This Will NOT Make You Happy

[JeffL]

Millions lost at military hospitals
Poor records, fraud drain funds from patients, GAO says
David Pace - Associated Press
Wednesday, November 20, 2002

Washington --- Record-keeping at some military hospitals is so bad that millions of dollars in insurance payments are being lost and hundreds of patients may be using the Social Security numbers of dead people to get free health care, congressional investigators say.

The General Accounting Office, in a review of military hospitals in Georgia, Virginia and Texas, said it also found potentially fraudulent uses of government credit cards and inadequate records of prescription drug inventories and usage.


Here's the whole article.........

http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/today/news_d3bd930531ca30e100b2.html



Jeff

[Keith_Hixson]

If you gave each Veteran a Medical Card. Let them pick and choose their doctors. 1. They'd probabaly get better medical care. 2. Closer to home for many 3. And cut the cost of VA medical by half.

But, nobody will listen to me.

Keith

[janecallanan]

Keith,
We always listen to you. Just pretend not to sometimes. Hasn't anyone ever brought this up to the people who could make the laws change?

[Keith_Hixson]

It could save us so much money. But, its a control thing. Somebody thinks it will get out of control. However, the bureaucracy is out of control. It's costing us untold billions to operate the Veterans Medical System in the backwards way it is being run. We'd save billions and of course there would be abuses, but there is abuses in the present system. What a draw for getting people to join the arm services. You serve two years active and four years reserve, we'll take care of your medical needs. I think it would work and do a much better job than what we have going now and serve the veterans and government a like.

Keith

[JeffL]

Keith, you know that no government wonks care about what we common folk believe.

When I signed up for VA medical benefits (I don't need them now, but who knows what may happen tomorrow?) I was told that I needed to get a VA ID card. I fought and fought and FOUGHT to get a damned card. This office didn't issue them, that office's equipment was down, the other office was too busy, yadda yadda yadda. After a whole friggin' YEAR of fighting the system, it finally turned out that the damned card did NOT provide the promised automatic acceptance into the VA medical system, other than at the office at which one signed up. I was more than slightly upset...

The bottom line? I was told to carry a copy of my DD-214 with me at all times, in case I had to use VA facilities somewhere other than where I signed up. Even the clinics near me are part of separate VA systems, and NONE of the VA's local offices - in the whole country - are tied into a national VA database that's accessable in the offices. :md:

What a sham. :d: And what a shame. :(

[Drywall]

I have a VA card that is so old, it's made of paper. I must have had it for 30 years or more. I can only assume that it's not the same card you are talking about. All it says is Veterans Administration, Fort Snelling, St. Paul, MN. with a file number starting with a "C". Luckily I have never needed any of the medical bennies from them as we both have good ins. thru our jobs. Would it even be worth the time and hassle to get a new one? For me, I don't think so. I think that the guys who really need help should be able to get it without guys like me slowing up the system. I'm only referring to my own situation and feelings here.

[JeffL]

Drywall, the one to which I refer looks like a credit card. It's all flashy & multi-colored & beautiful looking on the front and has a magnetic strip on the back. But for all practical purposes, it offers the same things as your paper card.

I suggest that you visit your local VA clinic to make sure you're in their system. If not, fill out the forms and get into it; then any VA clinic can call that clinic and confirm that you have registered. And put a copy of your DD-214 in the glove compartment. You may plan on NEVER using the VA, but one never knows when one will have to use the VA, and since we're eligible for this "benefit," we should be prepared to make things as simple as possible for ourselves - and for anyone else (like spouses) who may be with us at that trying time.


The CG motto applies to this situation - Semper Paratus. I also like the old Latin adage: Anus Protectus.
Jeff

[Boats]

Keith,

I suggested that ten years ago. My brother-in-law did get a VA card but they don't issue them any longer. Everything is based on your social security number. But I agree if we could go to any doctor submit the card and let the paper trail go back it would most likely result in better care.

I don't want to slam the VA clinics they do what they can but under better control they could do better. The red tape needs to be cleaned up and then it will become more streamlined.

Today the cost of shuffling paper out cost the cost to see and take care of a patient. Most patients get 5 or 10 minutes of time with a doctor and the rest of the time you are waiting and waiting. This cost they never consider - our time!

The whole system needs an overhaul but with less red tape. The patients bill-of-rights needs to be rearranged so that we are their main focus not the process of paper submitals and sworn affadavids.

My medical bills and my wifes are going up and up each year the VA will not handle any of her's but mine is slow in coming. Have to wait 90 days between appointments unless your near death or have some emergency.

God help those who are in worse shape than me. That Article 99 movie comes back to me when I think of all the crap men have to go through just to get some medical attention. Burns me up.

[theoddz]

Just think of the crap we WOMEN have to go through to get care in the VA!!

In 1996, 3 days before Christmas, I suffered an asthma attack on the heels of a respiratory bug. I was 9-1-1'd to the Richmond, Virginia VAMC emergency room. At the time, I was 50% service connected. I was wheezing up a storm and had a fever of 102.3 degrees. I know I also had a pneumonia, because I saw the x-ray report later. Guess what?? Some little moronic imbecile who called himself a "doctor" there (he was a resident, not an experienced physician) discharged me home in an ambulance 4 hours later. The reason I was not admitted was that I am a FEMALE VETERAN and female vets take up beds that male vets can use more efficiently. Female veterans must be given rooms with private bathrooms, unless there happens to be another female vet available to share a multi-bed room with.

Am I angry????

You bet your sweet @ss I am.

Peace.

[JeffL]

"...vets take up beds that male vets can use more efficiently."

Did you get the name of the jerk who told you this? I wasn't aware that medical situations had anything to do with efficiency.

"...discharged me home in an ambulance 4 hours later."

Discharged to your home in an ambulance? Please, I beg of you, please tell me that you didn't have to pay for the ambulance.

What a travesty. I feel terrible about what happened to you. The problem is, I'm not surprised. That's a real problem with me.

While I understand the necessity of privacy between the sexes, I don't want to believe that any vet would object to sharing a room with another vet, particularly with the privacy curtains and screens that are available nowadays. I realize, of course, that I am probably in a vast minority (oxymoron?) in this belief.

This system is broken. I doubt that it will ever be fixed; after all, vets don't mean all that much any more, do we? Thrown onto the scrapheap of US humanity, we're those people who others think were dumb enough to think that they might have meant a difference for this country.

[Wazza]

In Oz I have a Veterans Affairs Repatriation Health Card for specific conditions. I can see any doctor of my choosing and the bill gets paid by VA. It has a magnetic strip, my name, a serial number for the card and my File No: embossed on the plastic card. It's good for ten years.

If VA want a second opinion re treatment they will send me to a doctor of their choosing.

It's called Freedom of Choice, something we veterans fought and died for!!!!

[catman]

Wazza..Do you guys have socialized medicine down there? I may be wrong but I think Canada has a simular system.

Trav

[theoddz]

Years back, the VA changed the way it treated veterans. This was when "managed care" came in and the big insurance companies began running the health care system here in the U.S.. Instead of focusing on the treatment of acute illness/injury, it was decided by the system (and the VA health care system) that it was more cost effective to approach patient care from a "preventative" perspective. That is, they would rather put the money designated to treat veterans' illnesses and injuries in the HMO-style of prevention-oriented care. Part of this thinking was to close many of the VA system's inpatient hospital beds and pour more money into the outpatient clinics.

They failed to consider a big problem with this. Preventing illness is important, yes, but the majority of us vets are ALREADY SICK with illness and injuries resulting from our military service, and we NEED INPATIENT BEDS!! With more and more veterans seeking care from the VA and our veteran population, in general, getting older and sicker, the issue of "prevention" is a joke and this "outpatient" plan has done nothing for us but deprive us of needed inpatient care. This situation did improve, however, with the Veterans Imporved Access Act of 2000. At least now, we can go to any emergency room, in an emergency, and receive care.

At any rate, the number of inpatient beds at most VA hospitals are grossly inadequate for ANY veteran. A lot of times, the available beds are in multi-bed rooms, usually designed for 4 patients. Since female vets, historically, have been reluctant to utilize their VA benefits (partly because the VA, up to recently, has not been particularly "friendly" to us), When a female needs to be hospitalized in one of these VA facilties, it is somewhat likely that she will need to utilize a bed in a multi-bed room. Well, I don't suppose you would feel this way, since you are a man, but I don't want to be hospitalized in the same room with a male vet. This being as such, the VA cannot utilize those other 3 beds in that room, unless they get 3 more female vets in there. That, my friend, is highly unlikely. This is why the Richmond, VA VAMC, essentially, denied me care when I had my asthma attack. Oh, and I know this was the case because on a subsequent visit when I was hospitalized there.........

I had been cleaning some bass that I'd caught when I accidentally got stuck by one of those dorsal spines on the underside of the fish. My finger swelled and festered and was looking pretty bad when I went for my scheduled appointment at the VAMC in Richmond. My primary doctor saw it and had me get it x-rayed. Sure enough, the tip of the spine had lodged in my finger and it was infected. I think 4 different physicians, including surgical residents, tried to pull that spine out of my finger that day. After several unsuccessful attempts, they decided that I should undergo surgery to remove it. My surgery was scheduled on a Tuesday, but they had to admit me to the hospital and give me a room on the preceeding THURSDAY, because they said that it was sooooo difficult to get a female bed there at the Richmond VAMC. So, I entered the hospital on Thursday and had to stay there until the following Tuesday, when I had my surgery. The nurses told me that it was necessary to admit me 5 days in advance in order to reserve a female room. Geeesh!!

The VA has gotten better over the years, however, though it still isn't perfect. I have still had to fight TOOTH AND NAIL to get any care at all for my service connected disability (it is female-specific, but I am rated at 100%, P & T, for it). It seems to me that the VA would rather wait to treat you when you're half dead for your condition, rather than to treat you before it's too late. Just my opinion and experience saying this, but I believe it to be true.

Thanks for your kind sentiments.

Oh, and no, I didn't have to pay for the ambulance.

Peace.