, for example, 10.3 percent of veterans were listed eligible for primary care in the community when in fact 68 percent were eligible. The VA is also denying veterans community care due solely to cost. That’s not part of the law, and getting veterans the care they need should always be the top priority.
The Biden administration has sent clear signals it intends to accede to the bureaucrats’ wish to end community care.
The Mission Act page on the VA Web site was recently removed. The VA has ceased providing veterans easily accessible information about the program. And the department is dismantling the community-care office, integrating it into the general patient-management system. It’s blocked referrals to community care at every opportunity.
Healthcare worker walks into the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.AP / David Zalubowski
Last month, it issued a call for input on access standards. Parts of the request for information are technical, but question No. 6 asks: “What are Veterans’ experiences with, and feedback on, the VA access standards established in 2019?” Might this be the first step in dismantling the program and ensuring that veterans cannot seek VA-sponsored care in their communities?
“During the pandemic I had an appointment with the VA urologist as a follow-up because of elevated” prostate-specific antigen levels, a New York veteran posted on the My VA Story Web site. “The VA canceled and rescheduled it four times until I asked why and was told they were only seeing patients on an emergency basis. My condition was probably not an emergency but I felt it was urgent enough that I transferred my records to a civilian urologist.”
The VA didn’t refer him. He paid out of pocket to get the care he needed — the care he’d earned.
All veterans deserve quality, timely care. When I was in pain, access to community care would have solved my situation sooner. Don’t let the VA take it away.
John Byrnes is a Marine Corps and Army National Guard veteran who served combat tours in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan and education director for Concerned Veterans for America.
WINTER HAVEN, Fla (WFLA) – Captain Norman Jackson was honored to serve his country but when it was time for Veterans Affairs to help him, he faced months of delays.
Jackson, a Winter Haven resident, needed what the VA calls aid and attendance to pay for an assisted living facility, according to his daughter Melissia Pletcher.
“It was costing more for him to live there than he was getting in social security and pension,” Pletcher said.
It was April of 2019 when Pletcher began helping her father navigate through the government paperwork.
“I I did get some help from the VA,” she said. “But at times, they would send me the same things over and over over again.”
In November, she received a letter that stated her father was entitled to “a special monthly pension based on the need for aid and attendance.”
“Nope,” she said when asked if the payments started after that. “Another delay.”
By the time Jackson got his first payment, he was 87 and near the end of his life. It brought up a claim made about the VA by many veterans; Delay, deny until you die.
“I think that happened in my father’s case,” Pletcher said. “I do because he got June and July and he died in August.”
Later that month, the VA sent Jackson a letter informing him he would be receiving help to create a fiduciary as in someone to be responsible for his accrued benefits.
“It’s dated August 17th,” Pletcher said. “And he died on August 7th.”
Pletcher, who was going to be the fiduciary, said at that point the VA told her she needed to fill out additional paperwork.
“I had already filled it out,” Pletcher said.
The VA has yet to respond to questions about how common these types of delays are and what causes them.
Pletcher said the process was especially frustrating considering how much her family has given to the military.
“My father loved his country and every man in his family served,” she said. “That long for two months of benefits he was entitled to? I’m angry. I’m frustrated. I’m tired. I worked so long and hard on this.”
Pletcher her father died, Pletcher said she was told by the VA that the agency would work with her on recovering the accrued benefits for her. About four months later, she was told the benefits were denied.
She had the right to appeal but said she was worn out by the process and does not believe she can do it without the help of her parents’ estate attorney.
“You saw all the paperwork I had and I just wanted to cry many days because I was over my head,” Pletcher said. “I am tired and have just given up.”
By Steven Masone Thousands of Veterans participating in the VA's Vocational Rehabilitation Program and other related Programs may be left behind and not receive the cash being sent to people for hardship relief in the Republican and Democrat proposed Coronavirus aid packages. Many Veterans in those programs did not have to file taxes in 2018 because they did not work in the public sector. However, many went to work in 2019 and have filed or will soon file. They qualify except for the 2018 tax filing requirement. While all low income veterans who didn't file in 2018 and are not back to work yet should be included also, more so for those who re-entered the workforce in 2019! The VA only pays Voc Rehab participants a little under $700 a month stipend for living expenses. Most of the participants survive on under $1500 a month if they are on disability but lose the stipend once back at work. Many struggling with PTSD and other issues beyond their Physical injuries make them high risk for increasing the already epidemic of suicide in the veterans population. Now, many who have no support system will be isolated further and the financial assistance will go a long way to alleviate their anxieties and feelings that they don't matter.
The plan unveiled Thursday night by Senate Republicans toprovidedirect cash assistance to help Americanshurt by the coronavirus pandemic would send checks of up to $1,200 per person in a one-time payment — and payments would be based on income.
Under the plan, the details of which were revealed on the Senate floor by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., individuals making up to $75,000 annually would be eligible for a $1,200 check from the federal government.
Married couples who file their taxes jointly would have to make less than $150,000 to qualify for their payment, which would be $2,400.
From there, according to McConnell's proposal, the payments would decrease. For individuals, the sum of the payment would fall by $5 for each $100 earned over $75,000.
The payment would phase out entirely for individuals making more than $99,000 annually, meaning people who make more than that would not get any money from the government, according to the proposal.
For married couples earning more than $150,000, the payment would also decline gradually, and it would phase out completely for couples making more than $198,000, according to the plan.
The checks, however, would reduce to $600 (or $1,200 for married couples) for taxpayers who have little or no income tax liability but have at least $2,500 in qualifying income, according to a GOP summary of the plan. The income levels the government would review to make the cash payout determinations would be based on 2018 tax returns, McConnell said.
