Doctors and veterans complain about sluggish reimbursements for care

VA works to resolve problems after doctors, veterans complain about sluggish reimbursements for care
By Rhiannon Meyers
Posted March 18, 2012

CORPUS CHRISTI — Disabled veteran Roy Stamper, 54, spends his days in front of a television, hobbling around his apartment on a cane and managing the constant sharp pain and numbness in his artificial hips with daily morphine pills.

For months, Stamper tried to find a local orthopedic surgeon to take a look at his hips and diagnose the pain, but over and over again, he found that doctors simply refused to accept a voucher that promised reimbursement for care from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Some local doctors have stopped seeing veterans because the VA has taken too long to reimburse them for the treatment.

The VA now is working to resolve the backlog of claims after U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, complained that slow payments put local veterans at risk of not getting the care they need.

Officials with the regional VA health system treating Valley and Coastal Bend veterans say there are 12 outstanding claims to be processed. However, two Corpus Christi doctors say that they alone have more than 40 outstanding claims awaiting VA payment.
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