Seth Moulton goes to the VA
Congressman Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts, experienced first-hand treatment of veterans at the DC VA hospital when, a few days before he was to swear in to his new office, he got a hernia from lifting weights. According to the Boston Globe, a congressional physician tried to steer the Congressman-elect away from the VA facility, for good reason.
Moulton spent hours waiting and, of course, the staff that stood between him and the doctor that would treat him, couldn’t figure out if he was eligible for treatment or not.
“We’ll consider taking you as a humanitarian case,” a hospital staffer told Moulton, unaware that the would-be hernia patient was also a newly elected Massachusetts congressman.
Thus began Moulton’s frustrating experience with the Veterans Affairs health system, a personal sampling of a chronically troubled medical bureaucracy that has drawn complaints from veterans, demands for improvements from Congress, and multiple investigations.
“If it wasn’t so sad, it would have been comical,” Moulton said in an interview as he recounted his VA odyssey.
In addition to enduring missing records and computer glitches, Moulton said, he was prescribed the wrong medicine, which in his case did not imperil his health but is in the category of a medical error that can be extremely dangerous in some cases, even fatal.
Moulton, an Iraq war Marine veteran of some renown, comes away from the experience with the same sense that most of us have; the doctors at the VA are some of the best in the country, but the bureaucracy between the patients and the doctors is the worst in government.
The VA refused to discuss Moulton’s case, citing patient privacy laws, even after Moulton gave the administration written and verbal authorization to do so.
Moulton’s encounter with the VA health system led to his first legislative initiative — a package of bills designed to strengthen training and recruitment of VA health care professionals.
There’s a culture at the VA that needs to change and it won’t change with more training. It will only change when the bureaucrats who only have excuses why they can’t do their jobs instead of solutions to patients’ problems start finding themselves out on the streets.
You should read the whole story at the Boston Globe link, you’ll recognize your own experience.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
Having just completed a training session (one I was not required to, but did it anyhow) on Eligibility at the VA, the reason he was being told that he would be treated on a humanitarian basis is because he did not have with him proof of service, and for whatever reason they were not able to verify it immediately. Yes it is frustrating, but he was not being denied service.
The delay was due to his not having proof of service with him, and the DoD database that we use to verify service was obviously not working.
The fact is, the VA HAS to verify your service, as we have seen far too often here there are those who like to pretend they served, and go to all manner of lengths to falsify their service.
It is shameful that it slows the process, but he was not denied service. He was being granted on humanitarian status, which means he would be treated for emergency care, and if his service was verified he would be fully enrolled.
Which is why every one of us as Veterans should at the very least go through the registration process for VA Medical Care. You will save yourself time and effort later if you need it for an emergency.
I got my new VA card a few weeks ago, and my new pamphlet a few days ago. They still won’t take Medicare.
My card expires in 2024. I hate to tell them that my lifespan, per my genetic inheritance in re: longevity, will extend long beyond 2024.
Hopefully you’ll get a replacement card by that time, or they’re banking you won’t need it by then.
VA is prohibited by law from billing Medicare.
Mt first visit to a VA hospital was in the back of an ambulance – I had no proof of service with me either. While I was flat on my back, they asked me for my SSN and determined my eligibility in minutes. That was in April, 2000.
Like I said, it should have only been a matter of minutes, but it does happen that they can not always get an immediate response, and in that case they will treat a patient on “Humanitarian basis” for emergency care until elligibility can be determined.
I have seen it done several times here. I have seen it done for non Veterans, who mistakenly came here thinking it was a public hospital.
I do not know all the details of the Congressmans visit, only what was written in the article. I do know he was not denied emergency/life saving care by the VA.
How karmic!
And I think it uncannily wise of him to not mention that he was a congress critter.
I completely agree. No amount of training is going to change the culture of BS that continues at the VA.
The facebook commenter should not even have to wait one year, let alone 14, but I am preaching to the choir, I know.
Who has an answer and why won’t anyone listen?
That trigger happy comment by De is me, Jonn.
“It’s the doctors themselves that are trying to step beyond the bureaucracy,” he said.”
That’s been my experience at the DC VAMC. A lot of the staff are also frustrated with the antiquated toys they’re given to work with.
Say what you want.. The VA is more concern with providing jobs and dealing with the unions then taking care of Veterans. ONLY the “high profile” cases matter. Heck, I was told that if I stayed and retired from the military, I would have free health care for life. Now I have to pay a private insurance company for a supplement each month and still can’t get seen by the VA. Lies after lies after lies. Not asking for a handout, just would like to get what was told I would have.
You are lucky, WWI veterans were promised a bunch of stuff too, which of course they didn’t get, when the got a mob together to protest, that illustrious asshole McArthur had them killed in the streets!
I did my job for the US Army back in 1974, now I get bills for something I was told I would get at no cost. The copays are horrible from the VA on all kinds of things.
The VA has saved my life 3 times with their great care but dealing with the bureaucracy is enough to drive you out of your mind.
Another week, another VA screw up or two or three. Not sure if there are more phonies or VA debacles each week. Beyond the computer issues, no excuse for the wrong medication. Plus now VA is ‘circling the wagons’ and refusing comment? But I’m sure the new Secretary will change the bureaucratic culture asap, like maybe by the next millenium.
A hernia? You don’t want to go to the VA for a hernia.
My father got along just fine for 26 years after being discharged in Nov 1945 after WWII. In March 1972 he went to the VA for the very first time for consultation on his hernia. Long story short, six months and two botched hernia operations later, he was dead. Take from that what you will.
I am now in my 23rd year after retirement and all I have ever done with the VA is register. It took me almost two years to be placed into the right category and even now the VA tells me that if I ever want to receive care I must travel back to Powell,WY (a six hour road trip even if you use YNP as a shortcut) instead of going 60 miles south to Pocatello,ID. Hell, I can’t even get a picture ID out of Pocatello as their camera equipment has been busted for two plus years.
So if the VA ever thinks I will darken their doors after I come off of Tricare and go to Medicare they can just keep dreaming.
Sorry for the rant. But along with my father and the way the VA overmedicated my older brother before he passed, I just have no faith at all in anything the VA does.
My VA experiencing are being chronicalled in a book entitled, “You Can’t Make This Shitz Up If You Tried”.
To be released hopefully before they kill me!
By the way, I am rated on the higher end and they bill my private insurance for everything!
I said EVERYTHING.
Funny thing is, I only go to the VA for service connected issues.
Splain that to Congress.
Actually, MCPO – Congress is the one who made the VA do that.
Federal law says that the VA and TRICARE are second-payer to any private insurance an eligible individual may carry – e.g., private insurance must pay first – except for specially crafted supplement policies. (Such supplement policies exist for TRICARE and MEDICARE; not sure if they do for the VA). There’s no exceptions for VA treatment of service-connected conditions.
Well. What am I getting for my trouble?
Oh, I know!
A front row seat at the pharmacy watching all the POS get there Oxy and Hydro pills … Same ones every day, every week!
VA is a fraudsters paradise!
No argument with that last sentence, MCPO.
I’d guess outright fraud at north of 10%, and embellishment/exaggeration of complaints/whatever you want to call it that the VA buys at north of 25%. And I’d also not be surprised if either number (or both) are substantially higher in reality.
And we haven’t really seen the effect of that”presumptive exposure” idiocy regarding Agent Orange and Vietnam yet. That’s only been in effect for about 5 or 6 years.
I seem to recall a certain shitty pilot who never set foot in RVN milking the system.
Now multiply that by a factor of several hundred thousand, at least.
Chief when I caught that on my insurance I got pissed. I was about to call IG, my Congresscritter, my local newspaper, radio station…everybody. Then I started digging deeper and found out that somehow congress snuck it in. So since I am covered under my wife’s insurance, they are billed for care that the VA should pay for anyway. Now here is the kicker. If I didn’t have that coverage the VA wouldn’t send that bill out. So they bill the Insurance they can and forget the ones they can’t.
When the whole VA crisis erupted, there were a lot of callers to the Howie Carr show here in Boston who said Massachusetts had one of the best hospitals int he country. “No problems there,” the callers all said. It seemed like there was a little too much sunshine and rainbows because NO VA hospital is run properly.
The VA did a very good job of spinning up PR rather than addressing the problem. The VA started showing up at various fairs and parades pumping up the PR machine. It was noticeable, but lately you can’t find them anywhere now that the controversy died down.
VA Boston just held their 5th annual “5K”, during which participants brought items to be donated to Veterans in need.
In a month or so the VA will have a strong presence once again at Operation Stand Down held at the IBW Hall in Boston right off Route 3.
Every year there are toy and food drives at Christmas and Thanksgiving held by the empoyees of VA Boston Health Care.
Regarding services, VA Boston has just aquired several Mobile Units to get out there to do Enrollments and Health Screenings.
I can relate to a lot of the criticism being thrown at the VA, believe me I have more than my fair share of gripes with the system.
Do not say that “we do nothing” when no one is looking. The reason many don’t know about it, is because you are not looking.
Perfection is a Goal to be exceded, and while not there yet… the effort to get there is, and the culture is beginning to change. I atteneded training recently, that was a cross section of the many Services here and the energy and focus from the up and coming Veteran Employees, and non veteran Employees determined to make positive changes was inspiring.
I wouldn’t trade my Care here at VA Boston for the HMO I have access to through the Exe’s insurance. Wasn’t always that way, but it is now and I intend to keep it that way by being a voice for positive change.
I think the Congressman from Mass. should have had his JOCK STRAP on, maybe his problem with having a hernia might have not taken place, I’am no Phy. but I do know what works after you reach the ripe old age.
Where the tall corn grows
Sam
I’ll say this much for the Jamaica Plains and Roxbury hospitals in Boston: I don’t have any complaints about the medical staff there. I’ve had several operations done at those locations, with recovery at Roxbury, and each was above and beyond what I expected.
Now, having said all that, the bureaucracy down there is over the top. I have far to many examples to speack of here, but in short, one woman, obviously from Haiti or some place where english is a second language, was doing my intake work prior to one round of surgery. She mixed up my list of meds with some other patient and one of those meds, had I been given it, would have killed me. Thanks God I caught that. The other time was when one of the intake workers tried to say I was an alcoholic and needed to be screened by a substance abuse counselor before I could be admitted for surgery. I told her I had NEVER had a problem with ANY substance and that she was frikkin’ nuts. She showed me right on her screen where I had claimed to drink 6-12 drinks/day. In fact, when I looked at the header, it was someone else, and not me whose records she had managed to pull up, and how she managed that, with all the alleged safeguards in place, is beyond me.
I also asked one VA civilian worker once for directions to my clinic. She pointedly told me that it wasn’t her job to give me directions, that if I was lost I should either go to the information desk when I first came in, or should have asked my clinic for directions before coming to Boston.
So, yeah. Like the Congress Critter above, I’ve had excellent medical care. It’s everything else that’s been the problem.
AW. That is absolutely fucked up. I hope to heck you reported that employee. The phrase “Not my Job” is stricly forbidden here. has been since before I started here, and anyone using it needs to be recycled through their training.
I had it out with an MSA at JP recently, because she had one hell of a bad attitude. I missed an appointment time, despite having checked in on their wonderful Kiosk system, because their clinic has decided not to follow the SOP for their use. She got pretty condescending with me, and I ripped her a new on on the spot, and the Provider in charge of the clinic steped in to take care of their screw up.
When things like this happen, there is a fine line between making a choice between losing our shit or ignoring it… Or taking a very focussed approach to ensure that the message gets through that the employee is in need of counseling on their Job Responsibilities.
Ever in Brockton, stop by the dungeon of Building 3.
Sam- jock straps don’t have anything to do with most hernias. Inguinal hernias are the most common and they occur several inches away. Got me a set of Heidelberg scars from a midget to prove it.
I’m so ‘shocked.’
Yours truly had been predicting for years and years that nothing about the VA would ever change.
Everyone and their brothers were so ecstatic when shinseki was gone, as if that was going to fix the issue. Make no mistake, I’m not remotely a ‘fan’ of the dude, but I knew better than to think one person was responsible for a climate of corruption, ineptitude, and bloated bureaucracy.
And here we are, in the year 2015, and story after story about the VA and how terrible it is, continue to make news, from every corner of the state.
I can fix a lot thats wrong with the VA. Simple, why would Seth be even eligible for treatment at a VA? I don’t see any PH or mention in any of my searches for a service connected injury.
How about all the people that get a hernia years after their service is over go the the local hospital like everyone else.
This idea that just because we served a few years in the military the VA should take care of our ass the rest of our lives is bullshit.
I have a word for my brother Marine Seth, stay the hell out of the VA and take care of your own problems.
This entitlement mentality has to stop.
Yes,
The story makes me why he would just show up at a VA clinic and expect treatment if he isn’t registered in the system.
He could well be eligible. If he is he should do what every other vet does and get his paperwork and card done.
I think DH’s point is, “Why should the VA be treating him for a non-service-connected condition at all?”
If that’s the case, he has a point. IMO the VA owes treatment in 3 circumstances:
a. For service-connected conditions.
b. To those who are 100% disabled because of service-connected conditions.
c. To former POWs.
Unless you served for 20 or are otherwise a retiree, anything above that in the way of government medical care is – bluntly – a freebie. And Uncle Sam is too damn broke today to keep giving free stuff away.
Exactly. He went muck-raking. The media whores are being fed the story of him being a veteran who was denied service by the VA.
There are limits to who is allowed VA coverage. If dipshit wasnt in the VA system he shouldn’t show up with a non-life threatening non service related injury and expect to get treatment.
The VA should bill his ass.
They’ll bill him and/or his insurance – for a copayment, anyway – if he isn’t 50% or more service-connected. But if he’s been deployed on active duty within the last 5 years, he’s 100% entitled to VA medical care, NQA. Ditto if he has any service-connected condition whatsoever, even one rated at 0%.
The former is just another little “gift” we taxpayers got courtesy of the Clintoon Administration, which first convinced Congress to make that part of Federal law the during Bosnia in 1998 (Congress extended and expanded it later). Not sure when the “any service connected condition entitles you to VA medical treatment” became policy, but I believe it was well before that.
Think Carolyn Clancy and Allison Hickey, both Undersecretaries of the VHA and VBA respectively.
They hide behind attorneys. That is why the health care sucks. They keep hiring attorneys instead of physicians.
We will see if MacDonald has what it takes to intervene but word has it that he is starting to drink the Kool-Aid as well.
I think the current SECVA’s recent verbal misrepresentation of his military record told us all we needed to know about him, GT.
That little “oopsie” tells me that he’s willing to tell people what they want to hear vice the truth if it serves his purposes. That means he’s essentially a politician vice a leader – and I mean that in the worst way.
And both of them are under heavy scrutiny from the outside as they have both been caught (and proven) lying to MacDonald (and Congress).
A MD and a former AF General.
Curious as to what McD does.
I’d wager myself, a couple of my club management buddies and a squad of ass kicking operations NCO’s could square the VA away if the lawyers would keep the union and EEO folks off of our butts long enough. This is not rocket science and the same thing I encountered in every f-in club I took over in both the Air Force and Army. Takes about a month to figure out who the stars and plodders are and move them out smartly. Most will leave on their own when competent management comes on the scene. A dead fish starts to stink at the head.
“a few days before he was to swear in to his new office, he got a hernia from lifting weights. ”
Not service connected, so why should the taxpayers pay for any part of his treatment? Part of the problem is that there are so many category 7 & 8 veterans (non-emergency, non service-connected condition, non disabled) like this congressman using scarce resources and clogging up the system.
I don’t care if he had to wait hours. I had to wait days to get my rather painful hernia operated on in the real world.
This guy is a typical Mass. political hack; looking for a photo opportunity and at the same time finding a way to scam the taxpayers. His solution will be to spend more money to increase the bureaucracy.