VA Contractor said veteran did not show up...after VA cancelled appointment for COVID-19

KARE 11 Investigates: Vets penalized for missing cancelled exams

KARE 11 News
Author: A.J. Lagoe, Steve Eckert
May 20, 2020

A KARE 11 investigation reveals veterans have been denied benefits for not going to exams the VA had already ordered cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

KEMPNER, Texas — “That’s a total lie!” said an angry and frustrated Harry Payne after receiving a benefits denial letter from the VA claiming he failed to show up for a required exam.

Records obtained by KARE 11 show the VA itself had cancelled the exam.

Payne, of Kempner, Texas, is one of thousands of veterans who had disability claims pending with the Department of Veterans Affairs when the COVID-19 pandemic struck the nation in force in March.

Records show he was scheduled for a C and P exam on April 21st by VA contractor QTC.

However, after VA put a stop to in-person exams on April 3rd, Payne says he received a phone call from QTC informing him his appointment was cancelled.

He thought his claim was just on hold until it was safe to do the exam.

He was wrong.

The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) sent him a letter informing him his PTSD claim had been denied.
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Police Officer Fights to Heal PTSD--And Justice After Being Fired

Fired cop sues N. Platte, says city didn't accommodate his PTSD after fatal shooting

Lincoln Journal Star

Lori Pilger

August 20, 2017

Pelster said after Harms lost his job he went to the Nebraska Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which found reasonable cause to believe the city had discriminated against Harms on the basis of disability.

A former North Platte police officer has sued the city, alleging he was wrongfully terminated after he sought disability benefits for PTSD, which he developed after taking the life of an armed man.

Rick Harms is asking a federal judge to reinstate his job and award him back pay and benefits, according to the lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Omaha.

The city has not yet responded to the suit.

According to the lawsuit, Harms had worked as a patrolman with the North Platte Police Department for nearly 10 years when, early March 25, 2011, he shot and killed Marlon Johnson, a 60-year-old man who had pulled two knives on officers in the station's lobby.

A grand jury later cleared Harms and another officer involved of any wrongdoing.

But Harms developed post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of having to take the life of the armed assailant in the course of his duties as a police officer, his attorney, Glenn Pelster, said in the complaint.

read more here

 Man shot and killed at police station

VA Un-Freeze Job List Did Not Include Claims Processors?

It seems that POTUS had a busy week issuing Executive Orders, then discovering they are not Royal Decrees, had to undo them.

Among the things President Trump had to undo, was placing a hiring freeze on the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA released a list of jobs that are now excluded from the freeze. They seem to have thought of everything but Claims Processors.

It was a week filled with proof that the power, and will, of the American people will stand against what politicians do.

VA specifies jobs exempt from Trump's hiring freeze
The Hill
BY REBECCA KHEEL
01/27/17

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has released a full list of jobs exempt from President Trump’s federal hiring freezing that includes a slew of medical specialties.

“The Department of Veterans Affairs intends to exempt anyone it deems necessary for public health and safety, including frontline caregivers,” acting Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Snyder said in a statement. “The president and VA remain committed to seeing that our veterans receive the quality care and benefits they’ve earned. This is the right thing to do for our veterans.”

Trump signed an executive order Monday that freezes all federal hiring except for the military. It also allows for exemptions for public safety.

The hiring freeze has come under fire from dozens of Democrats, including every Democrat in the Senate, who say it disproportionately affects veterans, as the VA won’t be able to hire support staff and veterans won’t be able to apply for federal jobs. The Democrats wanted Trump to exempt the entire VA from the order.
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Veterans Caught Not Breaking The Law?

This is the headline on Washington Times

"Veterans caught triple-dipping on benefits"

Seems really bad right? Nope. This is the part that came further down the article.

"The arrangement is legal"

Few if able, stop working after they retire from the military. That means they pay into their pensions as well as Social Security. Hurt on the job then they get Social Security Disability plus any private insurance they pay for. Granted a service connected disability for what happened while in the military is another thing they paid for with their service.

So why all of a sudden are headlines like this coming out?

Veterans caught triple-dipping on benefits
The Washington Times
By Stephen Dinan
Thursday, October 30, 2014

The arrangement is legal, but it raises questions about the generosity of the American safety net system at a time when disability programs are already under severe financial stress.

One veteran on disability collected nearly $210,000 in benefits in 2013, while another earned more than $122,000 — nearly three times what his actual military pay would have been — according to a watchdog report being released Thursday that found tens of thousands of veterans are triple-dipping on disability.

Tens of thousands of veterans collect their military retirement pay and disability benefits from the Veterans Administration and disability checks from Social Security too, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. All told, nearly 60,000 triple dippers collected $3.5 billion in benefits.

“This report shows that, like other government programs, there is little coordination between these overlapping benefits, which increase cost[s] to taxpayers,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who requested the GAO report. “We should fulfill our promises to the men and women who serve, but we need to streamline these duplicative programs.”

For decades, up until 2004, the government clamped down on veterans taking both military retirement pay and VA disability benefits. The Pentagon docked retirement pay dollar for dollar up to the amount of their VA benefits.
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Millions of Dollars of Disability Benefits Held Back

Millions of Dollars of Disability Benefits Held Back, Unnecessarily, Every Year

Newton, MA (PRWEB) August 11, 2010

Disability Services Group reports that each year millions of dollars in Insurer, Social Security and Veterans Administration disability claims will continue to be denied, unnecessarily. Our new publication contains valuable information on how to correctly file a Long Term Disability claim, "doing it right" the first time, dramatically improving the likelihood of collecting benefits.

Getting Paid

"Collecting the Disability Check", A Resource Manual for Libraries, Individuals & Professional Advisors

ElderCare Publishing Company is pleased to announce the availability of the new disability resource manual 'Getting Paid', authored by Allan Checkoway, a nationally recognized disability expert. Allan developed his new publication to help the multitude of disabled Americans collect the millions of dollars in disability benefits to which they are entitled. Note the following headlines:

Federal Disability Traffic Jam / The Washington Times
Soldiers risk ruin while awaiting benefit checks / Associated Press
Disability Claims can be tough to collect / Wall Street Journal

Millions of dollars of disability benefits are held back, unnecessarily, every year. Does the Disability Safety Net have holes in it? If more than 60 percent of Social Security disability claims are denied initially, then why are 63 percent approved at the hearing stage? What causes the turn around? Unfortunately 39 percent of claimants give up before determining if they would be successful going through the appeal process.

Is this the wrong time to be disabled in America? Tens of millions of dollars in disability benefits go unpaid by private insurers. Over 40 states jointly investigated how one insurer handles their disability claims. Another state set up a system to scrutinize the handling of every rejected claim. What led to the dramatic change in the handling of disability claims? Or has anything changed at all and there's just more adverse publicity?

22,500 Veteran's PTDS disability claims denied as personality disorders, as reported in USA Today . . . How is it possible that a personality disorder (assuming it existed prior to military service) is diagnosed when psychological evaluations are not done prior to induction?
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http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/08/prweb4360794.htm

VA document-shredding no shock to vets

VA document-shredding no shock to vets
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Nov 19, 2008 17:14:41 EST

Doubts were raised Wednesday about whether the Bush administration can do anything to restore confidence in the Veterans Affairs Department following the discovery last month of almost 500 key benefits claims documents in shredding bins at regional offices.

But the problem, initially discovered by teams of auditors from the VA inspector general’s office, didn’t exactly shock the veterans’ community. Veterans have complained for decades about VA losing or destroying claims documents, making an already complicated process even more difficult to deal with.

Veterans’ advocates attending a roundtable discussion arranged by the House Veterans Affairs Committee said VA’s admission of mishandling documents is a sign of the fundamental problems that veterans have seen for years.

Rick Weidman, executive director for government affairs of Vietnam Veterans of America, said the only real news is that VA now acknowledged the problem.

“Shredding is not the issue,” he said, calling instead for focus on “the integrity of the process.”

Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz., said he is worried that leaving key documents to be shredded is a sign of a larger workload problem and pressure to meet production quotas. Mitchell said it has led him to wonder whether VA officials have been completely honest when they said they had all of the resources they needed to handle claims.
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Jamie Dolan survived being shot

Claims and denials
Jamie Dolan survived being shot. And the new house reduced his struggle. He has learned to live in darkness, but he struggles with an enemy as unexpected as the gunman: His insurance company.
ST. PETERSBURG

Jamie Dolan arrives at a Starbucks clutching his wife's arm and the first thing you notice is he seems fragile, weighted, broken. His left eye is covered with a patch; his fingernails are long. Four years ago, a gunman walked into the Gateway Mall RadioShack where Dolan worked and started shooting. Three people died, including the shooter. One bullet traveled into Dolan's temple and took out both his eyes.

The community rallied around the young husband and father of three. The television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition built him a 3,500-square-foot home. The episode ended with a joyful, overwhelmed Dolan surrounded by family, cheered by his neighbors, optimistic about the future.

But he is no longer the man you saw on the show. Since then, the Dolans have almost lost the house, and the community donations are long spent.

"We had to borrow from everyone we knew to keep food on the table for the kids," Dolan says at Starbucks, surrounded by his four attorneys.
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Long Island Rail Road Retirement board search by federal agents

Agents Raid Office in L.I.R.R. Disability Inquiry

By WALT BOGDANICH and DUFF WILSON
Published: September 23, 2008
Federal agents raided the Long Island office of the federal Railroad Retirement Board on Tuesday amid an intensifying investigation into the legitimacy of disability payments to thousands of former employees — including white-collar managers — of the Long Island Rail Road.


As former rail workers were arriving to file new disability claims, investigators showed up and closed the office in Westbury, eventually carting out nine file boxes and five personal computers.

The raid came two days after The New York Times reported that nearly all career employees of the railroad — from 93 percent to 97 percent of retirees every year since 2000 — retire early and soon after begin getting disability payments from the federal agency. The retirement board almost never turns down a claim, and since 2000 has paid more than a quarter of a billion dollars in disability checks to former Long Island Rail Road workers, The Times found.

Responding to the findings, Gov. David A. Paterson immediately directed the state attorney general to begin a wide-ranging inquiry into disability claims at the railroad. On Tuesday, he called on Congress to aid in that investigation.

The raid, part of a separate federal inquiry, was led by investigators for the retirement board’s inspector general, joined by agents for the F.B.I.

And after the disclosure that dozens of the railroad retirees have been enjoying free golf on state-owned courses, state parks officials have also begun a review of who gets an Access Pass, which gives the disabled free use of sports facilities in state parks.

Martin J. Dickman, the retirement board’s inspector general in Chicago, declined to comment on the raid, except to say, “We’re investigating.”

The retirement board is run by three presidential appointees, one representing labor, one representing management and one representing consumers.
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More injured vets could get insurance payouts

More injured vets could get insurance payouts

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jul 17, 2008 14:50:32 EDT

More than 1,600 severely disabled veterans could receive retroactive traumatic injury insurance payments as a result of a newly released review of how benefits have been paid under the 3 1/2-year-old supplemental benefits program.

The payments, ranging between $25,000 and $100,000, could be paid as early as this fall as a result of discussions between the Department of Veterans Affairs, which runs the program, and doctors who are treating severely wounded combat veterans. The average retroactive payment would be $32,000, according to the review, dated July 2008.

About 4,400 people have received traumatic injury insurance payments since the program was created in 2005. The estimated 1,640 people who would receive retroactive benefits as a result of the review include some who did not previously qualify and some who received payments but would now get more, according to VA officials.

Officials said the report has 11 recommendations to expand definitions of traumatic injury for insurance purposes, and all are expected to be included in a revised regulation likely to be issued by VA this fall.
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Dept. of Defense and VA miss important deadline

Dept. of Defense and VA miss important deadline


Yesterday came and went without the DoD and the VA meeting the July 1, 2008 deadline to make several improvements to the medical evaluation board (MEB), physical evaluation board (PEB), and to report to Congress on the advisability of consolidating the DoD and VA disability evaluation systems. These requirements were part of the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act and were passed into law as PUBLIC LAW 110-181 [H.R. 4986].
There are many important and vital rights that were granted by Congress in passing the law. Those rights depend on the DoD and the VA acting swiftly to publish regulations to improve processes, eliminate discrepancies between military and VA ratings, assign independent medical doctors to those members at the medical evaluation board, and to report to Congress.

I write this to draw attention to the fact that this has not happened yet, and to point out that those going through the physical disability evaluation system may have to demand their rights.


The following are several important rights that impact all those going through an MEB or PEB:
Assignment to the Servicemember of an independent physician at the MEB to provide review of MEB findings, advice, and counsel.
Setting time standards for processing of cases, setting a maximum number of cases heard at each MEB and PEB and the requirement to establish additional MEBs and PEBs when this number is exceeded.
The requirement that the DoD and VA set up procedures that ensure the "elimination of unacceptable discrepancies and improve consistency" between military and VA ratings.
Training and qualification standards for several key players in the process, including MEB physicians, PEB personnel (presumably including Board members), Physical Evaluation Board Liaison Officers (PEBLOs), and Judge Advocates.
Until they publish the required regulations, if going through disability processing, I would advise being aware of these important provisions, how they may impact your case, and demanding compliance when appropriate.
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Great job on this!

Have problems with VA claim for PTSD? Contact VCS

Mar. 18: Special VCS Lawsuit Update - Please Contact Our Attorneys About VA Problems Related to PTSD Care and Claims

Paul Sullivan, Executive Director, VCS
Veterans for Common Sense
Mar 18, 2008

Dear VCS members,
I am writing to update you about our class action lawsuit, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth v. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. We are challenging the VA's failure to provide prompt mental health care to veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and VA’s failure to promptly and accurately process disability compensation claims for PTSD.

The week of March 3, the judge held a hearing about the quality and timeliness of mental health care given to suicidal veterans. After four days of testimony, the judge ordered a full trial on all of our issues to start on April 21, 2008. This is a very quick timeline, and we hope this means that we will receive a final decision from the judge in the next few months.

In order to put on our strongest case, VCS and our attorneys need your help in the next few days. The attorneys for VA challenged our right as a group to sue VA.

We need our VCS veteran members to contact us if they have either of these two problems

• You are diagnosed with PTSD and have experienced problems getting timely VA mental health care for their PTSD or for potential suicide.

• You filed a VA claim for PTSD and have problems getting your PTSD disability compensation claim approved by VA.

If you are a veteran with either of these specific types of problems, then please send VCS a new email with your contact information in the next several days, even if you already sent one in the past. VCS will then forward your information to our attorneys.

If you are willing to talk to our attorneys about your problems with the VA, then I strongly encourage you to contact our attorneys directly in the next few days. Our attorneys need to show the judge that the problems we are complaining about are system-wide problems and not just isolated to a few veterans.

Our attorneys have been working on this case for more than a year. I have met them all, and they are friendly and understanding when it comes to speaking with veterans and families about confidential issues. Your participation now could make a huge difference in the lives of the hundreds of thousands of veterans fighting with the VA for many years.

Danny Brome, dbrome@dralegal.org
Kasey Corbit, kcorbit@dralegal.org
Disability Rights AdvocatesPhone: (510) 665-8644
Fax: (510) 665-8511TTY: (510) 665-8716
www.dralegal.org

For information about our class lawsuit, please go to this web site: www.veteransPTSDclassaction.org

Harvard Professor: VA Can Expect 800,000 Iraq and Afghanistan War Patients

Harvard Professor Bilmes: VA Can Expect 800,000 Iraq and Afghanistan War Patients and Disability Claims

Statement of Linda J. Bilmes
Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
February 13, 2008

US House of Representatives Veterans Affairs Committee
Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs

Thank you for inviting me to testify before this committee today. I am Professor Linda Bilmes, lecturer in public policy, at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. This year I have given testimony regarding veterans issues on three previous occasions: on October 24, 2007 (before the House Committee on the Budget); on May 23, 2007, before the House Veterans Affairs Committee Claims Roundtable; and on March 13th, 2007 before this subcommittee. I would like to enter copies of all three of these previous statements into the record.

Today I will discuss some of my recent research and resulting recommendations on how to improve the disability claim process. The purpose of these recommendations is to: (a) reduce the backlog of pending disability claims; (b) process new claims more quickly; and (c) to reduce the rate of error and inconsistency among claims.

I will very quickly review the context of this discussion, which I am sure is familiar to members of this subcommittee.

First, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) currently has a backlog of 400,000 pending claims and another 200,000 claims that are somewhere in the adjudication process. This backlog has nearly doubled since the 2001.

Second, VBA expects to receive an additional 800,000 to 1 million new claims during the next year. To date, 230,000 veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts have filed claims, but the majority of claims for that conflict have yet to be submitted. My own projections, based on estimates from the first Gulf War, predict that a total of 791,000 veterans from the Iraq/Afghan wars will eventually seek disability benefits. However, many veterans’ organizations have suggested that my estimates are too conservative, considering the length of deployment and the number of 2nd and 3rd deployments into this theatre. It may well be that the number of eventual claims is far higher.
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http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/9381

Hmm, and I didn't even go to college!

Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker slams disability system project

Army official slams disability system project

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Feb 15, 2008 14:52:28 EST

A pilot project intended to speed the process of evaluating and rating service members’ disabilities will do little more than turn a bad process into “a fast bad process,” the Army’s top medical official said Friday.

Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker’s comments came at a hearing at which the services’ surgeons general had their chance to brag about what they have done in the year since the outpatient scandal at Walter Reed broke — standing up units specially designed to take care of wounded troops, asking for and receiving money to house those service members, ombudsmen, internal checks and toll-free numbers for reporting problems – before the House Armed Services Subcommittee.

Schoomaker also spent some time talking about continued problems, including his view that the pilot project designed to streamline the disability system will not prove to be the answer.

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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/02/military_schoomaker_vadisability_080215w/

Congress wants answers on Fort Drum order to stop helping with claims

Lawmakers want answers on VA claims news report

Clinton demands explanation from Army on NPR allegation

Posted : Saturday Feb 9, 2008 7:54:26 EST

FORT DRUM, N.Y. — New York congressional leaders have asked Army Secretary Pete Geren to investigate a report that the Army is blocking Department of Veterans Affairs officials from helping injured Fort Drum soldiers prepare their disability claims, potentially leading to reduced benefits.

Meanwhile, a national soldiers’ advocacy group said it planned to seek a military Court of Inquiry probe into Fort Drum situation.

In a letter to Geren, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., expressed concern and said the allegations “should be taken seriously and investigated thoroughly.”

“If these allegations are true they run counter to our nation’s pledge made to our men and women in uniform,” Clinton wrote Geren. “It is our duty to eliminate obstacles standing in the way of our disabled service members and veterans.”

On Feb. 8, National Public Radio reported that the Army surgeon general said he was mistaken when he denied the Army had told VA not to help injured soldiers at Fort Drum to challenge their disability ratings. Lt. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker said it was a “misunderstanding,” NPR reported, and VA may help soldiers.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/02/army_drum_disabilityclaims_080208w/

Schoomaker responds to Fort Drum Order on helping veterans

Top Army Doctor Responds to Fort Drum Flap

Ari Shapiro


National Public Radio

Feb 08, 2008

February 7, 2008 - The Army Surgeon General says he was mistaken when he denied that the Army had told the Veterans Affairs Department not to help injured soldiers challenge their disability ratings.

VA spokesmen told NPR last week that an Army team sent to Fort Drum in New York to review disability issues had told the VA office there to stop helping the soldiers, to leave that to others. Soldiers said the VA had helped them get better disability ratings, and they felt that the Army was damaging their cases by cutting off that assistance.

Army Surgeon General Eric B. Schoomaker says the whole thing was a misunderstanding, and it is fine for the VA to help the soldiers.
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http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/9313

Veterans waiting longer for benefits and numbers prove it

Veterans Wait Longer For Benefits
Local 2 Investigates looks into veterans waiting for needed help. Last year, we exposed the problem -- a massive backlog of wounded veterans waiting for assistance from the one agency supposed to help them as they try to move on. Tonight, we've learned the problem has gotten worse, and we have the numbers to show it.

As I said many times before, the administration can make any claim they want but when proof is asked for, the numbers prove they lied.

Disability Cases Last Longer as Backlog Rises

If you think the VA and the DOD are the only problem veterans have, think again because you are forgetting most of them had jobs too. When they cannot work any longer do to a wound of body or mind, they paid into this system expecting that when they could not work, the system would work for them. It doesn't. They are trapped in this system as well.

A first step of raising the number of judges to 1,200 will require at least $100 million extra for the agency beyond the $9.6 billion that President Bush has proposed for the 2008 fiscal year, Mr. Astrue said. Within a wide-ranging, $151 billion health, education and labor bill passed in November, the Democratic-controlled Congress voted for a $275 million increase for the agency. But Mr. Bush vetoed the bill, calling it profligate.

Disability Cases Last Longer as Backlog Rises
RALEIGH, N.C. — Steadily lengthening delays in the resolution of Social Security disability claims have left hundreds of thousands of people in a kind of purgatory, now waiting as long as three years for a decision.

Two-thirds of those who appeal an initial rejection eventually win their cases.

But in the meantime, more and more people have lost their homes, declared bankruptcy or even died while awaiting an appeals hearing, say lawyers representing claimants and officials of the Social Security Administration, which administers disability benefits for those judged unable to work or who face terminal illness.

The agency’s new plan to hire at least 150 new appeals judges to whittle down the backlog, which has soared to 755,000 from 311,000 in 2000, will require $100 million more than the president requested this year and still more in the future. The plan has been delayed by the standoff between Congress and the White House over domestic appropriations.
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My husband paid into a retirement fund while he was working his last job. Before that, he paid into Social Security. They turned down his claim the last time because "he didn't pay into the system in the last quarter" but the time before that, it was another excuse. It didn't matter to them that he will never work again. For us it would mean about $400 a month but it would also mean we wouldn't have to carry health insurance costing us $700 a month just for me on his retirement plan. I also have CHAMPVA, but that does not cover everything and doctors are still not happy about taking it as insurance.