Veterans for Common Sense

AP IMPACT: Almost half of new vets seek disability

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Team VCS

From AP Impact

BY MARILYNN MARCHIONE

AP CHIEF MEDICAL WRITER

America’s newest veterans are filing for disability benefits at a historic rate, claiming to be the most medically and mentally troubled generation of former troops the nation has ever seen.

A staggering 45 percent of the 1.6 million veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now seeking compensation for injuries they say are service-related. That is more than double the estimate of 21 percent who filed such claims after the Gulf War in the early 1990s, top government officials told The Associated Press.

What’s more, these new veterans are claiming eight to nine ailments on average, and the most recent ones over the last year are claiming 11 to 14. By comparison, Vietnam veterans are currently receiving compensation for fewer than four, on average, and those from World War II and Korea, just two.

It’s unclear how much worse off these new veterans are than their predecessors. Many factors are driving the dramatic increase in claims – the weak economy, more troops surviving wounds, and more awareness of problems such as concussions and PTSD. Almost one-third have been granted disability so far.

Government officials and some veterans’ advocates say that veterans who might have been able to work with certain disabilities may be more inclined to seek benefits now because they lost jobs or can’t find any. Aggressive outreach and advocacy efforts also have brought more veterans into the system, which must evaluate each claim to see if it is war-related. Payments range from $127 a month for a 10 percent disability to $2,769 for a full one.

As the nation commemorates the more than 6,400 troops who died in post-9/11 wars, the problems of those who survived also draw attention. These new veterans are seeking a level of help the government did not anticipate, and for which there is no special fund set aside to pay.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is mired in backlogged claims, but “our mission is to take care of whatever the population is,” said Allison Hickey, the VA’s undersecretary for benefits. “We want them to have what their entitlement is.”

The 21 percent who filed claims in previous wars is Hickey’s estimate of an average for Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield. The VA has details only on the current disability claims being paid to veterans of each war.

The AP spent three months reviewing records and talking with doctors, government officials and former troops to take stock of the new veterans. They are different in many ways from those who fought before them.

More are from the Reserves and National Guard – 28 percent of those filing disability claims – rather than career military. Reserves and National Guard made up a greater percentage of troops in these wars than they did in previous ones. About 31 percent of Guard/Reserve new veterans have filed claims compared to 56 percent of career military ones.

More of the new veterans are women, accounting for 12 percent of those who have sought care through the VA. Women also served in greater numbers in these wars than in the past. Some female veterans are claiming PTSD due to military sexual trauma – a new challenge from a disability rating standpoint, Hickey said.

The new veterans have different types of injuries than previous veterans did. That’s partly because improvised bombs have been the main weapon and because body armor and improved battlefield care allowed many of them to survive wounds that in past wars proved fatal.

Read more… http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/27/2819808/ap-impact-almost-half-of-new-vets.html

Posted in Gulf War Updates, VA Claims Updates, Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged Afghanistan, backlog, Gulf War, PTSD, VA Claims Crisis, Veterans Articles & News | Comments Off

Why Smart Businesses Understand That Veterans Are Outstanding Employees

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Team VCS

Great quotes form VCS friend Steve Robinson

Ryan Scott, Contributor + Comment now

Amidst a sluggish economy that keeps slogging, increasing attention has been called to the abysmal employment rate of returning veterans. How bad is it? The latest figures by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report unemployment numbers for veterans who served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces at any time since September 2001–a group referred to as Gulf War-era II veterans – as 12.1{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d}, a number far above the national average for the civilian population. What’s worse, this number is expected to go up after U.S troops have completely withdrawn from Afghanistan. And let’s not forget that 26{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of recent veterans suffer from a service-connected disability, adding to the daunting obstacle course for reintegration into the civilian work world.

Which all means that if you were brave enough to serve your country, your employment prospects are dimmer than if you had just stayed home.

Fortunately, many leading companies are recognizing this injustice and going to great lengths to make themselves veteran friendly. What corporate social change trailblazers understand is that hiring veterans isn’t just socially conscious – it’s also smart business. Veterans bring tremendous skill sets to the civilian workplace that aren’t always easily identified on resumes but which show up as the sort of coveted qualities that make for the best kinds of employees. That’s why connecting vets with employment goes beyond hiring one vet at a time or sponsoring hiring fairs; it’s about changing business cultures to recognize the value of vets while also helping vets articulate how their military skills are transferable to the civilian world.

Reinventing What it Means to be Veteran Friendly

Prudential is one example of this sort of corporate pioneer of good, with an entire department dedicated exclusively to helping veterans. As Prudential’s Vice President of External Veteran Affairs, Stephen Robinson is charged with developing best practices with regards to veterans employment issues and ensuring that Prudential is a welcoming place for veterans transitioning to the workforce. Robinson’s duties don’t stop at Prudential’s door, however; he’s also responsible for sharing these best practices with other corporate leaders to widen the national support net for veterans.

As Robinson puts it, “I believe 100{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} that in supporting veterans we help ourselves. We get people who are talented, motivated, dedicated, and this helps us improve how we do business and solve problems. The Institute for Veterans and Military Families recently published a white paper on the business case for hiring veterans. It reviewed 30 years of data around veterans, and this all boils down to many of the things that I know vets possess – the intangibles that companies are starting to learn.”

For example, according to Robinson, if you give veterans a mission and help them understand their role in its success, they will go off and accomplish it without much supervision. Veterans are dedicated and have a demonstrated ability to work in arduous environments and take on complex tasks. The data also shows that vets typically work harder, longer, don’t take as many sick days, and they have the demonstrated ability to inculcate themselves into the culture and improve the systems.

“I like to tell people: what could you as a company do with someone who has, over the last 10 years, served in the world’s most arduous environments, operated the most technically advanced equipment, made life and death decisions, in a place where those decisions have geopolitical consequences, and returned and served with honor? Those people could do pretty much anything you asked them to do and anything you will train them to do. When you hire a veteran and bring them into your company and they feel comfortable, safe, welcome and respected, you get productivity, ingenuity, resourcefulness, honesty and determination. Those things are hard to come by without having had some experience. Those are just a few of the many intangible attributes that veterans bring. Veterans display the ethos and morals and resourcefulness that hiring managers want. That turns into productivity.”

Mentoring Vets

Even if your company doesn’t have an entire department committed to helping veterans, the potential for impact is enormous, especially if you involve your employees in skills-based volunteering opportunities. Take, for example, Alcoa Foundation, which launched a partnership with American Corporate Partners last year to fuel its pro bono volunteerism efforts. ACP connects corporate professionals with veterans to help transfer their skills and guide them when seeking new long-term civilian careers, earning a degree or setting up their own business. The response from Alcoa employees to this program was overwhelming; the goal for the first year was 50 people, but within just a few weeks the company reached 150.

One of those enthusiastic volunteers was Andy Mills, a Vice President at Alcoa, who decided to commit to a year long mentorship program and assist a veteran named Leonard Green with his transition from the Armed Services to the civilian workforce. No stranger to the process himself, Andy wanted to use his own experience and reach out to a fellow veteran.

“When I retired from the military five years ago, I was fortunate to have several people help me during my transition. I pledged to pay this forward when I had the chance. When I heard about the mentorship program through my company’s foundation I saw it as an opportunity to use my background and help someone else. Together we have worked through the process of transition from the military, preparing for interviews, job selection, and negotiation for salary and benefits.”

Veterans Face Ruin Awaiting Benefits As Wounded Swamp VA

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Team VCS

VCS has been working hard on capitol hill to bring attention to this issue and gain relief for veterans who are waiting. By William Selway – May 23, 2012 9:56 PM CT

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Rebecca Tews sat at her kitchen table in North Aurora, Illinois, stared into her laptop and tried to find a place for her family to live.

The 43-year-old psychologist spent seven years fighting for disability benefits for her husband, Duane Kozlowski, after he left the U.S. Army, unable to hold a job because of brain damage and post-traumatic stress. She borrowed $20,000 from her father’s and grandfather’s retirement accounts, stopped paying her student loans and ran up tens of thousands of dollars in bills for Duane’s tests and medical care.

Chart: VA Struggles to Process Mounting Claims

Enlarge image Veterans Face Ruin Awaiting Benefits as Wounded Overwhelm U.S.

Rebecca Tews, right, with husband Duane Kozlowski, at their home in North Aurora, Illinois. Photographer: William Selway/Bloomberg

Enlarge image Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki

Eric Shinseki, veterans affairs secretary of the U.S. Army, testifies in Washington. Photographer: Joshua Robert/Bloomberg

While she eventually got the benefits, her credit is in ruins. This month, an eviction notice was taped to the door of her rented 5-bedroom home. She’s worried about finding a landlord willing to rent to her, Duane and five children.

“It’s basically been like a tornado,” she said of her struggle with the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department. “It’s wiped out our future. It’s wiped out our relationship with our extended family. It’s wiped everything out and we’re starting out again below ground.”

Tews and Kozlowski, 44, are among thousands of former soldiers and their families suffering the effects of a Veterans department overwhelmed by a decade of fighting overseas. With the Iraq war finished and troops returning fromAfghanistan, record numbers of former service members are turning to the federal government for disability pay, adding to a backlog of claims and delays that have dogged the agency for years.

Troops Come Home

The number of disability cases filed with the Veterans department jumped 48 percent over the past four years to 1.3 million in 2011. The agency expects demands from wounded veterans to rise as more leave the military, Veterans Secretary Eric Shinseki told Congress in February.

About 905,000 claims are pending at the department, 65 percent of them are taking longer than the agency’s 125-day target for dealing with them, according to tallies released this week. Disputes can draw out that process: A federal court ruling in May 2011 said it takes an average of more than four years for veterans to receive a final decision. Many have died waiting.

The backlog is adding to the pressures of post-military life, said David Autry, a Washington-based spokesman for Disabled American Veterans, an advocacy group that assists former service members with their claims. With the economy struggling to recover from the longest recession since World War II, 29 percent of young male veterans were unemployed in 2011, compared with 18 percent for young men who didn’t serve.

Financial Burden

“It’s a huge financial burden,” Autry said, referring to those who are waiting on the government. “A lot of veterans feel betrayed after being wounded, injured or sickened in the service of the country. The government is just not fulfilling their promises to them.”

About a third of those returning from deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq may suffer from brain injuries, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, known as PTSD, according to a study bySanta Monica, California-based Rand Corp., a nonprofit research organization.

Advances in medicine and military technology also let soldiers survive attacks that once would have been fatal. Wounded veterans from post-Sept. 11 wars report an average of 8.5 disabling conditions per claim, more than twice those of prior wars, according to Secretary Shinseki.

Other factors have also contributed: aging veterans, a decision to expand diseases recognized for Vietnam-era claims related to Agent Orange and a slow-growing economy, according to the Veterans department.

Tackling Problem

Allison Hickey, the veterans department’s undersecretary for benefits, said the agency is trying to speed up processing. It is installing new electronic record-keeping systems; has put new review teams at regional offices; and is moving to respond more quickly to easy-to-review claims while directing more experienced workers to complex cases.

“In 2015, our requirement is no claim over 125 days,” she said. “And we are working to get there.”

U.S. Representative Jeff Miller, a Florida Republican who leads the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said it’s not coming fast enough.

“The VA is failing veterans who wait months, sometimes years, to have their claim processed,” Miller said. “In just the past three years, not only have we seen the backlog grow exponentially, but there has been a lot of talk from VA about the backlog with little progress.”

War Pay Gone

Michael Wade, a former Army reservist who lives in Alexander, Arkansas, said he returned from Iraq in 2005 unable to hold a job and wrestling with anxiety attacks, headaches and nightmares that prevented him from sleeping.

He said he sought disability pay for PTSD and other injuries in early 2007. A year later, he said, the Veterans agency awarded him $123 a month for a neck injury. It wasn’t until 2011 that the government recognized his PTSD, boosting his pay to about $1,250 a month, he said. During the wait, he used up the $8,000 he saved while in Iraq on routine living expenses and ran up $3,000 in family debts.

“Somebody who went through what we did over there, they shouldn’t have to fight for four years to get what they deserve,” said Wade, 40. “I’ve got friends of mine, they’re going through the same thing.”

The claim system that pays benefits to disabled veterans has been the subject of scrutiny since at least 1996, when a special commission advised Congress on ways to fix it.

Veterans Sue

In 2007, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth sued the federal government for failing to provide pay or health care on time. In May 2011, U.S. Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt said the delays deprive former service members of their rights, and that the agency’s “unchecked incompetence has gone on long enough,” in a ruling by an appeals panel. On May 7, a larger group of jurists reversed that decision, saying the courts lack jurisdiction to address it.

Recent reports by the Veterans department’s inspector general have also faulted the agency. Inspections of offices in San Diego, Oakland and Los Angeles found as many as 60 percent of disability claims it reviewed were processed incorrectly. The reports said oversight was also needed to deal with claims pending more than a year. In Oakland, one had been awaiting action for more than 8 years.

Tews in Illinois said she started worrying about Duane in 2003 during phone calls home fromSouth Korea, where he was deployed to maintain helicopters used in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Maintenance Work

Duane had done maintenance work since joining the Army in 1986. Over the next eight years, he says his job exposed him to toxic chemicals for as long as eight hours or more, sometimes leaving him drenched in fuel and cleaning solvents in cramped spaces where he labored without protective gear.

One day in 1996 at Ft. Eustis in Virginia, she said Duane woke up with a headache and abdominal pain, and with no memory of the night before. Three weeks later — after coughing up blood — he underwent surgery to staunch the bleeding. His heart stopped twice on the operating table and he had to be resuscitated, she said. Medical scans later found that he had brain damage consistent with oxygen deprivation during the surgery and with exposure to neurotoxins, according to records she filed with his claim.

Beaten by Comrades

The injuries that forced the surgery were the result of an assault by Duane’s fellow soldiers, Tews said in documents submitted in connection with her husband’s claim for disability benefits. This beating also left Duane with PTSD, she said.

Vicki Bowker, a spokeswoman for Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Fort Eustis, Virginia, said she couldn’t comment because records of such incidents would no longer be kept at the base.

In July 2003, after Duane showed signs of emotional distress and complained of headaches, the Army gave him a hardship discharge and sent him home, Rebecca said. He got and then lost a $46,000-a-year job as a systems analyst with a military contractor after less than a year. Later, a $5.75-an- hour job at a Plainfield, Illinois, pizza shop lasted two weeks.

Duane was unable to balance a checkbook, follow directions or read social cues, his wife says. He was also irritable and angry. “I didn’t get back the man I sent,” she said.

In October 2004, Duane sought disability pay. A year later, the Veterans department determined that he was 30 percent disabled. Currently, such a rating gives a veteran with a wife and a child $469 a month, compared with $3,037 for someone 100 percent disabled.

Toll Taken

Rebecca says appealing the decision and caring for her husband became a full-time job. The family was on and off welfare. Two cars were repossessed. They lost two rent-to-own homes because they couldn’t make rent payments. She lost two teaching jobs because caring for her husband made her schedule unpredictable. He was in and out of doctors’ offices and hospitals.

In August 2006, the Veterans department deemed him 100 percent disabled. It took two more years of appeals to get medical benefits for her family.

In April 2011, Duane was awarded extra pay to former service members in need of extra help in their daily lives. That boosted the family’s income to about $4,000 a month. Rebecca later qualified for another $1,200 a month to care for her husband under a law President Barack Obama signed to give added support to caregivers of veterans of the post-Sept. 11 wars.

Planned Life Gone

Nine years after Duane’s return, their credit is destroyed. Their landlord is losing the house they live in to foreclosure. As they prepared to find a new place to live, the entryway was full of their childrens’ artwork, and a family-made wall hanging that read “Impossible is not a word.”

“The life that we planned is completely gone,” she said.

In Killeen, Texas, former Army sergeant Hector Esparza is hounded by nightmares and flashbacks from his days as a gunner escorting convoys through Baghdad in 2004 and 2005, during the bloodiest days of the Iraq war. He also has headaches, the legacy of a brain injury received when a rocket hit his Humvee.

Esparza lost a job at a juvenile jail and built up $25,000 in credit-card debt that he can’t pay. He has a pregnant wife, a six-year old daughter and a mortgage that is a monthly struggle to pay. He is rated 60 percent disabled, with pay of $1,200 a month from the Veterans department. He gets $1,000 more each month from the U.S. Social Security Administration.

Feeling Lied To

Since 2009, Esparza said, he’s been trying to qualify for full disability payments because he’s unable to work, as much as he wants to. In April he received a letter from the agency. With so many claims piling up, it said, it could take another six months to get to his.

“I was pretty confident that I was going to be taken care of and my family was going to be taken care of,” Esparza said. “I feel lied to and disappointed because I don’t see that happening.”

He says it’s a stretch just to pay for gas to drive to an agency office 30 minutes away for post-traumatic stress treatment. On a recent trip to the grocery store, he had to turn down his daughter when she asked for a bag of Doritos. He didn’t have the money.

“I feel like they’re better off without me, like I’m holding them back,” he said. “And even though my wife says she’s happy, I know that somebody else could take better care of her financially than I could. I don’t want another family going through what I went through.”

Ranks to Grow

The number of disabled veterans like Esparza is expected to continue to grow. With 1 million troops leaving the military over the next five years, demand on the department is expected to grow for the “foreseeable future,” Secretary Shinseki told Congress in February.

In Newport News, Virginia, the center of a region dotted by military bases, the Veterans Support Organization received calls every week from former service members looking for financial help as they wait for benefit checks to come through, said David Knapp, who was director of the group there until he left last month to take over in Pennsylvania.

“I can’t give them the kind of money that they need,” he said. “The only agency that can give these soldiers the support they need is the VA.”

In Shingle Springs, California, 40 miles east of Sacramento, Sheryl Gielenz, a 26-year old mother of two, this year sold her family’s possessions — a dining room table, a children’s dresser, a snowmobile — to pay bills.

Selling the House

Her husband, Forrest Gielenz, was discharged from the Army in 2008 after serving in Iraq and struggles with post-traumatic stress. One evening in September, he became convinced that Iraqi insurgents were surrounding the house and threatened police officers who came to investigate. He was arrested and placed in treatment for post-traumatic stress in connection with his case.

Sheryl said Forrest appealed for an increase in his $1,600 a month disability benefit.

“We’re not expecting to get anything soon,” she said as she waited. In the meantime, USA Cares, a private charity for military families, helps to pay her mortgage.

Earlier this month, Sheryl agreed to sell her home and is planning to move in with her mother in Pennsylvania. She said her husband will follow when he’s released from treatment.

In Illinois, Rebecca Tews is sorting through papers and packing up toys her children would rather play with.

“The thing that keeps me going is I know we’re not the only ones,” she said. “It’s appalling what’s out there. But we’re survivor families and we’re going to make it work.”

Posted in VA Claims Updates, VCS In The News, Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged Afghanistan, backlog, PTSD, TBI, VA Claims Crisis | Comments Off

Businesses Backing Vets: How Companies Are Putting Veterans to Work

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Team VCS

From the Huffington Post

By Ryan Scott

Founder and CEO, Causecast

Part of a Memorial Day series by Causecast that examines how Corporate America is finding new ways to help veterans.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that “the unemployment rate for veterans who served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces at any time since September 2001 — a group referred to as Gulf War-era II veterans — was 12.1 percent in 2011.” Which means that if you were brave enough to serve your country, you have a much higher chance of being unemployed than if you had stayed home. Add to this the fact that 26{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of Gulf-War-era II vets have a service-connected disability, and you’ve got a daunting obstacle course for vets who need to reintegrate into the civilian work world.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Plenty. And that’s why many leading companies are finding new ways of making themselves veteran friendly. What corporate social change trailblazers understand is that connecting vets with employment goes beyond hiring one vet at a time or sponsoring hiring fairs; it’s about changing business cultures to recognize the value of vets while also helping vets articulate how their military skills are transferable to the civilian world.

Prudential is one example of this sort of corporate pioneer of good, with an entire department dedicated exclusively to helping veterans. I recently spoke with Prudential’s Vice President of External Affairs, Stephen Robinson, to learn more about how the company is reinventing the ways in which companies can support those who have served.

One of Robinson’s key jobs is to help Prudential develop best practices with regards to veterans employment issues and ensure that the company is a welcoming place for veterans transitioning to the workforce. Robinson’s duties don’t stop at Prudential’s door, however; he’s also charged with sharing these best practices with other corporate leaders to widen the national support net for veterans.

What experiences prepared you for your role with Prudential?

Everything in my life has led me to where I am today. I am the son of a three-tour veteran of Vietnam, who also served in Korea, and WWII. My father fraudulently enlisted at age 15, served close to 40 years and came home from these wars changed. I witnessed that journey, then I went off to serve. I served 20 years in military and saw the best and worst that humanity has to offer. During my time in the military I suffered many injuries related to the job, including blast injuries to my face and hands. I’ve seen the veteran issue from many sides. I have been a wounded warrior and patient, an advocate for veterans having testified before congress and helped with the development of legislation benefiting veterans, heightened the public exposure of veterans issues as a media spokesperson, as well as held leadership roles with nonprofits. And now at Prudential I’m given the extraordinary opportunity to leverage Prudential’s philanthropic resources to support organizations that fill gaps in care and help returning veterans fully reintegrate back into society.

What does it mean for a company to be culturally competent when it comes to veterans?

Cultural competency means understanding who you’re working with, how to speak with them, knowing their language, what they accept and don’t accept, and how you approach someone that has a different set of experiences than yourself. Many veterans have an experience unlike their non-veteran counterparts: war. There’s a shared bonding experience unique to veterans that only comes from witnessing the highs and lows, the best and the worst that humanity offers when serving in war. We tend to have a language of our own as well as common expectations and mannerisms. If you’re going to work with veterans, it’s important to understand who they are and the nature of their experiences. Likewise, the veteran needs to understand the culture of the place in which they work; they must shed some of their mannerisms and learn new ways of working with those in the civilian world. The veteran must understand the employer and the employer must understand the veteran if they are to work together successfully.

Veteran cultural competency needs to extend throughout an organization — from recruiters to managers to employee assistance professionals– even all the way up to the CEO. Leadership support is extremely important for the company to understand the value proposition of recruiting and hiring veterans.

Cultural competency doesn’t just apply to veterans — it can also be applied to any group that has similar experiences, cultural norms and beliefs. For many veterans that have served since 9/11, chances are they served in a war zone or directly in combat. And that means they have a unique experience that deserves to honored and understood. At Prudential, we have provided training and tools to managers and employees to help them better understand the veteran, their unique experiences and how to support them in a way that will help assure their success in the workplace. The training is also designed so that the managers focus on the individual’s performance as they would with any other employee, not on a veteran-specific issue or behavior, that in turn helps ensure consistency.

What is your vision of how your company can help veterans?

Prudential has been and continues to strive to have a lasting impact on the lives of veterans and their families. In order to have influence in the space and to affect the employment and education of returning veterans, we have to be creative. Prudential has roughly 20,000 domestic employees and on our own we know we can’t hire enough veterans to make a dent in the unemployment rate. We need to think of creative ways to influence others in corporate America to participate as well.

One aspect of our work is to support select nonprofit groups that can help make a difference by providing the necessary social services to help veterans find meaningful employment. After 10 years of war, it’s important that philanthropic efforts focus on programmatic support for vets to find jobs and secure the kind of education that provides stability and resources they need to live in the post 9-11 world. I want to leverage everything I can within Prudential to share our thought leadership, use our advertising, global market research, philanthropy, and communications to create programs and policies that help returning veterans fully participate in society.

Besides hiring vets, we are working in other ways to make an impact on their lives. That’s why we’re supporters of the Joining Forces Initiative, members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Veteran Advisory council, and we serve on several working groups that are producing informational papers and policy briefs surrounding veteran wellness, veteran philanthropy, best practices insides companies, employment and education. My vision is that Prudential creates a movement in America that recognizes the value of veterans and why you should hire them.

What can companies do to help with the issue of unemployment for veterans?

The biggest thing is to change the perception of veterans from people in need to people you need. We’re doing that in many different ways. We are involved at very high levels with the White House, Congress, the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to make sure that America knows that returning veterans can bring value to your company. We recognize this as a company and are sharing our thoughts with others by introducing them to people who live and breathe it every day.

How do you see your goals around supporting veterans also helping Prudential as a company?

I believe 100{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} that in supporting veterans we help ourselves. We get people who are talented, motivated, dedicated, and this helps us improve how we do business and solve problems. The Institute for Veterans and Military Families recently published a white paper on the business case for hiring veterans. It reviewed 30 years of data around veterans, and this all boils down to many of the things that I know vets possess — the intangibles that companies are starting to learn.

Veterans typically are the kind of people who — if you give them a mission and help them understand their role in its success — will go off and accomplish it without much supervision. Veterans are dedicated and have a demonstrated ability to work in arduous environments and take on complex tasks. The data also shows that vets typically work harder, longer, don’t take as many sick days, and they have the demonstrated ability to inculcate themselves into the culture and improve the systems.

I like to tell people: what could you as a company do with someone who has, over the last 10 years, served in the world’s most arduous environments, operated the most technically advanced equipment, made life and death decisions, in a place where those decisions have geopolitical consequences, and returned and served with honor? Those people could do pretty much anything you asked them to do and anything you will train them to do. When you hire a veteran and bring them into your company and they feel comfortable, safe, welcome and respected, you get productivity, ingenuity, resourcefulness, honesty and determination. Those things are hard to come by without having had some experience. Those are just a few of the many intangible attributes that veterans bring. Veterans display the ethos and morals and resourcefulness that hiring managers want. That turns into productivity.

I am the classic example of why giving veterans a chance is good for business. I served 20 years in the military. I wasn’t exactly an honors student in high school and barely graduated. I became a senior non-commissioned officer and ended up being selected to work in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. My military experience has taught me to be adaptable, to know my job inside and out, to be able to work in a fast paced environment, make decisions under fire, be accountable and professional. All of that has translated into the work I do at Prudential.

I am also an example of how if you give veterans a chance and apply resources to the effort of veterans outreach, they will be successful. Education is important, but it isn’t the only thing you need to be successful. Demonstrated experience also means a lot and can serve as a predictive factor about whether or not you have what it takes to be a leader.

How are you working with the community and other companies to help veterans find jobs?

I came from the nonprofit world as an executive director, government relations director, program manager and ultimately liaison to over 52 nonprofits. I understand the nonprofit space, and how valuable it is to fill the gaps that the government has difficulty filling when confronting the situation we have today, which is ten years of war and restrictive budgets. I am an advocate for veterans and for nonprofits helping veterans, a supporter of groups that are helping with meaningful programs and reintegration to help veterans reap the benefits of hard work and give them opportunity.

It seems like you have such a unique mandate at Prudential. Is a role like yours common at other companies?

I have been at Prudential a little more than 1-1/2 years, and in that time I have come across few companies and individuals who have positions and resources similar to what we have at Prudential. What’s different about Prudential is that my counterpart and I work on nothing but veterans issues. In that sense I have only met about five companies that have positions like mine that are solely focused on veterans. It’s a model we have shared with others and encouraged them to look at if they think it works for them. Many companies are starting to adopt this approach.

Do you think that more companies will follow Prudential’s model in terms of in-house leadership around helping veterans?

Definitely, and we’ve been exposed to many companies that are doing things we had not considered. I often get contacted by companies who want to evaluate our model. We share it freely and enjoy the camaraderie of our Fortune 500 partners all working together to bring solutions — program policies and resources — to helping returning veterans so they enjoy coming home and are returning to society with our full support. We owe it to them. We’re not in it for a pat on the back. We’re in it because we believe hiring veterans makes good business sense. It helps us grow as a company and provides a tangible return on investment.

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Better Business Bureau warns of scams targeting troops, veterans

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Team VCS

By DAVE DEWITTE The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa Published: May 22, 2012

The Better Business Bureau this week released a list of active scams targeting military veterans and their supporters.

Scams include those that target service personnel and their families, but also scams that appear to be charities helping military members.

“The unique lifestyle of our service members make them prime targets for scammers,” Better Business Bureau Military Line Director Brenda Linnington said in prepared remarks.

Recent and active military scams include:

Posing as the Department of Veterans Affairs for identity theft purposes by telling veterans they need to update their credit card, bank or financial records with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Charging service members for military records or other documents they could get for free or considerably lower cost.
Offering “instant approval” military loans with terms like “no credit check” and “all ranks approved” that can have high interest rates and hidden fees.
Selling products such as security systems to spouses of deployed military personnel by saying the service member ordered it to protect his or her family.
Selling stolen vehicles at low prices by claiming to be soldiers to need to sell fast because they’ve been deployed.
Convincing veterans to transfer their assets into fraudulent irrevocable investment trust schemes.
Posing as a lonely service member in a remote part of Iraq or Afghanistan on online dating services, then asking for money to be wired to a third party for a fictitious “emergency.”

The Better Business Bureau advised consumers to be wary of such tactics and any other solicitations that require them to transfer money or purchase something. They can check to see if the charity or firm is reputable free by using the Better Business Bureau website.

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Angry vets demand end to backlog of disability claims

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Team VCS

More than 200 veterans attend a forum organized by lawmakers seeking to expedite stalled or bungled disability claims. One attendee filed his claim in 1947.

Veteran Douglas Briggs throws up his arms in frustration as he makes his feelings known about the failure of the VA to process claims for disabilities. At right is Willie Clark, the VA’s western regional director. (Don Bartletti, Los Angeles Times / May 21, 2012)

By Maria L. La Ganga, Los Angeles Times

May 22, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO — Horatius A. Carney spent seven weeks in a military hospital after injuring his knee while in the segregated Army Air Forces. He first filed a disability claim in 1947. He is still waiting for a response.

Lisa Scott, an Army communications specialist who served inSaudi Arabia during Desert Storm and Desert Shield, waited seven years for the Veterans Benefits Administration to approve her disability claim for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

Ari Sonnenberg served three tours in Iraq and came home with a traumatic brain injury, PTSD and internal injuries. “Haunting memories of the horrors of war” drove him to attempt suicide, he said, and he called the office of Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough) for help navigating the veterans benefits system.

On Monday, Sonnenberg left the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs hospital so that he could testify during a heart-wrenching forum attended by more than 200 veterans seeking to expedite stalled and bungled disability claims. For more than three hours they vented about a system that they said actually makes their lives worse.

The main target of the frustrated, often tearful, men and women was the Oakland office of the Department of Veterans Affairs — which serves an area from Kern County north to the Oregon border; it has the second-largest case backlog of any regional office in the country, behind Seattle.

“I’d like to use this opportunity to express to the VA benefits section how the unnecessary delay and loss of documents and mishandling of information caused added stress and anxiety to my already difficult life,” Sonnenberg, pale and shaking, told the packed hearing room. If not for Speier, “I would still be floating around the system.”

On average, veterans whose disability claims are processed in Oakland wait 320 days to find out whether they will receive assistance, compared with 241 days at the nation’s 56 other VA offices, according to Speier’s office. As of Monday, there were 829,866 cases pending across the country — 66.5{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} had been active for more than 125 days.

Nearly 40{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of all disability claims reviewed during an audit of the Oakland office released this month were incorrectly processed; nearly 60{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of the traumatic brain injury cases reviewed were bungled. Around 34,000 cases in the office’s files remain unresolved.

The backlog is so severe that new claims from Northern and Central California veterans are being sent to VA offices in Nebraska and Oklahoma, according to Speier, who convened Monday’s forum along with Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland).

“There is an untenable backlog at the VA Oakland office, and we are here today to address it,” Speier told the crowd, which spilled out of the hearing room in San Francisco’s ornate Veterans War Memorial Building.

“Everyone agrees that we must improve the delivery of services out of the Oakland VA,” she said. “We know the history, the audit results, the data, all of which are damning.”

The assembled veterans from World War II, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq — some clutching canes and wearing hearing aids (the oldest was 93) — cheered Speier’s declaration that the Oakland office would be fixed. In the meantime, a cadre of VA claims workers had set up shop in the next room to assist more than 180 veterans who pre-registered for fix-it sessions.

But the crowd was far less welcoming to VA Western Regional Director Willie Clark, who alternately apologized for and defended his beleaguered agency during hours of painful testimony about injuries and depression, lost paperwork, denied claims and medical exams ordered by the VA, only to be rendered useless by agency foot-dragging.

When the VA audited the Oakland office in January, the agency’s goal was 92{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} accuracy in processing claims. But Oakland was only 80{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} accurate when it came to making “compensation rating-related decisions,” according to the report. Thousands of dollars in disability payments hinge on the ratings, or the VA’s assessment of just how disabled a veteran is.

The error rates, Clark said, were “not indicative of the total work the office is doing….Oakland’s accuracy rate is 86{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d}.”

When Clark stated his agency’s goal for 2015 — “no claim pending over 125 days with a 98{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} accuracy rate” — the restive crowd shouted him down.

“Three years from now?” came an incredulous cry from the audience.

Carney is now 84. As a World War II-era corporal, he served as a surveyor and heavy-equipment operator, injuring his knee on the Aleutian island of Attu. He filed a disability claim on Sept. 17, 1947, around the time he was discharged.

“I’ve since been told that they could find no record of my injury or hospitalization,” said the retired Oakland bus and truck driver, who did not pursue the claim at the time. “We figured segregation was still going on, and they weren’t going to do anything about it. So, I figured, the heck with it.”

The injury, he said, ended a promising athletic career. After leaving the military, Carney went back to college, hoping to become a minister or a teacher. But because of his injury, he couldn’t stand for any length of time.

Nearly a year ago, he decided to file his claim again. Since then, he’s received three letters from the VA, but no decision — and no help. On Monday, he was cordial but impatient.

Posted in Gulf War Updates, VA Claims Updates, Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged Afghanistan, backlog, Gulf War, PTSD, TBI, VA Claims Crisis, Veterans Articles & News | Comments Off

We Pretend the Vets Don’t Exist’

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Team VCS

VCS in the news From the Daily Beast and Newsweek May 21, 2012 1:00 AM EDT

Author and former marine Anthony Swofford gets to the bottom of an epidemic.

I was sitting next to Melissa, a call responder at the VA Crisis Hotline in Canandaigua, N.Y., when she looked at me and whispered, ‘He just said he thinks he should walk out into traffic on Interstate 5 and end it all, that life is not worth living.’

On the other end of the line was a young man who’d been out of the Marines for four months. He was unemployed and broke and hadn’t eaten all day. He’d driven his father’s truck from the middle of the country to Southern California to be near Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton and his buddies. But most of them were either overseas again or separated from the Marine Corps. He’d taken to drinking and occasionally smoking pot. After four years of military service and two combat tours in Iraq, he couldn’t find a steady job. Now he sat at a rest area near Camp Pendleton, contemplating suicide.

Melissa had about her the endearing charm of a kindergarten teacher coupled with the steely nerves of a nose tackle and the all-American looks of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty queen.

She smiled and nodded at her computer screen as she spoke to the young Marine. Her voice radiated goodness. Her screen indicated that he’d called twice earlier in the afternoon and had had brief conversations with two other responders.

“You’ll learn from reaching out and making this call. It’s a brave call.”

She IM’d a colleague on the crisis-hotline floor, a health technician, and told her that she thought this kid was in need of a rescue.

The tech had no idea where Interstate 5 and Camp Pendleton were. I told her Southern California, North County San Diego. I’d flown to Rochester from San Diego that morning.

“You have a long time to figure this out. You can’t figure it out in four months,” Melissa said to the young man.

apg20080701_031 Cheryl Softich sits by her son’s casket and body at his funeral in Eveleth, Minnesota in late July, 2007 (Courtesy of Cheryl Softich via Ashley Gilbertson / VII)

The technician got to work initiating the rescue with a 911 center in California. I thought about calling my wife in San Diego and telling her to go find the kid.

The Crisis

About 18 veterans kill themselves each day. Thousands from the current wars have already done so. In fact, the number of U.S. soldiers who have died by their own hand is now estimated to be greater than the number (6,460) who have died in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Eleven years of war in two operating theaters have taken a severe toll on America’s military. An estimated 2.3 million Americans have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, and 800,000 of those service members have been deployed multiple times.

Pull up your local newspaper online and search “veteran suicide,” and you’re likely to come up with at least one link to a story. Based on data from the National Violent Death Reporting System, Mark Kaplan of Portland State University asserts that male veterans have a twofold increase in death by suicide over their civilian counterparts and that female veterans are three times as likely to kill themselves as their civilian counterparts. Veterans are 60 percent more likely to use a firearm in an attempted suicide than civilians, and firearms are the most effective way of taking one’s own life.

So why are these young veterans killing themselves at such high rates?

In 1992 I was in danger of becoming such a statistic, just released from the Marines after four years of service and combat action in Kuwait during the Gulf War. I know the suicidal temptation that can accompany the isolation and loneliness veterans experience after the high of combat and the brotherhood of arms fade in the rearview mirror. I skulked around college campuses with a watch cap pulled tight to my ears, looking for a threat, knowing that when it appeared, I could extinguish it. I took a swing-shift warehouse job that required very little human interaction. I became a writer, which also required very little human interaction. It took nearly two decades to find my way free of the morass.

While there is no one reason for any person’s suicide, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the military shy away from placing blame directly on the psychological and social costs of killing during combat.

No one within the VA will use the word “epidemic” when talking about suicide, but it can’t be denied that the rate of suicide among current-war veterans is drawing attention and concern. Before these current wars, the rigorous training and intense discipline of military service were considered a defense against suicide.

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Appeals court blocks overhaul of VA mental health system

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Team VCS

VCS Lawsuit in the news,Executive Director Quoted

From American Medical News

GOVERNMENT

Judges say they have no authority to decide whether the agency provides adequate medical care, despite an earlier panel’s finding of “unchecked incompetence.”

By ALICIA GALLEGOS, amednews staff. Posted May 21, 2012.

Veterans groups are working on an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after a federal appeals court halted a revamping of the Dept. of Veterans Affairs’ mental health system. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said May 7 that it does not have jurisdiction to determine whether the VA’s practices are constitutional.

The decision reverses an opinion by a smaller panel of the same court ordering the government to implement significant reforms of its mental health services. The panel had said the VA exhibited “unchecked incompetence” in its approach to providing the services.

Patrick Bellon, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, a plaintiff in the case, said his group was disappointed by the latest ruling but not surprised. The organization plans to file a prompt appeal.

“The expectation was that this was going to the Supreme Court,” he said. “Even if they ruled in our favor, [one] side would appeal. The real impact is that more veterans are going to suffer and languish in the system” while the case is still pending.

At this article’s deadline, messages and emails to the VA had not been returned.

Two veteran advocacy groups, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth, first sued the VA over this issue in 2007. The plaintiffs said the VA’s inadequate medical services violated veterans’ due process rights.

The groups blamed increasing suicides among veterans on a lack of timely medical care by the department and asked that the court order reforms of the VA system. According to court documents, veterans wait an average of more than four years to fully adjudicate a claim for mental health benefits. Attorneys for the VA said the courts did not have jurisdiction to rule over these claims.

Veterans can wait 4 years to fully adjudicate a claim for mental health benefits.

A California district court agreed with the government, finding that veterans’ rights were not constitutionally violated and that the court lacked authority to review the plaintiffs’ other claims. In 2011, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ruling.

The panel held that “the VA’s failure to provide adequate procedures for veterans facing prejudicial delays in the delivery of mental health care” violated their Fifth Amendment rights to due process. The mental health system needed immediate reform, the court said, but the VA requested that the entire court review the decision. In the full court’s opinion, judges said they sympathized with the veterans but that their hands were tied.

“As much as we as citizens are concerned with the plight of veterans seeking the prompt provision of the health care and benefits to which they are entitled by law, as judges we may not exceed our jurisdiction,” the court said. “Jurisdiction is power to declare the law, and when it ceases to exist, the only function remaining to the court is that of announcing the fact and dismissing the cause [of action]. We conclude that the majority of [the plaintiffs’] claims must be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.”

VA reports improvements

Despite the latest ruling, Bellon believes the 5-year-old lawsuit has shed some light on the problem of mentally ill veterans and led to improvements within the VA’s health care system.

“Since we began the lawsuit, it seems like the VA has been more proactive in suicide prevention and that there’s some positive steps being made,” he said.

Two veteran groups blame increasing suicides among veterans on a lack of timely medical care by the VA.

In 2007, the VA launched the “Veterans Crisis Line,” a suicide hotline that has answered more than 500,000 calls and made more than 18,000 lifesaving rescues, according to the department’s website. In 2009, the department added an anonymous online chat that officials said has helped more than 28,000 people.

Studies on veteran suicide rates have come to varying conclusions. A 2011 report by the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs concluded that 18 veterans commit suicide each day and that a third of them were receiving care from the VA at the time of their death. Each month, 950 veterans who attempt suicide are treated by the VA, according to the report.

Dept. of Defense data indicates service members took their lives at an approximate rate of one every 36 hours from 2005 to 2010. Another study, released in 2008 by the RAND Corp., said one in five service members who were deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq report symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder or major depression.

VA officials say they’ve made dramatic strides in caring for veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder as well. In the last five years, the department has increased its screenings for PTSD and moved mental health treatment into the primary care setting so that all veterans coming in for care are evaluated, said Matthew J. Friedman, MD, PhD, executive director of the National Center for PTSD, a division of the VA. Health care staff also have developed social media tools to help spread information about PTSD to veterans and make it easier for them to find needed services in their area, he said.

“This is a very serious problem, and as with everything, we’re constantly trying to do better,” he said. “We’ve done a lot in terms of outreach, social media, lecture series. There’s a lot going on. Obviously, there’s a lot more to do.”

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged Afghanistan, mental health, Menu of Pages, PTSD | Comments Off

MENTAL ILLNESS IS THE LEADING CAUSE OF HOSPITALIZATION FOR ACTIVE-DUTY TROOPS

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Team VCS

From NextGov Health

JAE C. HONG/AP

The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments have spent almost $2 billion since 2001 to buy drugs to treat mental illness and post-traumatic stress disorder despite growing evidence some of those drugs exacerbate PTSD symptoms, a Nextgov investigation shows. In addition, military research released this week highlighted that Defense faces what one Army clinician called an epidemic of mental illness.

Despite this vast expenditure on psychotropic drugs since the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, mental illness ranks as the leading cause of hospitalization for active-duty troops, according to a report published by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center in the April issue of its Medical Surveillance Monthly Report, released May 14. Mental health disorders stood out as the leading cause of hospitalization of active-duty service members in 2007, 2009 and 2011, the report noted.

AFHSC also reported that troops seeking help for mental health problems ranked third in outpatient visits in all treatment categories, behind unspecified “other” conditions — which included routine physicals, immunizations and predeployment assessments — and musculoskeletal injuries during the same time period.

According to the report, the military hospitalized 21,735 active-duty personnel for mental disorders in 2011, a more than 30 percent increase from 2009, when 15,339 troops needed hospital treatment for mental health problems. Hospitalizations in 2009 jumped 8 percent from the 14,112 troops hospitalized for mental health reasons in 2007.

“The crude hospitalization rate for mental disorders in the Army was approximately 70 percent higher than in the Marine Corps and more than twice as high than in the other services” in 2011, AFHSC said, noting that 13,003 soldiers were admitted to hospitals for mental health treatment that year.

The surveillance center identified 1,890,111 outpatient visits for mental disorders in 2011, or more visits than the number of troop on active duty that year — 1,425,113 — indicating multiple visits by individual troops. Outpatient treatment for mental health care in 2011 marked a 21 percent increase over 1,506,671 visits in 2009 and a 37 percent increase over the 946,187 mental disorder outpatient visits in 2007.

An active-duty Army doctor who declined to be identified for publication said the outpatient statistics that AFHSC compiled may be somewhat misleading because many relatively mild mental health conditions increasingly are subject to screening and identification.

But, the “stunning growth in numbers and rates of mental health hospitalizations . . . is undeniable evidence of an unprecedented and arguably unmanageable epidemic that is now threatening the viability of the force,” he wrote in an email.

Treatment Challenges

Top military leaders recently have acknowledged that some of the prescription drugs used to treat mental illness, including second-generation antipsychotic drugs, also known as atypical antipsychotics such as Seroquel and Risperidone, may be exacerbating the problem.

Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of Defense for health affairs, in a Feb. 22 memo on drug use, said, “articles in popular media and the concern of several national and military leaders in recent months have raised the question of whether certain psychoactive medications are inappropriately prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Broken Warriors is an ongoing series on mental health issues in the military.

In the memo, first reported by Army Times May 3, he noted that 1.4 percent of soldiers and 0.7 percent of Marines on active duty in 2010 — about 11,000 troops — received prescriptions for Seroquel. Woodson told military clinicians to use caution when prescribing atypical antipsychotics as sleep aids or to manage irritability and anger. He said military health care providers should prescribe the lowest drug dose possible and recommend “non-medication therapy options” to treat PTSD.

In April, the Army Medical Command warned that the use of benzodiazepine tranquilizers such as Xanax and Valium to treat PTSD could intensify combat stress symptoms and lead to addiction.

Seven months earlier, in September 2011, the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury emphatically warned against their use. In its Co-Occurring Conditions Toolkit, the center said in boldface, “There is evidence against the use of benzodiazepines in PTSD management as it may cause HARM. Strongly recommend against the use of benzodiazepines for treatment of PTSD.”

The Defense center also recommended against the use of Seroquel and another atypical antipsychotic to treat PTSD saying, in boldface, “evidence does NOT support the use of atypical antipsychotics as a monotherapy for PTSD.”

Data provided to Nextgov by the Defense Logistics Agency shows the Defense Department spent $44.1 million on benzodiazepines from October 2001 to March 2012. The Veterans Affairs Department said it spent $72.1 million on benzodiazepines during the same period.

VA told Nextgov in April that it spent $846 million on Seroquel since 2001 and $717 million on Risperidone, another atypical antipsychotic, during the same period.

Defense has spent $14.1 million on Seroquel and $74 million on Risperidone since 2001.

A paper published by VA researchers in August 2011 said Risperidone was no more effective than a placebo in treating PTSD. The Army acknowledged VA’s research in its April 10 policy memo, but the February 2012 Woodson memo made no mention of Risperidone.

The Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, which provides health care for Navy and Marine Corps personnel, told Nextgov in an email that the bureau “concurs with the Army’s policy that benzodiazepines are relatively contraindicated and should be avoided in the treatment of PTSD.”

But Shoshona Pilip-Florea, a bureau spokeswoman, said, “there are many scenarios where the judicious prescription of benzodiazepines may be appropriate, [including] when the clinician’s assessment and clinical judgment warrant treatment with this class of medications.” She added, “Navy Medicine has not explicitly warned clinicians not to use benzodiazepines to treat patients with PTSD because some of these patients may benefit from treatment with a benzodiazepine based on the clinician’s assessment and clinical judgment.”

Jonathan Stock, a spokesman for the Air Force Surgeon General, said the Air Force has not prohibited providers from using benzodiazepines in cases of PTSD. “It is important to note that every medication has associated cautions and contraindications. Prescribing providers are required to understand the contraindications and precautions of the medications they prescribe,” he said.

VA and DLA did not provide details on how many individual doses of benzodiazepines they have purchased since 2001, but they receive substantial bulk discounts. The active-duty Army doctor said this could be as low as $1 dollar per pill, or a total of 116 million doses since 2001, which work out to more than 100 benzodiazepine pills per person on active duty today.

Besides a mental health epidemic, the Army clinician said the Pentagon also faces the epidemic consequences of widespread psychotropic drug use, which military researchers warned about in a 2008 report. It showed that one of 14 members of a 701-man Army infantry battalion had been prescribed anti-anxiety drugs before deployment.

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged Afghanistan, mental health, PTSD, TBI, Veterans Articles & News | 1 Comment

Oakland Veterans Affairs’ Office Mishandled Claims, Inspector General Finds

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Team VCS

By Aaron Glantz

Staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Oakland office regularly made incorrect decisions when evaluating disability claims and failed to inform veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan that they are entitled to free mental health care, according to a report released today [PDF] by the agency’s inspector general.

The report also found that the office, which handles all disability claims for veterans who live from Bakersfield to the Oregon border, had failed to close claims that, at the time of an inspection last December, had languished for up to eight and a half years.

“Processing delays occurred because of unclear guidance,” the inspector general wrote. “As a result, veterans did not receive timely benefit payments.”

The inspector general also found several instances of veterans’ mail being misplaced, which the report said further contributed to delays and mistakes in deciding disability claims.

The report comes at a time of increasing scrutiny for the VA, which has seen the backlog of disability claims increase to 864,000 nationally under the Obama administration.

Over 45 percent of the more than 1.5 million veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have returned home and filed a disability claim. The most common claims granted have been for tinnitus, back pain and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The problem is particularly acute in Northern California, where returning soldiers must wait an average of 320 days for a decision, according to figures provided by the VA to Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton. Nearly 35,000 Northern California veterans are currently waiting for the department to issue a ruling on a disability claim; 82.5 percent have been waiting for at least 125 days.

The inspector general performed a limited review of 90 cases as part of its report and found the Oakland office failed to process 39 percent of them correctly. For cases related to traumatic brain injury, a signature wound of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the inspector general found 57 percent of claims were mishandled.

The errors in processing claims often led to delays and payments that were either too large or too small, the inspector general found.

“Each individual veteran has to go up against this error-ridden institution,” said Amy Fairweather, policy director at Swords to Plowshares, a San Francisco veteran services nonprofit. “The bottom line is poverty, untreated mental illness and obviously we see suicides.”

The numbers cited by the inspector general paint a starker picture than VA officials have previously acknowledged. In testimony before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs on April 18, Tom Murphy, head of the VA’s Compensation Service, said claims adjusters at the VA Oakland office made mistakes on 26 percent of claims.

The “audit throws into question (the) VA’s ability to honestly and accurately tell Congress how bad the situation in Oakland has deteriorated,” said Paul Sullivan, who serves as managing director of public affairs and veterans outreach for the Washington law firm Bergmann & Moore. Sullivan also testified at the hearing.

A VA spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request to comment for this story. In his written response to the report, the director of the Oakland office, Douglas Bragg, concurred with the inspector general’s findings.

In an e-mailed response to questions, Rep. Wally Herger, R-Marysville, said it was “appalling” that the inspector general found that the Oakland office failed to follow a department policy prescribing a monthly review of all claims older than one year.

Herger, who met in March with VA Under Secretary for Benefits Allison Hickey to discuss the claims backlog, said he would “continue to closely monitor the situation to ensure our veterans receive timely service.”

Bragg and Willie Clark, the agency’s western regional director, have agreed to answer questions on the backlog from the California congressional delegation at a public event at San Francisco’s War Memorial Building on May 21.

Veterans with pending claims have also been invited to attend the meeting and speak about their experience with delays. According to Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, VA staff will be available to help resolve claims in a separate meeting room.

In a statement responding to the inspector general’s report, Rep. McNerney, who sits on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, called the delays at the Oakland office “inexcusable.”

“The delays and inaccuracies we have seen are disturbing,” he said. “The veterans who are being subjected to these problems cannot wait for another report from the IG to shed light on the issue. The VA needs to take steps now to right these wrongs.”

In a separate report [PDF] also released today, the inspector general found the VA’s San Diego regional office made errors in 53 percent of the 79 claims sampled as part of its inspection. According to the VA, the San Diego office has a backlog of more than 30,000 claims, with 62.5 percent of veterans waiting more than four months for a decision:

“With today’s release of VA’s Inspector General’s audits for San Diego and Oakland, a reasonable person can conclude nearly all of the Veterans Benefits Administration remains deeply mired in crisis, with little chance of recovery unless President Obama and Congress act immediately.”

Aaron Glantz is an investigative reporter for California Watch, a project of the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting. Find more California Watch storieshere.

Posted in VA Claims Updates, Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged Afghanistan, backlog, mental health, TBI, VA Claims Crisis, Veterans Articles & News | Comments Off