Executive Summary The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is the largest, integrated health care system in the United States of America. It is a hierarchical organization led by a secretary, multiple undersecretaries, and three reporting subordinate administrations. The VA is responsible for managing health care, benefits, and services to the almost 20 million veterans of the armed forces. While the VA has a noble cause it has been met with multiple leadership scandals over the past few years. The first scandal erupted with the discovery of an unofficial appointment waitlist at the Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center in Phoenix, AZ in 2013. More scandals followed, most recently ending with the departure of the last confirmed VA secretary. These scandals presented major leadership issues within the VA. …show more content…
The acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs (SECVA) is currently Peter O'Rourke. Mr. O'Rourke serves as the interim SECVA following the departure of David Shulkin in early 2018. David Shulkin left the VA amidst an ethics violation, which will be expanded upon in the Leadership Challenges and Issues section. The Veterans Benefits Administration and its subordinate offices provide benefits and associated services to veterans or their surviving family members (Veterans Affairs, 2018). The Veterans Health Administration and its subordinate offices provide health care for the nation's veterans (Veterans Affairs, 2018). The National Cemetary Administration and its subordinate offices provide burial and memorial benefits and cemetery management to the nation's veterans (Veterans Affairs, 2018). This paper will focus mainly on the VA secretary's office and the Veterans Health
to the Veterans who have served our country. As the organization moves forward they envision
These incidents are not isolated. Federal funding for Veteran's Affairs has been under pressure for years. There was talk during the election campaigning that Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan's budget cut the VA budget a further 24%, though the actual GOP proposed budget endorsed by Governor Romney did not contain such cuts. There has been no proposal recently, however, that would increase VA funding. This comes despite the fact that the number of veterans in the United States has ballooned in the past decade as a consequence of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the fact that there is greater awareness of PTSD and other veteran-specific conditions now than there has been in the past.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is a government run system that provides benefits to all veterans of the United States military. Along with assisting veterans, it is also a benefit program for the families of the veterans. Many sections of the department are very obvious to those not involved, however there is much more to it than we see. There are three main sub sections of the program. These include the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Veterans Benefits Association (VBA), and the National Cemetery Association (NCA). All this is possible due to the increase in funding over the past decade. The department has grown tremendously since its very beginning in 1636 to what it is today.
Service Delivery – VA provides a broad range of the quality and accessibility of primary care, specialized care, related medical and social benefits through a nationwide network for Veterans and their eligible beneficiaries, such as vocational rehabilitation, service members' group life insurance, traumatic injury protection, the Post-9/11 GI-Bill, the VA home loan programs, and
A multitude of investigations were conducted in response to the 2014 VA Scandal with reports and audits showing manipulation of records, long wait times, delays in treatment and overwhelmed caseload by VA practitioners (Wikipedia, n.d., para. 3-7). There are also concerns about the VA’s lack of accountability once
They claimed Iraq and Afghanistan veteran polls have been taken, it shows that whatever improvements and actions being were taken were not enough. Fifty-nine percent of the people rated the job the government was doing to help was good, while fifty-six percent rated it as them doing poorly. In an article by CNN news nineteen veterans have died because of delays for medical treatments from the Veterans Affair. Those nineteen veterans were only a small proportion of that group. A number of eight-two veterans who have died because of delays for medical treatments like colonoscopies or endoscopies. Some people like my father (Jason McLain), who is a retired veteran, believes that some doctors have their own personal bias toward veterans. Jason McLain stated, “When I go to the VA they do not help me as soon as I need their help. Although when I go to any other civilian doctor’s office they help me right away with any of their help”. A website by the name of Free Grants Community stated that success and failures of the Departments of Veterans Affair are frequently the subjects of political promises and debates. There are many places that can help with benefits or homelessness, simply anything veteran(active/retired) need. A six-year veteran stated that there are places to help but emphasizes that you have to pursue yourself. After you are done with the military to go back to school and to keep getting educated. Besides the fact the regular ordinary citizens complain that veterans are not getting enough help, there have been complaints against all employers for discrimination has blames the economic crisis and ballooning deficits for the inability to provide for more
VBA administers a wide variety of benefit programs authorized by Congress including Vocational rehabilitation and employment, Education service and GI Bill, Loan guarantee, Service-connected disability compensation, VA pension and fiduciary services, and VA life insurance. The following organizational chart depicts the current structure of the Veterans Benefits Administration. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) serves the Veteran population and is responsible for providing a wide range of medical services by providing inpatient and outpatient care to 5.5 million veterans across the United States and its territories. The VHA operates one of the largest networks of health care facilities in the world. It includes 171 medical centers, 800+ outpatient clinics, 127 nursing homes and 196 Vietnam Veterans Outreach Centers. As well as, domiciliary residences, home health services, adult day care, residential care and respite care programs. In addition, the VHA helps support veterans' health care in non-VA hospitals (Choice Program) and is the country’s largest provider of graduate medical education. The following organizational chart depicts the current structure of the Veterans Health Administration. The National Cemetery Administration (NCA) provides burial space for Veterans and their eligible family members; maintains national cemeteries; marks Veterans’ graves with headstones, markers, and medallions; and administers grants for establishing or expanding state and tribal government Veteran cemeteries. The following organizational chart depicts the current structure of the National Cemetery
The VA System needs a complete over all we are doing a terrible disservices to our veteran’s.
The Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) has been tasked with providing support and benefits to Veterans after they have completed their service. However, many Veterans are reporting difficulty accessing care due to systematic barriers within the VA’s Veterans Health Administration (Oliver, 2007). Complex eligibility requirements, long wait lists and lack of providers are a few of the issues Veterans are faced with when trying to access health and mental health care. Additionally, studies indicate that veterans, predominantly those from the recent wars in Iran and Iraq, have disproportionately high amounts of mental illness (Shim & Rust, 2013). These same veterans are experiencing difficulty accessing mental health care due to issues around a backlog of healthcare eligibility applications and a shortage of mental health providers through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), which operates the Nation’s largest, integrated health care delivery system (APA, 2014). In 2014, at the request of the Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) evaluated the merit of the allegations of mismanagement at the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) and the Health Eligibility Center (HEC).
In the past few years there has been increasing discussion about how to provide adequate care for the increasing number of veterasn who are eligible for care through the Veterans’ healthcare administration (VHA). There are concerns is that the VHA is not providing the level of access, efficiency, and quality of care that veterans expect. Lee & Begley, (2016) suggest access to care for the veteran population may be resulting in poor health outcomes. In response to these concerns, the Veterans ' Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act (VACAA) of 2014, also known as the Veterans Choice Act, was created to improve Veterans’ healthcare. The VACAA proposed to do this by expanding the number of options veterans have for receiving healthcare, by providing access for healthcare at non-VA care centers as well as providing for an increase in staffing at VA facilities (U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2016).
One of the most serious problems facing all veterans today is the lack of proper healthcare. Soldiers, sailors and airmen are leaving active duty without having proper healthcare to cover their physical or mental injuries. The department responsible for veteran’s healthcare is the Department of Veterans Affairs. (VA) According to The department of Veterans Affairs website, “The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is responsible for administering programs of veterans’ benefits for veterans, their families, and survivors. The benefits provided include disability compensation, pension, education, home loans, life insurance, vocational rehabilitation, survivors’ benefits, medical benefits and burial benefits. It is administered by the United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs.” The VA, who was formerly called the Veterans Administration, was established 21 July 1930, to consolidate and coordinate government activities affecting war veterans. The VA encompassed the functions of the former U.S. Veterans ' Bureau, the Bureau of Pensions of the Interior Department and the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. On 25 October 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation creating a new federal Cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs to replace the Veterans Administration effective 15 March 1989 (V.A.)
One of the most serious problems facing all veterans today is the lack of proper healthcare. Soldiers, sailors and airmen are leaving active duty without having proper healthcare to cover their physical or mental injuries. The department responsible for veteran’s healthcare is the Department of Veterans Affairs. (VA) According to The department of Veterans Affairs website, “The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is responsible for administering programs of veterans’ benefits for veterans, their families, and survivors. The benefits provided include disability compensation, pension, education, home loans, life insurance, vocational
The VA (Veterans Affair) Health Care System is one of the largest, most advanced health care networks in the U.S. The VA Health Care System is the provider for veterans, retirees and their dependents and manages all their health care. The VA Health Care is actually one part of the Department of Veterans Affairs. There is also VA Benefits Administration which has to do with compensations and pensions. Then the other part of the VA is the National Cemetery Administration which is in charge of the cemeteries and providing burial and memorial benefits. All these parts make up the Department of Veterans Affairs. (VA History)
In business there are strategies that need to be fulfilled. Starting a business or health care organization we need to use strategy planning. In the strategy planning of our business or health care organization we need to map out the mission, vision and goals that we want our business or health care organization to meet. My paper is going to be on the Veterans Health Administration strategy planning. This paper will review their internal and external assessments, competitive marketing analysis, identification of stakeholders, an overview and assessments of services provided, competencies and
No more veterans should be compelled to agonize or perish while the government fails to perform its obligations. [...] There comes a time when the political branches have so completely and chronically failed to respect the peoples constitutional rights that the courts must be willing to enforce them. We have reached that unfortunate point with respect to veterans who are suffering from the hidden, or not hidden, wounds of war. (Williams 1)