Cheap talk
According to Stars & Stripes, Ric Shinseki and Leon Panetta made a joint appearance in front of their oversight committees; House Armed Services and House Veterans Affairs committees; to smile and wave away questions about why their clerks can’t talk to each other about veterans’ health records;
“Collaboration and cooperation between VA and DOD have never been more important, and I think for the next two decades … this will be the work of the nation,” Shinseki said.
The agencies represent the two largest bureaucracies in the country, in terms of personnel and funding.
Panetta said the VA health care system is already “overwhelmed” with claims from troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and he expects problems to get worse as the Afghan war winds down and the military starts reducing its personnel numbers.
Shinseki said he and Panetta have met regularly, sorting out ways to ease transition out of the military.
Like I’ve said before, when I left the military in 1994, my records were sent to the VA after I turned them in at outprocessing and within a few months, I had appoints scheduled for me and jumped through the hoops to get my care finalized. So what the hell has changed, well, except that technology should have made it easier than the days that they sent actual paper records between agencies?
I’m sure there are some critics out there with more knowledge of the problem than me, but to me this is just sloth on the part of bureaucrats when there used to be a completely acceptable system that worked admirably and now there’s not.
Category: Veteran Health Care, Veterans Issues, Veterans' Affairs Department
Yeah, I think this is part of the problem, too:
http://s1.static.gotsmile.net/images/2012/02/22/426163-355637977800239-172028146161224-1143447-376644764_132990781970.jpg
Smiles, waves, some flashy new slogans and program names…problem solved.
For everybody but vets, that is.
As a comparison, I retired on 1 April 2012… in December 2011 I began the process through a program called “Benefits Delivered at Discharge” in which the Army does much of the preliminary work and the VA “guarantees” completion of claims in “only” 6 months.
The appointments came fast: did them all in January.
Got a letter dated 31 May 2012 from the VA informing me that they “are still processing” my application and that I “will be notified upon completion.”
Well, VA… it’s been 6 months. Still waiting… How exactly does that “guarantee” work?
Your Active Duty Health Record does not automatically go to the VA, and when it does go to the VA it only goes to the VA Regional Office not the VAMC where you have a primary care. It is maintained by the VARO and sent to VAMC for Comp and Pen Exams.
We do not maintain DOD records at the VAMC’s at all. It can be placed in your VA Medical File, if we are provided a copy and a progress note from your Primary Care to include it in the record. We scan all outside documents into the electronic record now, and that includes any DOD records.
We do not even create any new paper Med Folders now, it is all electronic.
However, I have no idea what they are talking about with a joint med record being worked on. All I know is they are shutting down our record rooms by 2014. All paper records will be gone from here… or something like that, all I know is I need a new job probably before then.
Well it’s like this…. Uncle Suger can F-up a wet dream.
The first time I ETS’d I had a rating and all that in about 8 months, and that was back in 2000. Now who knows how long it will take.
Correction… kind of. The Links are supposedly active so that if your VA Doctor wants to look at your DOD Record they can. Or, if you want to request your DOD Record, you can go to the Release of Information Office and get a copy from them.
We have not seen it work here yet…
I retired in 1994. One of the stops was a VA rep. She told me that there were many problems with the VA (she was also retiring) and certified all of my medical records and gave me the origionals. The certified copies were obatined by the VA, the origionals have been in a saftey deposit box since then.
Look up feckless in the dictionary. You’ll find Shinseki’s picture next to the defintion.
Well, three toner cartridges and 8 reams of paper later I have produced the necessary personal copy and yet another paper copy for my local VA Rep. I’m sure this will work out well. WTF the guy at one end of the hall with the originals and the VA guy at the other end can’t use the same copy before shipping it to STL.
And being 2012 and all, why did my TMC have to print copies of my digital records in the first place so that at some point in time the VA can scan them back into digits. Sigh, another fucking day in this mess instead of job hunting.
i got out in 2006 and it was a joke. I went to the VA out processing desk, and because i had just returned from deployment, and only had like 3 weeks left they just told me “oh, we don’t have enough time to handle your paperwork, you need to find the VA facility in the city where you are going, and work with them from there.” So yah, pretty awesome how computers have sped things up…lol.
I got off active duty in 2009, didn’t know about all the VA stuff when someone told me late into my check out process. I went to the VA on base(lejeune) they told me they cant help me out since they didn’t have enough time with me, I told them I just got back from deployment(lied and said I was with another unit who just recently got back) and they set up a meeting the next day for me.
Did it late, and got the benefits about 6 months later(gi bill took about 4). And they back paid me that 6 months.. I bet its hundreds of times worse now.
back in 2010 I went to get a normal physical it took me 2 months to get seen and while i was there the va nurse offered to take me to get the normal blood work stuff because I was already there so I took them up on it.
i personally think the VA system is a joke, i understand the ‘enormous backlog’ but they’ve been saying they’ve been backlogged years ago, this is nothing new.
VA has lost my records 3 times now. Going on 14 months since I made my first claim. I have had multiple appointments with a VA contracted company named QTC. This very morning QTC called and said the VA told them to redo all the appointments. So I now have another battery of appointments coming. Lets just hope it doesn’t take 10 months for them to give me a appointment date again.
I read everyones comments about the VA reps saying they don’t have enough time. I got the you have to wait because you are still receiving pertinent care line. They have all the time.
The VA motto really is “Delay, Deny, hope you Die”
The problem is the civilians who have been brought in to create/manage/troubleshoot the computer systems. Put uniformed personnel in charge of it, provide them with resources and support, and demand results/accountability and the problem will be resolved in a year.
When you left the military in ’94 . . . . When I out-processed in December 1992, I entered a room at the Records Center, Fort Ben Harrison. There were 2 men at 2 desks, side by side. One was Army and one was VA. I handed over the true and certified copy of my medical records, including the actual x-rays taken during a 21-year career. Each x-ray. In January 1993, I netered the VA in Nashville for my initial screening. Guess what? They could not find my records. It took over a year for them to locate the files.
So, obviously, there has NOT been much progress made.
Meh it took a letter to my Congressman for IRR to accept my ARMY medical records. I think it takes a minor miracle for any bureaucrat(including military paper pushers) to interface with another bureaucrat and not have a pissing match involved, which negatively effects the normal person stuck in the middle. This whole fucking mess of different government bureaucrats (aka wannabe dictators) is exactly why I think “Obamacare” is so awful.
Also I submitted my Army Medical records to the VA before ETSing in June 2010, and in May 2011 got my award statement. At least the way the system is, they back pay you to the original date.
The VA has this fairly nifty little program called Vista which it uses for all contacts, in and outpatient, in the VA. I thought it was extremely easy to use and when the military came out with CHCS, AHLTA and the Essentris (yes, thats right, three different electronic medical records, only two of which talk to each other) I thought it was a tremendous waste of time and money to say nothing of a missed opportunity for seamless communication. Granted, it wouldn’t take care of all the paper notes that some battalions still use, but it was a step forward. Now we are entering our next phase in trying to fix the mess that private pet projects to cronies created in the first place.
As for the VA…my boyfriend retired in OCT 11. His claim, as claims go, was relatively simple. It took QtC 6 months to turn in his exam and ebenefits says that he should expect a result, assuming all goes to plan, by AUG 2013. Amazing. The fast recent turn around time I’ve heard of was 9 months and that person was the spouse of a surgeon general.