VA Destroys Vets Medical Records To Eliminate Backlog

[boedicca]

This sounds like a pilot program for ObamaCare!

In order to deal with a backlog of requests for medical care, the health care bureaucrat vanguard stationed in the Veterans Administration decided to destroy the records...and voila! Much less backlog!

This is what we should expect as the ginormous snowball of ObamaCare Fake Coverage causes a big backlog of requests for care in networks that are too small to handle the demand.

Hopenchange!

mployees of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) destroyed veterans’ medical files in a systematic attempt to eliminate backlogged veteran medical exam requests, a former VA employee told The Daily Caller.

Audio of an internal VA meeting obtained by TheDC confirms that VA officials in Los Angeles intentionally canceled backlogged patient exam requests.

“The committee was called System Redesign and the purpose of the meeting was to figure out ways to correct the department’s efficiency. And one of the issues at the time was the backlog,” Oliver Mitchell, a Marine veteran and former patient services assistant in the VA Greater Los Angeles Medical Center, told TheDC.

“We just didn’t have the resources to conduct all of those exams. Basically we would get about 3,000 requests a month for [medical] exams, but in a 30-day period we only had the resources to do about 800. That rolls over to the next month and creates a backlog,” Mitchell said. ”It’s a numbers thing. The waiting list counts against the hospitals efficiency. The longer the veteran waits for an exam that counts against the hospital as far as productivity is concerned.”

By 2008, some patients were “waiting six to nine months for an exam” and VA “didn’t know how to address the issue,” Mitchell said.

VA Greater Los Angeles Radiology department chief Dr. Suzie El-Saden initiated an “ongoing discussion in the department” to cancel exam requests and destroy veterans’ medical files so that no record of the exam requests would exist, thus reducing the backlog, Mitchell said.

Audio from a November 2008 meeting obtained by TheDC depicts VA Greater Los Angeles officials plotting to cancel backlogged exam requests.

“I’m still canceling orders from 2001,” said a male official in the meeting.

“Anything over a year old should be canceled,” replied a female official.

“Canceled or scheduled?” asked the male official.

“Canceled. …

Read more: VA destroyed veteran medical records to delete exam requests | The Daily Caller

 

[Sunshine]

The VA is trying to practice using the primary care model and isn't really equipped for it. Every veteran is supposed to get a physical every year, and letters go out to that effect. I doubt that any complete record was destroyed, but likely just request for physicals. In specialty clinics, if a person hasn't been seen in a year, they cannot get their meds refilled. You have to use some common sense. I would refill meds for people who had net been seen in a year but with a big notice on the bottle that said, 'no more refills until seen in clinic.' That usually did the trick.

One thing I learned working in state and federal facilities was to always look your bet and always dot your 'Is' and cross your 'Ts'. Any day you walked out to go to your care the press could be standing there waiting for you.

 

[boedicca]

In this case, the destruction of records involved complete deletion so that no record of the request for an exam remained. I can see closing out obsolete requests, but outright eliminating that an exam request every existed is rather beyond the pale.

 

[Bill Angel]

I get my healthcare from the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center. If a Vet has an urgent care issue they can visit the emergency care section and they will be examined by a physician that day. But you can end up waiting several hours if you are not in pain . The facility also has a Patient Advocate whom you can take complaints to. I had a problem getting to see my Primary Care physician, so I contacted the Patient Advocate and she got me an appointment with my physician the same day that I had complained.

 

[Sunshine]

In this case, the destruction of records involved complete deletion so that no record of the request for an exam remained. I can see closing out obsolete requests, but outright eliminating that an exam request every existed is rather beyond the pale.

I think there is more top the story. Having worked in the VA, I know how their computer documentation system works. Clerks cannot delete appointments, only cancel and state the appointment was canceled by patient or by clinic. When I took a sick day, it said 'canceled by clinic.' If the patient called and canceled it said 'canceled by patient.' Psych hospital discharges had to be seen 4 times in 30 days. That meant overbooking for me, but it had to get done. New patients had to be scheduled within 2 weeks of their request. Many in primary care were waiting longer than that for their routine physicals, though, and they kept a running list so they could plug them into cancellation spots. Anyone with an emergent condition was evaluated and sent to the ER. Walk ins were seen that day. No clinician can delete a record, nor does one have the authority to call up IT and tell them to delete a patient record. I know some clinics are more efficient than others, but this story just doesn't add up.

 

[Moonglow]

The VA is trying to practice using the primary care model and isn't really equipped for it. Every veteran is supposed to get a physical every year, and letters go out to that effect. I doubt that any complete record was destroyed, but likely just request for physicals. In specialty clinics, if a person hasn't been seen in a year, they cannot get their meds refilled. You have to use some common sense. I would refill meds for people who had net been seen in a year but with a big notice on the bottle that said, 'no more refills until seen in clinic.' That usually did the trick.

One thing I learned working in state and federal facilities was to always look your bet and always dot your 'Is' and cross your 'Ts'. Any day you walked out to go to your care the press could be standing there waiting for you.

Yes you can get your meds filled.
My primary team doc left for another position(late 2012), the replacements have been temporary, now that we have gotten a permanent one I get to go to the VA for my annual checkup. My scripts for narcs have expired but I call in every month and they are re-filled.I've been doing it this way for a little over a year.

I hear people taking script testosterone are getting strokes. I was going to request that on my next visit,but now, I am not so sure since strokes are in my family history..

 

[Moonglow]

I get my healthcare from the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center. If a Vet has an urgent care issue they can visit the emergency care section and they will be examined by a physician that day. But you can end up waiting several hours if you are not in pain . The facility also has a Patient Advocate whom you can take complaints to. I had a problem getting to see my Primary Care physician, so I contacted the Patient Advocate and she got me an appointment with my physician the same day that I had complained.

I go to the VA in Fayetteville, Ar. I have nothing but compliments on their abilities even with a heavy case load..

 

[Sunshine]

The VA is trying to practice using the primary care model and isn't really equipped for it. Every veteran is supposed to get a physical every year, and letters go out to that effect. I doubt that any complete record was destroyed, but likely just request for physicals. In specialty clinics, if a person hasn't been seen in a year, they cannot get their meds refilled. You have to use some common sense. I would refill meds for people who had net been seen in a year but with a big notice on the bottle that said, 'no more refills until seen in clinic.' That usually did the trick.

One thing I learned working in state and federal facilities was to always look your bet and always dot your 'Is' and cross your 'Ts'. Any day you walked out to go to your care the press could be standing there waiting for you.

Yes you can get your meds filled.
My primary team doc left for another position(late 2012), the replacements have been temporary, now that we have gotten a permanent one I get to go to the VA for my annual checkup. My scripts for narcs have expired but I call in every month and they are re-filled.I've been doing it this way for a little over a year.

I hear people taking script testosterone are getting strokes. I was going to request that on my next visit,but now, I am not so sure since strokes are in my family history..

Once a clinician gets to know a patient, you can do things that need to be done. Bottom line on those 'rules' is that a clinician's practice is not regulated by the silly rule maker upper. We are regulated by the medical and nursing boards. If the VA makes a rule that you can't give a medicine until the patient comes in, they can't enforce it. You are under your own license and let's say someone is late for their visit and a clinician refuses to renew he patient's oxygen. In life and death situations you have to go ahead and renew or send them to the ER. You can't withhold life saving meds because they are late for their physical.

 

[Sunshine]

The more I think about this the more I'm thinking it is just a disgruntled employee or former employee trying to make trouble for the department. As a manager in a place like the VA you WANT to be able to show that your clinic doesn't have enough staff to handle the case load if that is indeed the case. That way you can make a reasonable request of the director for more staff. If the manager didn't do that and try to get adequate staffing, then he/she is a little slow.

 

[usmcstinger]

This is not the first the VA has destroyed records.

The National Association of Radiation Survivors (NARS), an organization formed to help atomic veterans in 1982 has tried to bring the issue to national attention. Litigation by NARS in the past has revealed that the Veterans Administration destroyed critical documents related to radiation exposure of GI’s that clams adjusters were prejudiced against radiation claims, that they opposed legislative changes in favor of atomic vets, and even violated VA regulations and federal laws. The VA admitted that it denied 99.49% of claims brought by atomic veterans and their widows.

 

[jillian]

This sounds like a pilot program for ObamaCare

not to normal people

 

[WillowTree]

Why do the wounded warriors advertise on TV for help?

 

[Sunshine]

This is not the first the VA has destroyed records.

The National Association of Radiation Survivors (NARS), an organization formed to help atomic veterans in 1982 has tried to bring the issue to national attention. Litigation by NARS in the past has revealed that the Veterans Administration destroyed critical documents related to radiation exposure of GI’s that clams adjusters were prejudiced against radiation claims, that they opposed legislative changes in favor of atomic vets, and even violated VA regulations and federal laws. The VA admitted that it denied 99.49% of claims brought by atomic veterans and their widows.

Before they got the new electronic charting system, patient records were a nightmare. I worked in TN back in the 90s and they would bring patients from other VAs that didn't have a psych provider. Half the time they forgot the record. Seeing a patient you don't know without a chart is a nightmare.

The way the current system works, I don't see how this could have happened. I also don't see why. Because if the back log is that large, that is clear justification for getting more staff. It can take a while to happen, but it did get me some help when I was having to see too many patients in a day.

I am inclined to think there was a disgruntled employee or former employee who was seeking revenge for some real or imagined wrong and called the OIG.

 

[usmcstinger]

VA Hospitals at Northport and Manhattan, NY are very good. One reason is their affiliation with very good private Hospitals. Northport is connected with Stony Brook Hospital and Manhattan with NYU Medical Center. In addition, the are in close proximity to each other. They have meetings once a week with representatives of Veterans Organizations that are in the areas they service.

http://va-hospital.findthebest.com

 

[Sunshine]

VA Hospitals at Northport and Manhattan, NY are very good. One reason is their affiliation with very good private Hospitals. Northport is connected with Stony Brook Hospital and Manhattan with NYU Medical Center. In addition, the are in close proximity to each other. They have meetings once a week with representatives of Veterans Organizations that are in the areas they service.

VA Hospitals | Ratings, Care Outcomes, and Performance Data

Nashville and Murfreesboro are pretty good as well. They are affiliated with Vanderbilt.

I, myself, was always rated very high in the surveys.

 

[waltky]

The faster dey go, the behinder dey get...

VA’s time to resolve disability appeals shoots up
February 28, 2014 WASHINGTON — The average time for a denied claim to work its way through the cumbersome Department of Veterans Affairs appeals process shot up to more than 900 days last year, double the department’s long-term target.

After hovering between 500 and 750 days for the past decade, what the VA refers to as its “appeals resolution time” hit 923 days in fiscal 2013. That was a 37 percent jump in one year, from 675 in fiscal 2012, according to a review of the department’s annual performance report. The department’s long-term goal is to get that figure to 400 days, although the trend over the past decade has been in the other direction. Asked about the slowdown during a conference call to discuss the VA’s appeals system, the department said it has been reviewing the measure to see if it’s the most meaningful one to convey to veterans how long the appeals process might take. The department also said it was continuing to look for ways to make the process more efficient.

Laura Eskenazi, the official who oversees the department’s Board of Veterans’ Appeals, cautioned that the long processing time “is not at all indicative of inactivity.” She said the many layers built into the system prompt many of the delays. The VA organized a conference call Thursday with reporters to explain its complicated, multi-layered appeals process, which begins when a veteran’s claim for disability benefits is denied in full or in part. Disability benefits are awarded to veterans who suffer physical or mental injuries during their military service. They range from $131 a month to $2,858 a month for a single veteran.

The VA has been engaged in a very public battle to reduce its overall backlog — the number of claims awaiting an initial decision. By 2015, the department wants to get the backlog to zero. That would ensure that no claim is pending for more than 125 days. That’s the goal that has gotten the most attention from Congress, the administration and veterans groups. Veterans who appeal their decisions go into a separate system that can extend those waits far longer. That appeals system has evolved in layers since it was adopted after World War I. It allows veterans, survivors or their representatives to trigger a fresh review of the entire appeal at any time by submitting new evidence or information, the VA said. The Board of Veterans’ Appeals can grant, deny or — most commonly — remand the case to one of the VA’s regional offices for additional review.

According to the most recent VA performance report, published in December, the VA’s “strategic target” — essentially a long-term goal — for total appeals resolution time is 400 days; its short-term goal is 650 days. It hasn’t hit that 650 target in the last five years, although it got close in 2010, when the average appeals time was 656 days, records show. Jacqueline Maffucci, research director for the advocacy group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said that the VA’s intense focus on reducing its backlog could help explain the jump in appeals processing times. “As the VA has pushed to end the backlog, there’s been a diversion of resources from the appeals system to tackling the backlog,” she said.

VA?s time to resolve disability appeals shoots up - U.S. - Stripes

 

[Sunshine]

The faster dey go, the behinder dey get...

VA’s time to resolve disability appeals shoots up
February 28, 2014 WASHINGTON — The average time for a denied claim to work its way through the cumbersome Department of Veterans Affairs appeals process shot up to more than 900 days last year, double the department’s long-term target.

After hovering between 500 and 750 days for the past decade, what the VA refers to as its “appeals resolution time” hit 923 days in fiscal 2013. That was a 37 percent jump in one year, from 675 in fiscal 2012, according to a review of the department’s annual performance report. The department’s long-term goal is to get that figure to 400 days, although the trend over the past decade has been in the other direction. Asked about the slowdown during a conference call to discuss the VA’s appeals system, the department said it has been reviewing the measure to see if it’s the most meaningful one to convey to veterans how long the appeals process might take. The department also said it was continuing to look for ways to make the process more efficient.

Laura Eskenazi, the official who oversees the department’s Board of Veterans’ Appeals, cautioned that the long processing time “is not at all indicative of inactivity.” She said the many layers built into the system prompt many of the delays. The VA organized a conference call Thursday with reporters to explain its complicated, multi-layered appeals process, which begins when a veteran’s claim for disability benefits is denied in full or in part. Disability benefits are awarded to veterans who suffer physical or mental injuries during their military service. They range from $131 a month to $2,858 a month for a single veteran.

The VA has been engaged in a very public battle to reduce its overall backlog — the number of claims awaiting an initial decision. By 2015, the department wants to get the backlog to zero. That would ensure that no claim is pending for more than 125 days. That’s the goal that has gotten the most attention from Congress, the administration and veterans groups. Veterans who appeal their decisions go into a separate system that can extend those waits far longer. That appeals system has evolved in layers since it was adopted after World War I. It allows veterans, survivors or their representatives to trigger a fresh review of the entire appeal at any time by submitting new evidence or information, the VA said. The Board of Veterans’ Appeals can grant, deny or — most commonly — remand the case to one of the VA’s regional offices for additional review.

According to the most recent VA performance report, published in December, the VA’s “strategic target” — essentially a long-term goal — for total appeals resolution time is 400 days; its short-term goal is 650 days. It hasn’t hit that 650 target in the last five years, although it got close in 2010, when the average appeals time was 656 days, records show. Jacqueline Maffucci, research director for the advocacy group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said that the VA’s intense focus on reducing its backlog could help explain the jump in appeals processing times. “As the VA has pushed to end the backlog, there’s been a diversion of resources from the appeals system to tackling the backlog,” she said.

VA?s time to resolve disability appeals shoots up - U.S. - Stripes

This isn't just the VA. Federal pensions are also backlogged. I had a patient who was a former postal employee who had been waiting several months for his to start. I don't know what the VA was doing, but mine started pretty quickly compared to what I was reading and hearing about. It wasn't much of a concern to me because it was small and in the interim they paid for all my insurance. But government services under Obama have become most inefficient. One does have to wonder why.

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - what took `em so long?...

Some veterans will now have their Social Security disability benefits expedited
March 18, 2014 ~ The federal government has launched a new process to expedite Social Security disability claims for a special category of veterans, the Social Security Administration announced Tuesday.

Under the new system, veterans with a VA disability compensation rating of 100 percent Permanent and Total will have their applications for Social Security disability benefits processed faster, similar to the way the agency currently handles disability claims from Wounded Warriors. “We have reached another milestone for those who have sacrificed so much for our country, and this process ensures they will get the benefits they need quickly,” acting Social Security commissioner Carolyn Colvin said in a news release. “While we can never fully repay them for their sacrifices, we can be sure we provide them with the quality of service that they deserve. This initiative is truly a lifeline for those who need it most.”

Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., who introduced legislation in Congress to promote the initiative, praised the change. “No one wants to put America’s veterans through a bureaucratic runaround,” he said in the release. “As the baby boomer generation ages and more veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan need care, this common sense change will help reduce backlogs and cut through unnecessary red tape so that our most disabled veterans receive the benefits they’ve earned.”

To receive the expedited service, veterans must inform Social Security that they have a 100 percent Permanent and Total disability compensation rating and provide a copy of their VA Notification Letter as proof of their disability rating. Having the 100 percent rating does not guarantee that a veteran’s application for Social Security disability benefits will be approved; it only ensures that the claims process will be expedited for them. Veterans must meet strict Social Security eligibility requirements to receive a disability allowance, according to Social Security.

Some veterans will now have their Social Security disability benefits expedited - News - Stripes

 

[waltky]

Stuck in the middle with you...

Soldiers stuck in backlogged disability system can't go forward, can't go back
April 13, 2014 Sgt. Chris Peden is stuck. The Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier is spending his last months in the Army too damaged to be the gung-ho paratrooper of his first Iraq deployment but not ill enough to be cut loose from his enlistment with his Stryker brigade.

He’s in the limbo of a disability system the Defense Department created seven years ago with good intentions. It was designed to make sure wounded service members smoothly enroll for veterans benefits and start receiving checks within a month of leaving uniform. For Peden, the downside comes in the hundreds of days he’s had to continue showing up at battalion headquarters even though he can’t concentrate, struggles with mood swings and has physical injuries that slow him. With little to do because he can’t handle much responsibility, he sometimes passes the time playing games on his cellphone. “I can’t do what I used to do. I’m not capable,” said Peden, 32, a Tacoma resident diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and who endured several head injuries early in his military service.

A year and a half ago, he was sent home early from a Stryker tour in Afghanistan. “My brain literally just doesn’t work the way it used to,” he said. He is among about 700 soldiers in Lewis-McChord’s 7th Infantry Division who are leaving the Army for medical reasons through a joint Defense Department and Veterans Affairs program known as the Integrated Disability Evaluation System. The IDES process is supposed to take 295 days from the time the Army begins considering a soldier for an early medical retirement to the day that soldier starts receiving VA benefits. But the military and the VA have yet to hit the deadlines they set in 2007 when they laid the groundwork for the program. The average time soldiers spend in the system sits just shy of 400 days — about 3½ months longer than the target.

Altogether, that makes more than a year of waiting in uniform for soldiers who know they can’t continue their military careers. “Why would you force a soldier to be in a unit when there’s not a job for him and you’ve already determined he can’t do the job?” Peden said. The IDES system is used by all of the Armed Forces, but the Army is its biggest component because of the heavy toll the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan took on the nation’s ground forces. The Army and the VA say they’re now swiftly making up ground on a backlog of IDES cases that accumulated in years when the system enrolled thousands more cases than it completed.

In 2011, for instance, the system enrolled 18,651 military service members but finished just 7,106 cases, according to a 2012 Government Accountability Office report. Now, the Army and the VA are starting to finish more cases than they start each month, said Col. Carl Johnson, chief of the Army’s Physical Disability Agency. Last year, the Army alone accounted for 22,037 new cases. The service completed 23,432 cases. Johnson considers the trend a good sign for the program. “We’re on track to break the back of this backlog,” he said.

A long process

See also:

Combat veterans battle an enemy within: Addiction
April 13, 2014 ~ The first time Pearson Crosby went to the methadone clinic at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center in early 2013, he asked his father to go with him. But couldn't tell him why.

Crosby, who played varsity basketball at Council Rock High School South, had served four years in the United States Marine Corps, with two tours in Iraq. When he came home from war in late 2008, he soon faced another scourge - addiction to prescription pain medications. His life descended into another hell, one maybe worse than war.

He couldn't admit to himself, much less to his family, what he'd become. And now, on Jan. 24, 2013, the VA insisted that if he wanted to continue getting care, he needed to join its hardest cases at the methadone clinic. "I wasn't understanding the gravity of the situation," said Robert Crosby, Pearson's father, tears welling in his eyes as he recalled the day. "And when I got down there and saw the guys coming in, guys in their 50s and 60s, going there since Vietnam, all I could do was cry." Crosby, now 28, could no longer deny where his life was headed. Seeing people tied to the clinic every day terrified him.

A bottle of methadone collected in a possible drug overdose death is displayed in this 2002 photo. In 12 years after 9/11, prescriptions of four primary opiate painkillers - oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, and methadone - rose 270 percent at VA hospitals, according to internal VA records obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

He also was humiliated by the fact that methadone was dispensed into paper cups from behind bulletproof glass. "I had a whole company of Marines looking up to me," he said. "And now I'm labeled as a junkie." Did he have the strength to reclaim his life, to break free?

Prescription drug abuse is a national epidemic, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, causing 15,000 overdose deaths a year. In the last decade, prescriptions of addictive opiates in America climbed 300 percent, the CDC said. The military did no better. In 12 years after 9/11, prescriptions of four primary opiate painkillers - oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, and methadone - rose 270 percent at VA hospitals, according to internal VA records obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting. Last year, 50,000 veterans were treated for addiction at all VA hospitals, 2,600 in Philadelphia - one of whom was Crosby.

MORE

 

[Howey]

Two points:

Funny how those of us on the board who use the VA praise it, and..

Wouldn't it be nice if Congress would allocate more funds for VA care?