In September of 2011, let me say again, 2011!, I submitted a claim to Veterans Affairs. Nothing major but I definitely wanted to get what I submitted on record. I hadn’t heard anything back from them. Seeing as how I submitted a claim in fall of 2011! I sent them an email following-up back in January. They said someone would contact me within five business days.
I got a call yesterday.
I got a call three months after I followed-up on a claim that was submitted 16 months prior. WTH?
Back in summer of 2010 I really wanted to talk to a councilor. I called them and said, “Hey, I’m a veteran, I’d really like to talk to a councilor.”
“No problem” they said, “we can have one call you in three weeks.”
Once I finally got to talk to one she was amazing, but I had to wait three weeks. Thank heavens I didn’t need a councilor because I probably would have been left hanging for three weeks.
I’ll fully admit I’m low on the priority list. Incredibly low. There are guys who need the VA’s resources much more than I do. However, the fact that it took three months to get a phone call does not bode well for their entire operation.
I just got an email with an update. They apologize for their delay (that’s nice of them) and says that the average time a claim is processed is 13 months.
They are not underfunded or understaffed. They are staffed with lazy civil servants, and even that is a result of mismanagement, the real culprit here. If anyone really cared about this the entire backlog could be cleared in a few months, and this would never be a problem again, but no one in charge really cares.
I was led to understand by a news program on the screens at the airport that the VA could improve efficiency dramatically by incorporating these new-fangled devices called “computers” into their process, and that 90% of their backlog is due to the plethora of paper forms that have to be filled out and filed.
That’s a lot of it. The various government systems don’t talk to each other. But there’s still the problem of recording the information that comes in from other sources after the various DoD systems and the VA system get connected in [del]6 months[/del] [del]1 year[/del] [del]2 years[/del] ages from now. They need a simple form, paper or online, to list symptoms and begin the process without tracking down every last shred of paperwork needed to fulfill ridiculous beaurocratic conditions. The details can be filled in later, these guys need treatment and relief now.
Apologies to my friends at the VA, I know you guys are doing your job and your bosses are at fault.
It is a crying shame - whether you support what they are injured for or not - our military personnel deserve competent, timely medical treatment. I don’t understand how some people feel otherwise.
Anything us concerned civilians can do to help the cause?
In December 2012 a VA Claim for PTSD that was filed in 1970 was finally granted @ a 70% rating. Try that for waiting on a claim to be answered. That’s not to mention several other claims that have been before VA for years. An NSO told me 13 months was now the norm it took for a claim to be replied to.
We’ve all served, some fought now we all wait. Patience BROTHERS!
AnthonyElite, you ask if there’s anything us concerned civilians can do to help the cause! Contact all of your government representatives not just concerning this cause but any you deem necessary to contact them about. Each is a Public Servant, ( supposedly ) they work for us & they are elected by us.This includes from Senators & Congressman to those Public Servants on the local level. Just look around you & see how people that come together in numbers get things done.
Vietvet1968
USMC 1965
From what I saw on The Daily Show, it’s not something easily fixed. The systems are much too old and not computerized and making them computerized is a very complex project. I wonder what Ross Perot is doing now? He’s the sort of person who could organize this.
It’s nothing new, unfortunately. Bill Mauldin drew a number of acid cartoons about conditions in VA hospitals in the later 1940s. You can find a good selection in Coming Home.
That was a lot of disnformation. The computers could be better, but the problem is stupid regulations and mismanagement. I’ve worked with the VA IT personnel for many years, the government is trying to cover it’s ass by blaming the low end of the totem pole.
Seems like kind of a disconnect in these two statements. Insult then praise?
Speaking as a civil servant, I tend to get my back up at the “lazy civil servant” meme. Not that they don’t exist mind you, but the casually tossed stereotype grates just like most stereotypes.
I get all of my health care through the VA and have had nothing but good experiences with everyone I’ve encountered, both clinical and administrative staff. The few times a ball has been dropped, it’s been picked up in short order. However, I’m a woman (shorter wait times to get into the women’s primary care clinic) with the magic initials MST and a psych diagnosis (shorter wait times to get into the mental health clinic), and I have had to wait to get into a specialty clinic; fortunately, that’s never been for a life-threatening problem. And I’ve never submitted a disability claim, although I’m about to do so for a bad knee and the aforementioned psych diagnosis.
[QUOTE=Tamerlane]
Speaking as a civil servant, I tend to get my back up at the “lazy civil servant” meme. Not that they don’t exist mind you, but the casually tossed stereotype grates just like most stereotypes.
[/QUOTE]
It annoys the fuck out of me, too, not because I’m a civil servant (I’m not), or because I think civil servants are particularly industrious, but because I’m surrounded by private sector drones who are just as lazy, but instead of owning their laziness create busy work for other people so they can look like they’re not lazy.