This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Veteran Health Care

  • So, What Does the POTUS Really Think of Vets?

    Yesterday, the POTUS signed that “landmark” VA bill – throwing more money at a problem that isn’t financial.  That means he really cares about vets and their problems, right?

    Yeah, right.  Remember the VA scandal that caused that bill to be drafted and fast-tracked?  You know, the one that finally got former VA Secretary Shinseki    kicked to the curb    to resign?

    Wanna guess how many times the POTUS met one-on-one with Shinseki to discuss the scandal this year while it was ongoing?  Remember, the POTUS made it clear when speaking publicly that he regarded the crisis as “urgent”.

    Try once – on the day Shinseki resigned, May 30.   (He also saw Shinseki at two cabinet meetings Shinseki attended in January – but that’s hardly the same.)

    That’s it.

    Words, actions. One’s for show; the other is reality.

    You do the math.

  • VA worries that folks are lying about PTS

    The LA Times reports that the doctors at the Veterans Affairs Department are beginning to wonder if they’re handing out disability checks for PTS a little too often;

    As disability awards for PTSD have grown nearly fivefold over the last 13 years, so have concerns that many veterans might be exaggerating or lying to win benefits. Moering, a former Marine, estimates that roughly half of the veterans he evaluates for the disorder exaggerate or fabricate symptoms.

    Depending on severity, veterans with PTSD can receive up to $3,000 a month tax-free, making the disorder the biggest contributor to the growth of a disability system in which payments have more than doubled to $49 billion since 2002.

    “It’s an open secret that a large chunk of patients are flat-out malingering,” said Christopher Frueh, a University of Hawaii psychologist who spent 15 years treating PTSD in the VA system.

    You know what doesn’t help? When Senators blame their plagiarism on PTS, when the media blames everything bad that a veteran does on PTS. When we veterans blame our own bad behavior on PTS. When we blame the fact that we can’t sleep, or that we don’t feel hungry, agoraphobia, a jumpy reaction to fireworks all on PTS. yeah, sometimes it is, but not always.

    In one case The Times reviewed, a woman was awarded PTSD compensation based on breaking her leg in a fall walking to the mess hall.

    As the number of cases has climbed, so has debate over their legitimacy.

    A 2007 study of 74 Arkansas veterans with chronic PTSD, most of them from the Vietnam War, concluded that more than half were exaggerating symptoms. Other research has found little evidence of malingering.

    Here at TAH, we’ve seen folks who claim that they have PTS because they were at 8th & I and saw the smoke from the Pentagon on 9/11. One fellow claims that he had PTS from listening to other combat veterans’ war stories. Yet another claimed that he has PTS because he DIDN’T deploy and he was worried about his unit while they deployed. Another claimed that he caught the PTSD from his drill sergeants. Beat your wife and kids? PTS made you do it. Rob a bank? PTSD caused it. Driving drunk? You were self-medicating for PTSD. Wear a Bronze Star Medal and a Green Beret you didn’t earn? PTS, dude. Did you watch a guy murder someone and didn’t report it to the police? Well….

    PTS is hip and cool and the catch-all for all bad behavior. And all of the malingerers just keep the real cases that need to be treated away from the doctors and the stuff they need to cope with it, because who wants to be lumped in with the fakes and lazies who clog the system?

    Fake PTS is probably far more common than Stolen Valor, because it’s easier to fake and less likely you’ll get caught, but just as shameful and much more hurtful to the veteran community, not to mention those folks who really do suffer from it and won’t seek treatment.

  • A Slightly Late Appointment

    Doug Chase was a Vietnam vet.  Unfortunately, in 2011 he became seriously ill.

    He lived in the greater Boston metro area.  Originally, he was being seen by doctors  in Boston.  But the Bedford VAMC was closer, so he tried to move his care to that facility.

    That request was made in 2012.

    Two weeks ago, Chase got a notice from the VA telling him he could schedule an appointment with a primary care physician.  There was just one problem.

    Chase had died in August 2012 – nearly two years ago.

    It gets even better.  When Chase died, his wife applied for VA funeral benefits.  The application was denied – according to his wife, because he’d never been treated at a VA hospital.

    There’s more info at the link.  It’s worth reading – unless you’re having blood pressure or anger-management issues today.

    It’s not a resource problem at the VA, folks.  And it’s not a medical problem, either.

    It’s a priorities, culture, and management problem.

  • And In the VA News Department . . .

    . . . here are three more items.  And, unfortunately, they’re not “good news” stories.

    • Two more senior VA officials have resigned. The current VA Undersecretary for Health, Dr. Robert Jesse, and the VA General Counsel, Will Gunn, have resigned. This means that the VA Secretary, five of the VA’s Assistant Secretaries, and 2 of the VA’s Undersecretaries have resigned recently. It won’t fix the problems in that agency – but maybe it’s a start.
    • I say maybe because the VA still seems to be in denial regarding the seriousness of its internal problems. The Office of Special Counsel released a report two days ago that, in essence, says the VA still doesn’t realize how serious its problems are. According to the OSC, VA senior leadership continues to use the “harmless error” excuse in ways that defy logic and which ignore “the severity of systemic and longstanding problems.” The OSC also indicated that it has “50 pending disclosure cases alleging threats to VA patient health and safety, and another 60 cases of alleged retaliation against whistleblowers in the department.
    • And, finally:  another whistleblower has come forward from the Phoenix VAMC. Along with corroborating previous whistleblower reports, this individual alleges personal knowledge that at least 7 veterans died while awaiting care on the Phoenix VAMC’s “secret waiting list”.  She further alleges that there was a management-directed effort to hide excessive waiting times, as well as a concerted effort to manipulate records to cover up the fact that people had died while awaiting care.

    I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: resources are NOT the underlying problem at the VA. Leadership and priorities are the problem, along with a poor organizational culture.

    The former can be fixed relatively easily. The latter, unfortunately, will IMO likely take at least a decade to change.

     

    Hat tip to the Army Times for the above links.

  • VA: Green Energy Is A Priority; Healthcare, Not So Much.

    We’ve all heard about the ongoing VA health care problems at multiple VA Medical Centers. At least 40 vets appear to have died at the Phoenix VA medical center alone while awaiting medical appointments. God only knows what the total is this year nationwide.

    Want to guess what the VA has been doing with literally millions instead of providing health care? Let me warn you: you really don’t want to know.

    I’ll tell you anyway.  They’re spending millions of dollars on green energy technology. Seriously.

    The Washington Times has a short article on the subject. I’m guessing it will turn your stomach when you read it.

    The VA doesn’t have a resource problem. It has leadership and priorities problems.

    And those leadership and priorities problems are costing some vets their lives.

  • Vets flood Legion’s Arizona crisis center

    Vets flood Legion’s Arizona crisis center

    In case you didn’t know it, The American Legion set up a crisis center in Phoenix to help veterans and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs hospital there catch up on appointments. According to the Associated Press it’s going gangbusters down there.

    “Unfortunately, we have to be here,” Verna Jones, the director of veteran’s affairs and rehabilitation for the national American Legion, told the crowd at the crisis center in Phoenix on Tuesday. “But fortunately, we’re here to help you with the services that you deserve.”

    Jones addressed a packed room filled with veterans seeking help to expedite their care through the VA while many complained they felt as if they had fallen through the cracks.

    “It hurts us to have just one vet stand up and say, `I’m dying because the VA failed me,’” Jones said. “They’re frustrated, they’re concerned and they just don’t know where to go.”

    The American Legion said it will operate the crisis center in Phoenix through Friday and expects to assist hundreds of veterans, possibly extending the program to other cities.

  • Camp Victory dust stuff

    Ex-344MP sends us this link about a study that came out a few months ago, but for some reason, USTODAY just noticed it. I guess Ex-344MP is especially interested in the study because he was at Camp Victory in Iraq;

    “We biopsied several patients and found titanium in every single one of them,” said Anthony Szema, an assistant professor at Stony Brook School of Medicine who specializes in pulmonology and allergies. “It matched dust that we have collected from Camp Victory” in Iraq.

    The dust is different from dust found elsewhere in that human lungs are unable to dispel it through natural immune-system processes. The Iraq dust comes attached to iron and copper, and it forms polarizable crystals in the lungs, Szema said. The particles — each bit 1/30th the size of a human hair — have sharp edges.

    “They’ve inhaled metal,” Szema said. “It’s not a little; it’s a lot.”

    The patients that Doc saw were all suffering from “constrictive bronchiolitis” – a narrowing of breathing passages.

    Titanium and iron are both associated with pulmonary fibrosis and pulmonary hypertension in humans, Szema said.

    Last month, the Defense Department released its annual relative morbidity report. A USA TODAY analysis of reports dating from 2001 to 2013, as well as Defense Manpower Data, shows that the number of people reporting respiratory and chest symptoms increased from a rate of 406 per 10,000 in 2001 to 744 per 10,000 in 2013.

  • More Info From that VA OIG Report on the Phoenix VAMC

    Jonn’s written an article already today about the VA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and their report on the Phoenix VAMC released yesterday.  Here’s a few additional details from the VA’s OIG interim report.

    • Average waiting time for first appointment, as reported by the VA Hospital in Phoenix:  24 days, based on a “statistical sample of 226 veterans”, with 43% waiting longer than 14 days
    • Average waiting time for first appointment, actual:  115 days (same sample of 226 veterans), with approx 84% waiting longer than 14 days
    • Number of vets on the Phoenix VAMC “official” electronic waiting list:  1,400
    • Number of vets found to have been waiting for care but not on any  official electronic waiting list – e.g., that “secret waiting list” that Jonn mentioned in his article: 1,700

    In case you were wondering:  the “secret list” was over 20% larger than the official electronic waiting list.  Pretty neat, eh?

    Also:  it seems like “waiting time” reported to DC only started when someone went on the “official” electronic waiting list.  So, yeah – I think there just might have been something shady going on.

    If you’re interested, here is interim VA OIG report.  Only about 30 pages total, so if you want to look it over it shouldn’t take that long.