VA’s BRAC plan
According to Stars & Stripes, last year Congress asked this CMS Alliance to Modernize Healthcare organization to evaluate the VA Healthcare system and they recommend that the VA “realign” their assets – read that: close some of their facilities.
Congress should create a governance board to guide the new VA strategy. The board could also reshape the agency’s geographic footprint, moving or closing hospitals to better serve veteran health care needs, similar to the Base Realignment and Closure process, it said.
Lawmakers and the VA must also decide the agency’s place in the modern era of health care. The 16 members of the review panel wrote a letter to VA Secretary Bob McDonald — included in the review package — suggesting that the agency consider scaling back care to “focus on specific areas of service-related conditions.”
Yeah, that’s just brilliant. The VA went through a “realignment” process several years ago which closed a lot of facilities and moved the healthcare facilities further from most veterans. That last “realignment” is the reason that the VA has to build new hospitals because that “realignment” realigned service to veterans right out of the picture.
Last year, Congress and the White House initiated the Veterans’ Choice Program, plowed millions of dollars into the process to help veterans get treatment “on the economy” so to speak, if the lived too far from VA facilities to get responsive treatment in a timely manner. Weeks after sending out the literature and Vet Choice cards to veterans, the White House declared the program broken and raided the funds.
The CMS Alliance (MITRE Corporation) looked at the problem from a business stand point, so you know that they won’t suggest “realignment” in a way that will benefit veterans. Veterans’ Choice was a simple, common sense solution to the problem, that’s why the White House raped it to fund other things.
The problem with the VA isn’t geography, the facilities or money – the problem is the culture among the non-medical personnel that stand between veterans and the folks who want to treat them. This discussion about “realignment” is a distraction from the real problem.
Here’s my experience with the problem; I have lost the use of my feet, so I needed hand controls on a vehicle in order to drive. The VA offered to install those hand controls. That’s fine. But I needed training in order to drive a vehicle with hand controls. The VA’s only driving instructor for the hand controls was in DC (a five-hour round trip) and they wanted me to make the drive there for eight weeks.
An alternative solution was that I pay for my training out of my pocket for a private instructor that was closer. I found one in Winchester, Virginia (less than an hour away) – so that’s what I did, for four weeks. I drove tractors when I was younger and a number of military vehicles, so the transition wasn’t all that difficult for me. Much less difficult than driving five hours a day for eight weeks. But, the drivers’ training had been “realigned” right out of the Martinsburg, West Virginia VA hospital recently. I could afford to spend the $1200 out-of-pocket expenses, not reimbursable by the VA, by the way, for private driver training, but I’m sure that many elderly veterans can’t. I’m sure there are many who also can’t make the long trip to DC for the training, either. And who wants to take drivers’ training in the Metro DC area anyway?
But this makes my point about this whole BRAC idea.
Thanks to Richard for the link.
Category: Veteran Health Care, Veterans' Affairs Department
“Sir, we are sinking.”
“Yes, we are indeed. I want those deck chairs nailed down!”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
16 member board? Just shows, it is not hard to find 16 A.H.’s willing to sell out the Vets to save a few bucks is it?
The Retirement and Compensation board was what, 6 people? Six who already make 6-7 figure paychecks as it is to get paid even more to come up with ways to screw veterans?
Washington D.C.: “You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”
There are experts there for sale that will “claim” anything you want them to, same as in the court system. (As long as you can afford the 100 dollar a minute lawyers.)
What are we? The War Bond Veterans?
Ahhhh the VA…. You have to love it Lol….
Makes sense, close established centers, relocating some (spending money to build new buildings or adapt established building to suit the VA’s needs) and creating a new SNAFU for some veterans. Provider/patient relationships get tossed to the side, veterans get to try to locate new locations and then arrange transportation to and from them (I’m a mere kid of 36, but I know how hard it can get for some older ladies and gentlemen to change their routines), and the powers that be there get large bonuses for making a “difference”.
By the way, those hand controls take a little getting used to, but are pretty intuitive. When I was a Cadillac tech I worked on some DeVilles and (I think) a Brougham that were equipped with them. I made a habit of using them when pulling cars and and out of the bay.
I driven it to North Carolina and to New York, and I like hand controls better than foot controls, actually. I’m trying to convince my wife that I need to go to the Jack Daniels Distillery for my birthday. That’s a fur piece, too.
Don’t forget it is in a dry county.
It may cost you a fur piece to convince her.
(Do people still wear those things?)
We have 1 VA Hospital for all of Maine. Boston has 2. The last “realignment” moved the majority of retinal, cardiac, thoracic, and orthopedic surgery away from Togus (the Maine VA facility) to Boston, which, for me, is a 3.5 hour trip 1-way, and a lot longer for many other veterans.
The VA Choice program would be ideal for Maine, but it’s a bureaucratic nightmare up here. There are a lot better solutions for the VA, and they all start with “realigning” the damned bureaucracy and cutting out those obscene salaries and perqs that the top monkeys are getting. Yeah, I’m venting, but the VA has become a procedural nightmare, a real administrative jungle.
YMMV, of course, but that’s the view from Chez AWTim’s bungalo 🙂
After clinic hours there are only 2(TWO)places to go for help. Either Muskogee VAMC or Oklahoma City VAMC. Tulsa which is larger and the surronding cities have larger populations has only a Outpatient clinic. Closed after 4:PM. Only a bad injury or life threatening problems will be paid by the VAMC. I am 63.5 $miles from the Muskogee VAMC and 14 miles the Tulsa clinic. Screwed up like Hogan’s groat. Joe
“The problem with the VA isn’t geography, the facilities or money – the problem is the culture among the non-medical personnel that stand between veterans and the folks who want to treat them.”
NAILED IT! Leave it to the administrators (.gov and .ctr) to come up with a way to screw things up for us even further while making their situation even better. Higher COLA anyone?
Oh, your mileage reimbursement claim is denied – you’re less than a thousand miles from the VAMC. Sorry…