Congress Sold Out Veterans Care Years Ago

Congress Sold Out Veterans Care Years Ago
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
September 28, 2015

Just because you may think the VA is behind all the problems, doesn't make it true. The truth is, contractors have been paid a boatload of money to do what you assume VA employees are doing.

There is a great article on Stars and Stripes about whistleblowers Investigator questions VA discipline of whistleblowers from the Washington Post out today.

There are a lot more cases listed but I wanted to make sure you knew about this part.

Brandon Coleman, a therapist and decorated veteran at the VA hospital in Phoenix, the epicenter of last year's scandal. He urgently warned that there was a broader problem with how suicidal patients were being handled.

Five suicidal veterans had walked out of the emergency room without getting help during a single week in January, he told his supervisor. Six days after he spoke with his boss, Coleman recalled, he was suspended from his job. He believes it was in retaliation.

If you haven't heard much about Contractors vs VA Employees, you may have heard about Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General. You can read a lot there about some of the shenanigans going on.

Like this one that came out September 2, 2015

A Statement from the Deputy Inspector General
VA OIG Substantiates Whistleblower’s Claims of Extensive, Persistent Problems in Veterans Health Care Enrollment Records

Washington, DC – The Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General (OIG) received a request from the Chairman of the U.S House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs to determine the merits of allegations made by a whistleblower about the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) Health Eligibility Center (HEC).

The OIG found the Chief Business Office has not effectively managed its business processes to ensure the consistent creation and maintenance of essential data and recommended a multiyear project management plan to address the accuracy of pending Enrollment System records to improve the usefulness of such data.

The OIG published a report http://www.va.gov/oig/pubs/VAOIG-14-01792-510.pdf on September 2, 2015, addressing the following four questions:

 Did the HEC have a backlog of 889,000 health care applications in a pending status?
 Did 47,000 veterans die while their health care applications were in a pending status?
 Were over 10,000 veteran health records purged or deleted at the HEC?
 Were 40,000 unprocessed applications, spanning a 3-year time period, discovered in January 2013?

We substantiated the first allegation that VHA’s enrollment system had about 867,000 pending records as of September 30, 2014. However, due to serious enrollment data limitations, such as an estimated 477,000 pending records not having application dates, we could not reliably determine how many records were associated with actual applications for enrollment.

OIG also substantiated that pending records included entries for over 307,000 individuals reported as deceased by the Social Security Administration. Again because of data limitations, we could not determine how many pending records represent veterans who applied for health care benefits.

We also substantiated that employees incorrectly marked unprocessed applications as completed and possibly deleted 10,000 or more transactions over the past 5 years. Information security deficiencies, such as the lack of audit trails and system backups, limited our ability to review some issues fully and rule out data manipulation.

Finally, we substantiated that the HEC identified over 11,000 unprocessed health care applications and about 28,000 other transactions in January 2013. This backlog developed because the HEC did not adequately manage its workload and lacked controls to ensure entry of its workload into the enrollment system.

Then there is another link to FedBizOpps.gov that list the contracts for some things like building and equipment but then there are also others like this one.

Q--NEW IDIQ CONTRACT: FUNDING REQUIRED | Medical Disability Exams (MDE) under P.L. 104-275 | VBA Compensation Service | RFQ # VA119A-15-Q-0130

So if you think these are VA employees doing everything that is wrong, keep in mind that a lot of the times what you think is not always true. Next time you hear a politician talk about turning veterans care over to companies operating for profit instead of for veterans, remember this. They already turned too much over to corporations including processing claims.

Harris Corporation Awarded $37 Million Contract to Improve Veterans’ Benefit Claims Process

Under a four-year, $37-million contract, Harris will provide the VBA’s Office of Performance Analysis and Integrity with technical services for the data warehouse including design, development, enhancement, integration, implementation, maintenance and infrastructure support.

VA claims processing contract allows Virginia Beach firm to add 150 jobs

AFGE officials also said that a recent $54 million contract awarded by the Veterans Benefits Administration for claims processing would result in lost jobs for many veterans currently performing that work at the VA.

Here's a contractor talking about what he supplies for the DOD and the VA
Just a taste of how much money is involved, this is about the Air Force but then there are other contracts with other branches as well as the VA and even Warrior Transition Units which we heard a lot about from the Dallas Morning News.

September 2006 - Luke and Associates Awarded $1.9 Billion Contract to Provide Clinical Support Services to the U.S. Air Force

Luke and Associates has been awarded a contract to provide Clinical Support Services for Air Force Medical Treatment Facilities nationwide. This contract has a potential value of $1.9 billion over 10 years. Luke will recruit, qualify and retain clinical personnel of all levels, including physicians, dentists, nurses and pharmacists to provide care at a total of 63 Military Treatment Facilities in 58 geographic locations.