I can tell you from first-hand experience what the VA lacks is not funding, but organization and accountability. I have to deal with them for an error they made, and when you call (assuming you can get through, which is about 40% of the time, after holding for about 80 minutes) you talk to a customer service rep who cannot make any decisions or changes, and they can only look at the status of your claim. When you ask to speak to someone, there is no-one you can speak to. Your case manager is a nameless, faceless individual that will not speak to you, and the only means of communication are by fax or mail (not email… they don’t use that there). Don’t lay this at the feet of Republicans, Pea. This is the fault of the entire bureaucracy. The entire apparatus is designed to keep unelected people in a position of power, and it has been designed over the course of decades of mismanagement. When they have a situation where I can’t speak with the individual making the decision on my case, and I have to instead of my congressman get involved and have his staff opening an inquiry into the VA, there’s something wrong with the structure of the organization. Funding is not the issue. I can prove it: We just had a massive (over 150,000 square feet) new facility built here in my town. We went from a building that could MAYBE hold 50 people to a full-sized hospital with a SOTA surgical suite. It’s been up for over a year, and not a single surgery has been performed. That facility cost over $100 million to put up. So… no. It’s not a funding issue. It’s an administration issue. People need to be fired, and the entire claim process needs to be restructured.
MY experience has been just the opposite…when I e-mail my VA doctor, she gets back to me in a reasonable interval, she takes care of my needs, the specialists at the hospital where I go have taken VERY good care of me,the nurses at the hospital (most of them are vets themselves) are really good and know where I am coming from…
Wraithkin had many important and useful points, but the first one is the best: “I can tell you from first-hand experience what the VA lacks is not funding, but organization and accountability.”
And I will posit that this is the same problem with almost every government organization/department. And what do we do about it? Complain and throw the bums back in. Curious creatures, these humans.
You can tell how important veterans are to Congressmen by how hard they strive to get onto the Veterans Committee.-Compare that to all the elbowing that is done to get a seat on the Banking Committee.-And many of the legislators who are appointed to the Veterans Committee (some by default) can’t be bothered to show up for committee meetings. -But all Republicans/Fox “news” viewers hate Bernie Sanders and love Tom Coburn.
Hmm, all I get out of the ‘toon this time is right wing chicken hawk politicians trying to drop our troops into another war, and they’re pissed at Obama for negotiating to let others, like Jordan, do the fighting for us instead?
I disagree. It’s not that they lack tech or the tools. It’s that their organization is set up so that you cannot talk to the people actually making the decisions. That’s a structural impediment that is inserted by design. Some genius bureaucrat who likely never worked in a claims environment thought this would be a great idea to reduce workload on the claims adjusters. The problem is when you remove direct contact with those adjusters, you lose accountability and you lose transparency. To give you my example, I had filed for disability while I was still actively drilling with the Corps. The process to finalize my disability rating took 6 months to complete (which, by all accounts was fast). Once I was rated for my disability, they sent me the packet and deposited a check into my checking account to back-date it from the date I filed for disability. They made this deposit knowing full well I was still drilling.Fast forward to present day, and I find out that the money I received while still drilling I was not owed, and was considered double-dipping. No one informed me of this until the VA started the process of reclaiming it (which means cutting off my disability payments). So they notified me and said you can appeal, but you have to provide this this and that. I called them numerous times, and finally was able to talk to someone to identify where they were getting these numbers. They told me I owed them back for some 115 training days from when I first filed my claim to the time I EAS’d. The only problem is there were only 75 days of training I did in that period. When I challenged them, they put the burden on me to prove that I only had that many training days. They refused to forward the evidence they used to reach that number. And when I finally contacted the DFAS (defense finance accounting system, the same group from which they got their data) and got that paperwork back showing it was only 75 days. I forwarded it to my congressman’s staff and they have sent it on to the VA. I was first notified of this issue in AUGUST.So the problem, here, is not a tools issue. It’s an incompetence and laziness issue. The person who got the SAME data I did was too stupid or too lazy to double check the training dates against my disability award dates. They took the full training cycle and applied it to me, and then trying to get them to fix it is like pushing water up hill.This is the issue I have with the VA. If this happened in corporate America, that person who made that decision would have either been reprimanded or fired, because I can guarantee that’s not the first time they’ve done this. And if this was corporate America I was dealing with, I would actually be able to discuss this case with a person who makes decisions, instead of being told, “well, we’ll document the file and they will be in contact by mail.” No, this is incompetence to the highest degree, and failure to have appropriate accountability for errors they make.
Wraithkin: your TRAINING days were Marine records, and MARINES screwing you over, not VA. My son is also having the Navy say his injuries sustained “outside the wire” in Iraq are not “combat related” so they cut their costs on his disablity, and deduct VA from his pension. It’s been a couple years, the VA and Vet Service Officers have been on his side, but even though he has paperwork from FOUR medical professionals stating his injuries ARE combat related, the Navy still rejected his appeal.
It is the PENTAGON, ARmy, Navy, Air Force (not so much) and Marines who are screwing folks over, NOT “VA”.
You want stupid, lazy, AND mean-spirited, it’s that five sided building.
Trout, despite how much you want to make it the fault of the DOD, it’s not. This is straight up the VA. The training records were accurate. The VA didn’t request the right dates. And when they got the data, they didn’t bother checking it against when I was actually awarded my disability. The entire VA system is mismanaged.
Wraithkin over 9 years ago
I can tell you from first-hand experience what the VA lacks is not funding, but organization and accountability. I have to deal with them for an error they made, and when you call (assuming you can get through, which is about 40% of the time, after holding for about 80 minutes) you talk to a customer service rep who cannot make any decisions or changes, and they can only look at the status of your claim. When you ask to speak to someone, there is no-one you can speak to. Your case manager is a nameless, faceless individual that will not speak to you, and the only means of communication are by fax or mail (not email… they don’t use that there). Don’t lay this at the feet of Republicans, Pea. This is the fault of the entire bureaucracy. The entire apparatus is designed to keep unelected people in a position of power, and it has been designed over the course of decades of mismanagement. When they have a situation where I can’t speak with the individual making the decision on my case, and I have to instead of my congressman get involved and have his staff opening an inquiry into the VA, there’s something wrong with the structure of the organization. Funding is not the issue. I can prove it: We just had a massive (over 150,000 square feet) new facility built here in my town. We went from a building that could MAYBE hold 50 people to a full-sized hospital with a SOTA surgical suite. It’s been up for over a year, and not a single surgery has been performed. That facility cost over $100 million to put up. So… no. It’s not a funding issue. It’s an administration issue. People need to be fired, and the entire claim process needs to be restructured.
woodwork over 9 years ago
MY experience has been just the opposite…when I e-mail my VA doctor, she gets back to me in a reasonable interval, she takes care of my needs, the specialists at the hospital where I go have taken VERY good care of me,the nurses at the hospital (most of them are vets themselves) are really good and know where I am coming from…
I Play One On TV over 9 years ago
Wraithkin had many important and useful points, but the first one is the best: “I can tell you from first-hand experience what the VA lacks is not funding, but organization and accountability.”
And I will posit that this is the same problem with almost every government organization/department. And what do we do about it? Complain and throw the bums back in. Curious creatures, these humans.
braindead Premium Member over 9 years ago
You can tell how important veterans are to Congressmen by how hard they strive to get onto the Veterans Committee.-Compare that to all the elbowing that is done to get a seat on the Banking Committee.-And many of the legislators who are appointed to the Veterans Committee (some by default) can’t be bothered to show up for committee meetings. -But all Republicans/Fox “news” viewers hate Bernie Sanders and love Tom Coburn.
Dtroutma over 9 years ago
Hmm, all I get out of the ‘toon this time is right wing chicken hawk politicians trying to drop our troops into another war, and they’re pissed at Obama for negotiating to let others, like Jordan, do the fighting for us instead?
Wraithkin over 9 years ago
I disagree. It’s not that they lack tech or the tools. It’s that their organization is set up so that you cannot talk to the people actually making the decisions. That’s a structural impediment that is inserted by design. Some genius bureaucrat who likely never worked in a claims environment thought this would be a great idea to reduce workload on the claims adjusters. The problem is when you remove direct contact with those adjusters, you lose accountability and you lose transparency. To give you my example, I had filed for disability while I was still actively drilling with the Corps. The process to finalize my disability rating took 6 months to complete (which, by all accounts was fast). Once I was rated for my disability, they sent me the packet and deposited a check into my checking account to back-date it from the date I filed for disability. They made this deposit knowing full well I was still drilling.Fast forward to present day, and I find out that the money I received while still drilling I was not owed, and was considered double-dipping. No one informed me of this until the VA started the process of reclaiming it (which means cutting off my disability payments). So they notified me and said you can appeal, but you have to provide this this and that. I called them numerous times, and finally was able to talk to someone to identify where they were getting these numbers. They told me I owed them back for some 115 training days from when I first filed my claim to the time I EAS’d. The only problem is there were only 75 days of training I did in that period. When I challenged them, they put the burden on me to prove that I only had that many training days. They refused to forward the evidence they used to reach that number. And when I finally contacted the DFAS (defense finance accounting system, the same group from which they got their data) and got that paperwork back showing it was only 75 days. I forwarded it to my congressman’s staff and they have sent it on to the VA. I was first notified of this issue in AUGUST.So the problem, here, is not a tools issue. It’s an incompetence and laziness issue. The person who got the SAME data I did was too stupid or too lazy to double check the training dates against my disability award dates. They took the full training cycle and applied it to me, and then trying to get them to fix it is like pushing water up hill.This is the issue I have with the VA. If this happened in corporate America, that person who made that decision would have either been reprimanded or fired, because I can guarantee that’s not the first time they’ve done this. And if this was corporate America I was dealing with, I would actually be able to discuss this case with a person who makes decisions, instead of being told, “well, we’ll document the file and they will be in contact by mail.” No, this is incompetence to the highest degree, and failure to have appropriate accountability for errors they make.
Dtroutma over 9 years ago
Wraithkin: your TRAINING days were Marine records, and MARINES screwing you over, not VA. My son is also having the Navy say his injuries sustained “outside the wire” in Iraq are not “combat related” so they cut their costs on his disablity, and deduct VA from his pension. It’s been a couple years, the VA and Vet Service Officers have been on his side, but even though he has paperwork from FOUR medical professionals stating his injuries ARE combat related, the Navy still rejected his appeal.
It is the PENTAGON, ARmy, Navy, Air Force (not so much) and Marines who are screwing folks over, NOT “VA”.
You want stupid, lazy, AND mean-spirited, it’s that five sided building.
Wraithkin over 9 years ago
Trout, despite how much you want to make it the fault of the DOD, it’s not. This is straight up the VA. The training records were accurate. The VA didn’t request the right dates. And when they got the data, they didn’t bother checking it against when I was actually awarded my disability. The entire VA system is mismanaged.