VA bosses in 7 states falsified vets' wait times for care

[Fugus]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...rans/82726634/

Not going to quote the whole thing as it is pretty long. Long story short: It took multiple inquires and Freedom of Information requests to get access to the information but,

Employees at over 40 facilities in 19 states and Puerto Rico regularly falsified data and zeroed out wait times on the paperwork a probe found. And the investigation says in many places this went back over a decade, others just a few years. Whistleblowers are claiming the issues are ongoing and schedulers are still manipulating wait times. Even mentions how some workers remain quiet for fear of retaliation and such.




This is yet another reason why I support universal healthcare for the nation. It would completely remove them from veteran healthcare entirely and relegate them for disability only.

Too many issues happen with them. It even touches on how many of them fear retaliation which I believe extends to beyond the wait times as I have personally noticed myself in dealing with them with how most of them will verbally give you their opinions but then refuse to put them in writing or many claim they have no opinions at all. Had them tell me to my face my injuries were most likely permanent and told me to go for disability as my only real chance at this point but were afraid to actually put their opinions in writing to help me actually with their suggestion.

If they weren't in charge of this crap the original doctor who saw me wouldn't have been trying to hurry me out the door and lie to me and on my paperwork trying to push me out so it was no longer their problem as then I would have been their problem regardless and they would have HAD to look at me in which case I would have been fixed before the damage turned permanent. And even with that one doctor lying on the paperwork, they would have been more willing to even look at me afterward without waiting till my leg went limp to finally look and even at that point would have taken care of me sooner rather than waiting another 12 months for surgery.

Universal Healthcare would greatly remove this fuckery and should have them more willing to look and do the preventative stuff as then they can't lie and kick the can so it is cheaper to just do it right the first time and then the VA can't pressure the doctors into being company employees more than actual doctors in attempts to save them money from disability claims as at that point they no longer have control over their paycheck. Then might actually be allowed to see the primary physician for more than 8 minutes per year like now where I only get to communicate through email mainly except for the once to twice yearly visits where I get at most 5 minutes of face time with the man.

[ezgeze]

that's government run healthcare for you. People actually want this......

When I went to the VA it took me 6 months for glasses but it would take less than a week if I went to stein optical. Go figure.

[Fugus]

that's government run healthcare for you. People actually want this......

When I went to the VA it took me 6 months for glasses but it would take less than a week if I went to stein optical. Go figure.

It is more along the lines that they are able to kick the can and try and save money. It seems to be intentionally setup to be that bad trying to push people to the public sector to save money.

With Universal Healthcare they can't do that so better and cheaper just to do it right the first time.

Remember, these are the same people who got a 1 billion dollar check from Obama when he first came into office to upgrade their crap to fix this and instead spent 500 million of it on office furniture.

Edit: Had to completely re-write this, 2am so my mind is getting sidetracked and fuzzy.

[Kellhound]

It isn't government run healthcare so much as it is more military run healthcare with the ability to kick the can and try to push people onto the private systems to save money.

When it is all one system and they can't kick the can, they are more willing to do it right the first time to save money.

It is setup, as far as I can tell, to intentionally be this slow trying to push you to the public healthcare system.

Military doesnt run the VA, it is a civilian department. It is normal government bureaucratic incompetence, that would not go away with more government....

[Fugus]

Military doesnt run the VA, it is a civilian department. It is normal government bureaucratic incompetence, that would not go away with more government....

Yeah, corrected it. Sorry about that, 2am and tired.

But actually having a fully Universal run system would cut a great deal of that bureaucratic crap as then they don't have to worry about insurance and such or what a persons disability rating is or what part of them is service connected and such like each system has to deal with now.

And, to be honest, if we can't get Universal Healthcare right with all the other proven versions around the globe that are already better and more cost effective than what we have now. Then we, as a nation, are already fucked and doomed. Kinda sad if we can't do something proven to be superior to our own in multiple fashions by such huge margins and still fuck it up so bad it is even worse.

[Kellhound]

Yeah, corrected it. Sorry about that, 2am and tired.

But actually having a fully Universal run system would cut a great deal of that bureaucratic crap as then they don't have to worry about insurance and such or what a persons disability rating is or what part of them is service connected and such like each system has to deal with now.

And, to be honest, if we can't get Universal Healthcare right with all the other proven versions around the globe that are already better and more cost effective than what we have now. Then we, as a nation, are already fucked and doomed. Kinda sad if we can't do something proven to be superior to our own in multiple fashions by such huge margins and still fuck it up so bad it is even worse.

Oh, we can, we have idiots in charge.

[Foosha]

Fuck you. Fuck government run healthcare or any bureaucratic run health system. I was on medicaid right after college for a couple of years. It's fucking garbage. GARBAGE. I would not wish this on any of my mortal enemies. People who advocate this are dipshits who have premium healthcare.

It took ONE month just to see my regular physician....ONE MONTH. Then, I need a specialist, mainly an orthopaedic surgeon, and that took another 4 fucking months, and they STILL hesitated to get an mri, opting out for physical therapy or other inane shit. Finally I got fed up and went to a doctor out of pocket and got an MRI within 2 days and turns out I NEEDED to get surgery. Fuck that. As much as I hate private insurances, government run insurances are infinitely worse

[Fugus]

Oh, we can, we have idiots in charge.

Unfortunately I don't think it is so much as them being idiots, I think it more along the lines of them being bought and intentionally fucking shit up for their sponsors or to save money in general to be used on other things.

While the old saying may be "Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence", I believe they should extend to include "Unless there is money or power to be made by that incompetence at which point malice is more likely".

Still think Universal would be better for us as a nation than what we have now, something like that would probably get a shit ton more scrutiny than the crap we have now and more effort would be put into making sure it runs right when the rich and connected are put to the same process as the poor and can't just buy their way out of it.

[Fugus]

Fuck you. Fuck government run healthcare or any bureaucratic run health system. I was on medicaid right after college for a couple of years. It's fucking garbage. GARBAGE. I would not wish this on any of my mortal enemies. People who advocate this are dipshits who have premium healthcare.

It took ONE month just to see my regular physician....ONE MONTH. Then, I need a specialist, mainly an orthopaedic surgeon, and that took another 4 fucking months, and they STILL hesitated to get an mri, opting out for physical therapy or other inane shit. Finally I got fed up and went to a doctor and got an MRI within 2 days and turns out I NEEDED to get surgery. Fuck that. As much as I hate private insurances, government run insurances are infinitely worse

Hello there, I have gone to the civilian sector without insurance before joining the military, not going too much into detail on that one but that is worse than I am receiving now by a long margin.

And no, I do not have premium health insurance, I have no current insurance except the VA. I am unable to work and until the VA is done trying to fight their own doctors, I am too broke for any insurance and pretty much without.

You think you had it bad with a 1 month wait till you got to see your regular physician? I currently have to wait SIX TO TWELVES MONTHS to see mine and only get about 5 minutes of face time with the man in a visit before I am pushed out the door. It took them just shy of 2 YEARS before I even got to see him for the first time with how they kept trying to push stuff off and refused to even look at me the entire 2 years.

As much as you may hate government run systems, you forget, you are using government run insurance in a FOR PROFIT healthcare system. You get rid of the profit motive and you fix a lot of the issues you just complained about.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't completely buy that Universal Health Care would mean the end to the VA or likewise Public Paid College would end the GI Bill for Veterans. The Veteran's fund is already completely separated and would take a big piece of legislation to end it outright. Remember a lot of what the VA does is handle recently injured soldiers who need critical recovery care that is hard to find in the public sector.

It is my understanding that most of the specialty stuff is out-sourced to private companies to handle them. But I may be wrong.

Even if a VA healthcare system was used for the more expensive specialty stuff, the general hospitals would still replace it for most routine stuff if not have the specialty stuff rolled into the normal healthcare system along.

I would prefer relegating the VA to nothing but disability payments only so they can no longer pull this crap and trying to drag it out to force them to the public sectors to save money or die to save on disability payments would be a net plus any way they cut it. If it was up to the military, I would have been left for dead at this point and had to fight tooth and nail for years to even be seen. Still relying on my family for help to this day while fighting them.

Would like the VA removed from healthcare and from being able to influence the doctors to try and prevent disability claims or supporting evidence for one. You want to see some crap, have a doctor give you bad news and ask if they could put that in writing so you could try and get some help only to see them get squirrely about it like you just put them on the spot in front of their boss.

[Foosha]

Hello there, I have gone to the civilian sector without insurance before joining the military, not going too much into detail on that one but that is worse than I am receiving now by a long margin.

And no, I do not have premium health insurance, I have no current insurance except the VA. I am unable to work and until the VA is done trying to fight their own doctors, I am too broke for any insurance and pretty much without.

You think you had it bad with a 1 month wait till you got to see your regular physician? I currently have to wait SIX TO TWELVES MONTHS to see mine and only get about 5 minutes of face time with the man in a visit before I am pushed out the door. It took them just shy of 2 YEARS before I even got to see him for the first time with how they kept trying to push stuff off and refused to even look at me the entire 2 years.

As much as you may hate government run systems, you forget, you are using government run insurance in a FOR PROFIT healthcare system. You get rid of the profit motive and you fix a lot of the issues you just complained about.

Newsflash, the world is not a big fluffy pillow. Balancing budgets is what makes the world turn in a universe that has finite resources. This isnt Star Trek, this is real life. If you cant go into the black, or atleast have a zero deficit, than things will inevitably go to shit.

And as it stands now, with the population as it is, and the amount of doctors, that's impossible for the future of up to 50 years. How else do you expect the field to advance? By paying doctors who spend their life educating minimum wage? Cmon

[Fugus]

Newsflash, the world is not a big fluffy pillow. Balancing budgets is what makes the world turn in a universe that has finite resources. This isnt Star Trek, this is real life. If you cant go into the black, or atleast have a zero deficit, than things will inevitably go to shit.

And as it stands now, with the population as it is, and the amount of doctors, that's impossible for the future of up to 50 years. How else do you expect the field to advance? By paying doctors who spend their life educating minimum wage? Cmon

Newsflash, Universal Healthcare has already been proven to be hugely cheaper and superior in quality to our own for the average person which is better use of those finite resources and none of those doctors are making at or near minimum wage. Cmon

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On that note, I am off to bed, will try and read up on this tomorrow but I am tired and getting hard to see.

[Independent voter]

Yeah, we have what the VA system which most don't like, and the Native American health care system which most don't like either. Not looking good for a national health care system in the US.

[howareyou]

Fuck you. Fuck government run healthcare or any bureaucratic run health system. I was on medicaid right after college for a couple of years. It's fucking garbage. GARBAGE. I would not wish this on any of my mortal enemies. People who advocate this are dipshits who have premium healthcare.

It took ONE month just to see my regular physician....ONE MONTH. Then, I need a specialist, mainly an orthopaedic surgeon, and that took another 4 fucking months, and they STILL hesitated to get an mri, opting out for physical therapy or other inane shit. Finally I got fed up and went to a doctor out of pocket and got an MRI within 2 days and turns out I NEEDED to get surgery. Fuck that. As much as I hate private insurances, government run insurances are infinitely worse

lol, my time with Medicaid and Medicare are quite opposite. My brother had Kidney failure, I donated one of my Kidneys, I got a tax break, my brother is now healthy. Thank the taxpayers for my brothers life and my wish to donate my kidney. He's not wasting taxpayer dollars in Dialysis, and I don't have to worry about that. I didn't have to pay anything and I thank anyone who are empathetic or selfless for this.

[Foosha]

Newsflash, Universal Healthcare has already been proven to be hugely cheaper and superior in quality to our own for the average person which is better use of those finite resources and none of those doctors are making at or near minimum wage. Cmon

- - - Updated - - -

On that note, I am off to bed, will try and read up on this tomorrow but I am tired and getting hard to see.

Than riddle me this, I'm in one of the most affluent cities in the world, and on medicaid all I could get was a shitty RN who told me to "live with the pain" and ice it. In America we have a monopoly on the top doctors. Be it our college system or private healthcare, these institutions pay for the top 1%. It might be cheaper for you to get your dick removed in mexico or thailand, but god forbid if you need specialized care like cancer or spine surgery outside of the U.S. For the greater good. we might fall short in safety nets, but atleast we are leading in scientific and medical breakthroughs which inevitably make shit cheaper

lol, my time with Medicaid and Medicare are quite opposite. My brother had Kidney failure, I donated one of my Kidneys, I got a tax break, my brother is now healthy. Thank the taxpayers for my brothers life and my wish to donate my kidney. He's not wasting taxpayer dollars in Dialysis, and I don't have to worry about that. I didn't have to pay anything and I thank anyone who are empathetic or selfless for this.

The only one to thank for his survival is you. Without you, he would have most likely been on dialysis till he died, or found a relative or good samaritan willing to bypass the waitlist and donate a kidney WHICH MATCHED. For organs, it doesnt even change with private insurance.

[howareyou]

Than riddle me this, I'm in one of the most affluent cities in the world, and on medicaid all I could get was a shitty RN who told me to "live with the pain" and ice it. In America we have a monopoly on the top doctors. Be it our college system or private healthcare, these institutions pay for the top 1%. It might be cheaper for you to get your dick removed in mexico or thailand, but god forbid if you need specialized care like cancer or spine surgery outside of the U.S. For the greater good. we might fall short in safety nets, but atleast we are leading in scientific and medical breakthroughs which inevitably make shit cheaper

So your mad that you may live in a city that the cost of living is absurd and you have only anecdotes to make your claims sound valid.

[Alvito]

Best solution I have heard of. Make politicians and their family use the VA medical care and see how quickly it gets cleaned up.

[Masark]

In America we have a monopoly on the top doctors.

Bullshit. You have a monopoly on PR. Even for the megarich, outcomes are not meaningfully different in the USA than they are in the rest of the developed world.

[Alvito]

Fuck you. Fuck government run healthcare or any bureaucratic run health system. I was on medicaid right after college for a couple of years. It's fucking garbage. GARBAGE. I would not wish this on any of my mortal enemies. People who advocate this are dipshits who have premium healthcare.

It took ONE month just to see my regular physician....ONE MONTH. Then, I need a specialist, mainly an orthopaedic surgeon, and that took another 4 fucking months, and they STILL hesitated to get an mri, opting out for physical therapy or other inane shit. Finally I got fed up and went to a doctor out of pocket and got an MRI within 2 days and turns out I NEEDED to get surgery. Fuck that. As much as I hate private insurances, government run insurances are infinitely worse

That is a function of that system being set up poorly and not being prioritized. Not a failure of the idea of doing it. The same people that are often against medicare, medicaid or any other state health care are the same ones that gut it so badly it is doomed to fail and not provide any real services. Then they bitch about how badly it does.

[Alvito]

The recent big problem with the VA was a result of the Iraq/Afgan wars and the inability of both Bush and Obama to recognize the problem. For myself as a veterans the biggest hurdle with the VA is getting your name in the system and getting in the books. It took me almost 9 months to get my GI Bill going and probably 2 Months to get myself into the VA medical. I believe those times have greatly increased though.

That might be some of it. My father is a Veitnam vet though and has been in the system for almost 2 decades. It took 3.5 years for them to finally schedule a surgery for a problem they diagnosed at the start of it all. He just kept getting kicked from one doctor to the next and different parts of the hospital. We moved him to us and finally after a few months at a new VA hospital the ball actually started rolling. It still took them over a year, but they finally did something. What finally got things moving is I told a doctor I'd happily talk to the media about it. Seeing how the Phoenix VA is the one that started all the inquiries when they sent a widow an appointment for her husband that had been dead for over a year. Things are getting better, it is far from where it should be though.

[Macaquerie]

The recent big problem with the VA was a result of the Iraq/Afgan wars and the inability of both Bush and Obama to recognize the problem. For myself as a veterans the biggest hurdle with the VA is getting your name in the system and getting in the books. It took me almost 9 months to get my GI Bill going and probably 2 Months to get myself into the VA medical. I believe those times have greatly increased though.

In an odd way, the VA being such a mess these days is actually saving lives because politicians aren't going to be eager to send troops into combat when they know that we can't take care of them when they come home. If not for that, we would probably have ground troops in Syria already and we wouldn't be shy about sending them into Iran or North Korea at the slightest provocation.

I am by no means defending the VA of course, but I would be shocked if caring for returning veterans played any role in the thought process that led us to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. I think that the top brass really believed that we'd just be able to overwhelm them with superior technology and that casualty rates would be so low that it wouldn't be any problem to deal with.