The Veterans Administration Under Fire . . .

I admit it, I am a disabled American Veteran.  And yes, I have had my battles with the Veterans Administration (VA) or more correctly the Department of Veteran Affairs.  The hoopla surrounding the VA is at once understandable and dismaying at the same time.

When you overwhelm a system or program, underfund it or in general bad mouth its constituents, then you are going to have some severe lapses.  Is this right, no.  Is it preventable, I am not sure it is in this case.

There are really two groups of Veterans.  Those that are destitute and totally dependent on the VA for care and the rest of us.  So the VA has a vast group to contend with.  They do a pretty good job of containing the drunks, the down and outs and those that do not have any other resources.  They even pay then a pension, paltry that it is.

The group I fall into is a bit different.  I am a military retiree and have TRICARE for Life coverage, basically an 80/20 insurance plan.  I can use any physician I want (and that will accept me).  Now that I am on Medicare, TRICARE is my automatic second payer.  Works pretty good and I do have a private physician (he is now a member of an association but they take Medicare patients).  I had this doctor when I had medical coverage with Lockheed-Martin and we just continue on with our doctor/patient relationship.

But I am disabled, I have bum knees from jogging them away while on active duty.  I have
Gout that showed up about the time I retired from the military.  Those two issues resulted in a 30% disability rating and earned me a compensation from the VA.  It is not a pension, it is compensation for Service Connected disabilities.  The VA is my military disability insurance!

I have also Agent Orange issues.  Agent Orange was a defoliant sprayed on the jungles in Viet Nam.  The airplanes and bases that did the spraying were the same ones I was stationed at.  I was literally awash in the stuff.  The bad ingredient was Dioxin which collects and stays in your liver.  It took years for this to effect me but it did and the result is that I am a Diabetic, Type II.  Along with Diabetes comes additional issues, like Peripheral Neuropathy (in both feet and left hand), Cataracts and Radii Colopathy (basically a collapsed disc in my neck) which effects my right hand and sometimes causes shooting pains in my right arm and across my chest (that is nerve damage from the collapsed disc).

This all adds up to a total man disability rating of 90%.  And I receive monthly compensation for these Service Connected disabilities at the 90% rate.  That compensation is tax free, no state or federal taxes can be assessed against that compensation.  On the other hand, I would rather not be so compensed if I did not have the Service Connected disabilities.  I now know my life span will be foreshortened by these disabilities.  It is a fact and I live with it.

Recently I had a run if with the local VA administrator over a hearing examination.  He had dictated that no one receive a hearing examination unless there were referred by one of his doctors.  I had my Medicare/TRICARE physician refer me to an ENT physician for a hearing examination.  And yes, I had hearing losses.

The VA will provide a veteran with a hearing aid and hearing aid supplies but first you must have a
VA examination.  That to me is reasonable requirement. 

So I set about getting an appointment for the hearing examination.  I was informed I had to get a VA physician referral to get the appointment.  So I said, "Okay, I'll do that."  When I went to sign up for an appointment I was told I must have a blood test first and the results have to be sent to the physician.  I balked.  A blood test was totally unnecessary, what does a blood test have to do with my hearing?  No one could answer that.  In fact, no one on the staff wanted to answer that question and I was referred the Fort Worth VA Clinic "Executive."  That would be the guy in charge, not a doctor but a civil servant, a paper pusher.

So I went to see the chap in his office area.  I did not get into his office, he came over to the spot where I was waiting.  I said my piece and he said his.  His was, "No referral to audio clinic with out a physicians referral.  Period."  I responded I was sorry to hear that and that it would lead to me complaining by letter to the various offices in the VA and Congress as to what is going on.

So I went home and wrote the letters to my Congress person, the VA Inspector General and the Chielf VA Administrator for Texas down in Waco, TX.  About six weeks later, I receive a phone call asking if I was available next Friday for an Audiology appointment with the Fort Worth VA Clinic.  I said yes.  The rest is history, I have my hearing aids, and I did not have a VA Physician referral.

It seems a Veteran with a 90% disability rating does not need such a referral.  I did not make the executive eat crow face to face.   But why did I have to go through the gauntlet of letter writing to get the action taken care of?

I believe it is built into the  bureaucracy of the institution.  The executive clearly was trying to build up his medical business ~ force the veterans to use his doctors, ergo more production (at least more statistics on paper).  Is he evil, no.  He is trying to get more for his population of patients, maybe.  To show utilization in the new clinic he has to show more through put.  Perhaps, he was challenged to do so.  I do not know but I take it as typical of the VA everywhere.

The institution is under funded with the vast influx of the Desert Storm and Afghanistan veterans demanding needed attention.  The military services shove their beat up troops off on the VA.  And the VA has no choice but accept them.  Go to a VA hospital and it is a bee hive of activity. 
There is maybe 10 acres of parking outside the Dallas VA hospital and it is all full every week day.

It will take extraordinary management skills to clear the back logs the VA faces.  It will take more money, money the present administration wishes to use to buy votes.  And everybody knows those military types do not vote for Democrats.  So the VA reclines in a benign neglect position.

I think General Shinskie must go.  But the President has yet to fire an incompetent, so why start now.

The beat goes on...