V.A. Wait Times Now Shorter Than for Private Doctors - The New York Times

Caluza Triangle – Caluza vs Brown defined what is necessary for service connection

Dr. Lerman especially wants to know how the emotional pain experience may be influenced by the vagus nerve, which runs down both sides of our necks from the brainstem to the abdomen. The vagus nerve also plays a critical role in maintaining heart rate, breathing rate, digestive tract movement and many other basic body functions ...

Working with the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Apple announced that the Health Records on iPhone feature will be available soon to veterans.

A USA TODAY analysis of Veterans Affairs data provides the broadest picture of how each of 146 VA medical centers compares with non-VA care.

House Veterans’ Affairs Committee is launching an investigation into whether President Donald Trump’s country club friends had undue influence over Veterans Affairs Department policies or violated any laws.

In a letter to VA officials Friday, committee Chairman Mark Takano, D-Calif., said the department needs to turn over dozens of documents by the end of the month to clarify the role of “these individuals who have not served in the U.S. military nor U.S. government, and are not accountable to veterans and the American people.”

The move comes amid increasing tension between the department and members of Congress, and just days after President Donald Trump chastised congressional Democrats in his State of the Union address over investigations.

Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., the chairman of the committee, requested documents, communications and telephone records between VA officials and Marvel Entertainment Chairman Ike Perlmutter, Palm Beach doctor Bruce Moskowitz and attorney Marc Sherman. His letter was addressed to VA Secretary Robert Wilkie.

The three men allegedly formed an informal council that oversaw sweeping changes of the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to an August 2018 Pro Publica report.

VA benefits are available to compensate a veteran at the 100% level if he or she is not able to work because of service-connected conditions even without a 100% schedular rating. This benefit is called “total disability on the basis of individual unemployability”, (“TDIU”), or […]

The agency issued a “request for information” for companies interested in converting the archival text files into Excel-type spreadsheets. Data filtering will then be used to quickly verify potentially traumatic events claimed by ex-military personnel, according to a notice from the department.

Claims for post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues stemming from events during the Vietnam War represent a significant workload for the agency. Verification of claims through the current text-based system is difficult and slow, according to the VA.


“While the VA has relaxed its documentation requirements for post-traumatic stress disorder, other mental health claims still require verification that the stressful event likely took place,” according to the document published Jan. 30. “Verifying these stressors has traditionally been a long, drawn out process requiring inquiries to the Joint Service Records Research Center, which can take up to 60 days.”

Battle of Hill 875, DAK TO, Vietnam 1967 An Individual Study Project Intended for Publication LTC Leonard B Scott Docto Jim Williams Hill 875 was the most costly terrain feature taken by U.S. servicemen In the Vietnam war, yet little is little is known about the battle. Current published works […]

My CO at VAQ 34 she took the time to see that medical problems I had were addressed. She stood up for me and personally tried to talk me into reenlisting but too much had happened by then. I enjoyed the conversations I had with her. Fair Winds and Following Seas...

Capt. Rosemary Mariner, who died Jan. 24, was the first female pilot to fly a tactical fighter jet and command an aviation squadron.

The Under Secretary for Benefits, Paul R. Lawrence, Ph.D., held a live webcast on January 31 about the general health of the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) for the first quarter in Fiscal Year 2019, including its performance and financial metrics, accomplishments, challenges, and collaborations. This was the second in a series of quarterly events in which we share VBA’s progress, challenges, and way forward for the administration.

New VA health care rules: Trump overreach or more choice for vets?MilitaryTimes.com – Debate over how to expand veterans health care choices connects to larger national fights over the role of government and private-sector partnerships. Read Full Article INSIDE TRUMP’S VA “Doubling Down”: With Private Care Push, Trump’s VA Bucks Lawmakers and […]

Debate over how to expand veterans health care choices connects to larger national fights over the role of government and private-sector partnerships.

It is often said that patience is a virtue, and no one understands this more than a group of Vietnam veterans known as “Blue Water Navy” veterans — those who served in the waters offshore during the Vietnam War.

Today, thanks to a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Procopio v. Wilkie, the group’s patience paid off. And the heroes of this story involve a cast of unlikely characters: lawyers.

There’s been an uptick in veterans turning to paid services for help accessing their benefits, a Cameron County official said, but assistance is available completely free through the Veterans Service Office.

Nearly four times as many veterans could be eligible for private health care paid for by the Department of Veterans Affairs under sweeping rules the agency proposed Wednesday.

The rules, which will be open to public comment, would permit veterans to get private care if they had to wait more than 20 days or drive more than 30 minutes for a VA appointment.

That would be a considerable expansion of eligibility standards, in which private options kick in for vets who have to wait 30 days or live 40 miles from a VA facility. The new rules would allow veterans who need urgent care to go to a private doctor without pre-authorization.

Don’t miss out on today’s VBA Progress & Results Webcast (1/31) at 2 p.m. ET, hosted by Paul R. Lawrence, Ph.D., Under Secretary for Benefits.

If you haven’t registered already, REGISTER NOW. This important live event will also be streamed on VBA’s Facebook and YouTube pages! Hear Dr. Lawrence discuss key elements of VBA’s progress in the first […]

Explore tools and resources designed to help you transition from military to civilian life .

Providing free training, tools and in-person coaching to help people in Europe get the skills they need to grow their career or business.

The law instructs the VA secretary to create the new rules for private-sector care, with the potential to shift billions of dollars for veterans’ care to private medical facilities.

Wilkie pre-empted the public release of the rules with a warning Monday that they would likely spark controversy.

“Although these new standards represent an important win for America’s veterans, they will not be without controversy,” Wilkie said in a statement. “Some will claim falsely and predictably that they represent a first step toward privatizing the department.”

It would be a waste of time to shift billions of dollars to private healthcare systems if patterns point to the systems yielding inefficient results. We need to direct funding towards making the veterans’ hospital achieve higher quality services instead of solely finding ways to support the private sectors. Through the Mission Act, funds that are supposed to go the veterans’ hospital will instead be spent on private sector care because there isn’t any separate funding source for the private sectors. This automatically takes funds away from the VA budget and instead allocates them to private hospitals. Since the mission of the Mission Act from the start was to privatize healthcare, it would make sense that the funds that were allocated for the veterans’ hospital would go into private hospitals. As a result, the VA hospitals will be lacking in various resources including staff and medical equipment.

What is HadIt.com Veteran to Veteran LLC?
The how to and why for in the VA process for filing a claim for service connected disability compensation. We combine the Knowledge, Skills, and abilities of Veterans to provide other Veterans the information and support they need dealing with the VA system.

House Veterans’ Affairs Committee will start its work this session with more than half of its members new to the panel, a significant turnover that veterans advocates have said leaves them with plenty of education work along with their lobbying goals.

But committee leaders are downplaying concerns about the numerous new faces, noting that the number of veterans on the panel will increase this year, featuring even more younger veterans than in the past.

The ranking Republican congressman responsible for veterans affairs has once again introduced legislation directing the Department of Veterans Affairs to research the potential applications of medical marijuana to treat issues like post-traumatic stress disorder.

PTSD is an anxiety disorder that surfaces after experiencing a very dangerous, frightening, and uncontrollable event such as military combat exposure, a […]

Being in the military everyone knows the hurry up and wait or the standing by to stand by. In this blog post Amanda Dejesus from Hill and Ponton tells about ways veteran’s claims can be expedited.