Personal Narrative: My Issues With Disabled Veterans

According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, there are more than 1,500 locations to receive treatment and care across the country, which divides up to approximately 30 locations per state. The lack of locations may limit some veterans from receiving the care they desire. “Veterans who utilize VA services have worse health status that the general population” (Nelson, Taylor, Lurie, Escarce, McFarland, & Finn, 2011). This implies that the services offered are not sufficient enough to meet the needs of veterans. According to Jack Downing, President and CEO of Soldier On, “Seventy percent of veterans drive twenty-five miles or more to a VA facility.” These facts prove that we need more access for veterans so that they can get the

This is like a bomb waiting to go off: Family of veterans have to live with fear, hoping that their love one would recuperate, be happy, or simply a civilian again. The Veterans Affairs Department (VA) should put a better effort to better assist veterans, and their family with a better plan to reduce this preventable death. Many veterans find it difficult to admit, control, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), let alone reaching for help; when they do so, they are considered just another number at the VA. At any moment, a veteran?s sacrifice for this country should end

Much like the people who serve and will ultimately utilize this organization, The Veterans administration (VA) has a set of core values each member of the armed forces live by: integrity, respect, excellence, advocacy and commitment. The VA has always signified a place of hope and security for veterans past and present. For those who serve the expectation is that when they need medical, dental, housing, educational and other assistance the VA would be there. Marred by problems over the years and recently in the media highlighted for long wait times to receive medical attention , bureaucratic red tape to receive the benefits these veterans have earned, some have paid the ultimate price (death) which they expected to happen in some foreign land not at home.

As the New Republic noted in a May 21 2014 article, the VA’s problems are anything but new (Leighton-Walter). It is now 2016 and the problems that existed then still exist now. VA needs to reach out to vets, sell its service, rebuild trust and let vets know what benefits they have earned and how to get them (Kennedy). The biggest issues that veterans and advocates want to see addressed is the need for more doctors and resources, benefits adjudicators to get rid of wait lists, and the time it takes for a veteran to get care; monitoring of veterans facing mental health issues because 22 a day are killing themselves ("Advocates List 7"). Having more resources readily available will help relieve the VA from criticism and outrage they hear over veterans access to care and problems with the VA. “‘Be outraged for veterans who rely on an understaffed bureaucracy to manage their care,’” said Thomas Brennan, U.S Marine who has faced many difficulties in regards to receiving care “Be even more outraged for the doctors, nurses, and medical staff, who can’t provide for the care they want to give their patients. Veterans are not the only people suffering at the VA.” When a veteran blatantly comes out a speaks on behalf of not only veterans but doctors and nurses as well, it is impossible to ignore the cry for help. In order for this bureaucracy to fix the damage and flaws they have created, they need to crack down and listen to advocates and veterans and call for a reform. The VA needs to mend the broken relationship they have with the U.S. veterans by receiving more fundings and resources from the bureaucracy that has helped create their mess. Instead of trying to rush a reform program, the time should be taken to properly reconstruct the VA for the last and final time to get veterans the care that they deserve and have fought for in more than just one way. They give up so much of their lives to fight for other

With the VA, I was also booted out of the Veteran’s Administration’s system, and when I tried to schedule an appointment early last year (October 2015) I was told that I needed to restart the process for VA services since I was no longer in the system. Unfortunately, no appointment was

However as of more recent, the focus has been to cut spending and this in turn has affected most notably, Veterans Affairs (VA) and their health programs. According to the VA, “VA is charged with fulfilling President Lincoln’s promise to care for those “who shall have borne the battle, and for ” their families and their survivors. To support this mission, the 2016 Budget provides $70.2 billion in discretionary funding for VA, a 7.9 percent increase above the 2015 enacted level. In addition, the budget includes $3.2 billion in estimated medical care collections, for a total discretionary budget authority of $73.5 billion (which includes $3.2 billion in Medical Care Collections) and $95.3 billion for VA’s mandatory benefit programs.” This increase in budgetary spending can be deceiving as the VA is also seeing an increase in the amount of veterans claiming benefits. So although there is a budgetary increase, it is not enough (a deficit) to fulfill all claims made by veterans and/or their families and therefore is causing the VA to make cutbacks in both military construction efforts, but more importantly in medical benefits that veterans receive. For instance, improving veterans access to medical care to include strengthening their benefits program is a matter of priority. As has been recently of subject in the news, wait times for veterans has been extreme and inefficient, at times to the detriment of the health of veterans. Although the increase is aimed at providing more physicians and improving the VA’s “physical” infrastructure, the budgetary increase lacks the foresight to address the growing veteran population in concurrence with the needed changes that are being proposed. In an article published in Military Times on

Also, for those who are able to receive medical attention, the medical attention is utterly terrible. On average, it takes about 6 months for the VA Hospitals to simply process the claim; that would mean that a claim submitted in July would finally be processed in January. Although some veterans can wait that long for medical attention, others simply cannot. In 2015, “More than 300,000 American military veterans…[die] while waiting for health care...according to a new Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general report” (“IG Report”). To put that into perspective, that is all the students in Arapahoe High School multiplied by 150, that have died waiting for medical treatment from VA Hospitals. Due to the long wait times at the VA Hospitals, that many veterans have died since they submitted an application, which doesn’t include the amount of Veterans that never tried to get help and the ones that died a premature death even after being treated. Furthermore, with the growing amount of veterans, hospitals begin to get backlogged, which leads to veterans not getting the help they deserve after serving our country. Recently, many scandals have plagued Veterans Affairs Hospitals around the country, causing veterans to receive less

Everybody knows that the VA health care system is failing. Veterans are not getting the proper care they deserve due to the funding issues that The Department of Veterans Affairs has. The people who place their lives on the line for ours are not getting the care they are guaranteed as a right. In May of 2011, the Federal Courts reported that the VA violated the rights of the US veterans by failing to provide timely health care for suffering veterans (Williams). Providing treatment to veterans who have war wounds has been a right since Abraham Lincoln was president (Williams). This is the case even after the veterans are out of the service (Williams). The right to health care after the war has been around for centuries. Soldiers are endowed to that right and that right should not be taken away from them. Since The Department of Veterans Affairs is struggling on many aspects the veterans are not always being given that right in a timely manner. VA doctors and staff have hidden and or deleted applications from veterans when they are guaranteed the right to the VA health care. Since 2010, a report from the United States inspector general states that the VA staff has hidden applications and or deleted 10,000 records of veterans

The largest problem veterans’ deal with today is VA health care, The Department of Veterans Affairs. Getting into the facility to just see them you have to jump through a multitude of hoops. The main problem with going to see the VA though always boils down to funding. Funding is the sole factor for every problem that veterans face when it comes to dealing with the VA health care. Even with the proper funding the VA can never hope to help all the veterans that truly need their service which is why it must be cut completely and turned over to state health care.

In May of last year, a fifty-one year old Veteran complained of chest pain during an examination, the VA doctor referred him for testing. Unfortunately a month later he died of heart disease and the test had never been scheduled. The test would have shown, the urgent need for medical attention, preventing his untimely death. This is just one of many cases, were the wait time for medical treatment has affected Veterans and their family negatively. The average time for a Veteran to see his primary care provider for the first time, when switching to the Veteran Affairs Healthcare system, is over ninety days. Since the DoD healthcare system uses different processing procedure, than the Veteran Affairs Healthcare system, many patients are unable to get continued healthcare. In many cases the review of the disability claims package takes too long. Even though the Inspector General of the VA has called for a fourteen day target time frame for scheduled appointments, there has been little improvement. During a recent probe it has come to light, that wait times are nationwide falsified. In order to meet the “performance targets”, various administrative techniques concealed the longer wait (Slack).

When examining how specifically the system has been failing over the years, one simply only has to note the number of veterans actually receiving care. For example, several records show that many veterans were being subjected to waits exceeding the thirty day maximum described by the VA policy (Williams). These long waits would mean the difference between recovery and agony and even life and death for some cases. The problem with these extended wait times has actually become so bad that in May of 2011, a federal appeals court ruled that the VA had actually violated the rights of veterans by subjecting them to long waits when dealing with mental disorders (“Preface”). Other occurrences showed that the program’s handling of the mental impacts of war were often insufficient and not preemptive or proactive enough. For instance, the VA has had a tumultuous history of dealing with mental disorders such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) with veterans throughout the years. One commonly noted instance was the 2013 report indicating that only 53 percent of veterans with a primary diagnosis of PTSD received the minimum care plan (Associated Press). Even as these illnesses have been more closely studied, many veterans continue to experience improper forms of

The purpose of this research project was to examine the internal factors from a VA employee’s perspective affecting veterans from receiving timely access to healthcare at the VA and make recommendations for improvements to reduce wait times at the VA hospitals. The research will use the methodology from Chapter Two which states that the VA’s technology and processes is the cause for extended wait times.

This research paper will discuss the challenges and opportunities that veterans with disabilities encounter when transitioning from the Military into the civilian workplace. Currently, there are more than 6 million veterans in the United States with a disability. A veteran is defined as a person who has served or is serving in the United States Armed Forces. While reintegrating the veterans back into the workplace, veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and Physical Disabilities will be one of the greatest challenges that any agency will encounter. This will require that organizations prepare and implement procedures to make special accommodations to assist the Veteran while following the federally mandated guidelines. Moreover, this will allow organizations to employee and empower America’s bravest men and women; hiring a veteran brings valuable skills and knowledge into the workplace.

No one is or will be happy with what the VA does. In the VA Scandal article, people are upset that the veterans have to wait so long to get a disability claim. In our disability fraud article, People are upset that the veterans are not getting the time they need to fully examine their claims. This then has an impact on the company. People view the VA in a negative light because they see that they are conducting disability fraud. However, this does not change whether veterans go to them for benefits. There are some lessons to learn from this: the VA needs to fix their problems. They need to take more time to process claims and do a better job of rooting out fraud. We all agree that the VA is directing disability fraud, and we do not agree that it should be

I felt comfortable putting forth my needs as they were genuine and needed immediate attention. I was asked to wait for 15 minutes and that too played a vital role in me starting on a strong note. I was well versed with the norms of the bank and their regulations. It is always