Veterans for Common Sense

VCS in the News: Long VA Delays Signal VA Needs More Funding, Staff

October 2, 2011 (St. Petersburg Times) – The James A. Haley VA Medical Center closed out its tumultuous fiscal year Friday with a balanced budget after getting a $28.7 million cash infusion from a Department of Veterans Affairs reserve fund.

Haley’s projected deficit was as high at $47.5 million in March, and the hospital’s budget records as late as July outlined “emergency measures” to reduce costs and avert a year-end shortfall.

VA spokeswoman Mary Kay Hollingsworth has steadfastly maintained that patient care was never curtailed at Haley as the facility, one of the nation’s largest veterans hospitals, reduced costs during 2011.

“As stewards of resources, we will continue to improve efficiencies and reduce costs — especially in areas of acquisitions, fee care, indirect and administrative services while improving the delivery of high quality and timely health care . . . to the Veterans we serve,” Hollingsworth said in a statement on Friday.

Haley officials have refused requests by the St. Petersburg Times to interview budget officials, hospital leadership or even public affairs staffers for this and other budget stories.

Reports about Haley’s budget difficulties have caught the attention of Congress. Last month, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee sent a letter to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki referring to Haley’s budget woes.

Referring to 111 unfilled positions and cuts to a number of Haley departments, the Sept. 15 letter by chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash., and ranking member Richard Burr, R-N.C., said, “Each of these actions, while fiscally sound, could have an adverse impact on patient care quality.”

The senators asked the VA if it could ensure meeting budget needs at facilities nationally without drawing upon reserve funds, noting 2011 billing collections by the agency had been far below projections.

Shinseki’s office has not yet responded to the letter.

Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, said “unconscionable delays” nationally in veterans obtaining VA health care and benefits points to an overall need for more money.

“The long delays veterans suffer before they can see a doctor or receive disability payments, combined with the tragic suicide crisis, are strong evidence VA needs more funding from Congress plus greater support from the American public,” Sullivan said.

Hollingsworth said Haley funding will increase 6 percent in fiscal 2012 to $552 million and Haley officials do not expect any operating deficit in 2012 after three years of deficits necessitating a year-end bailout.

One previous challenge for Haley, officials have said, is that Haley treated many Orlando-area veterans. But now the VA will open an Orlando hospital in 2012, which will decrease budget stress on Haley, they say.

In fiscal 2011, Haley officials worked frantically to reduce costs after regional VA officials initially told them their year-end bailout would be capped at $14.8 million. The VA later discarded the cap.

A July budget memo, obtained by the Times, showed that budget cuts included $1.5 million from lab services, $130,000 from mental health programs and $92,000 in education funds. Overtime and travel were reduced and maintenance deferred, documents show.

Cuts included a suspension of patient referrals to outside medical providers except in emergencies. Such “fee basis” referrals are done when Haley is too busy or if it does not offer a particular service.

More than 12,800 veterans were authorized to receive fee basis care outside Haley in 2011, the VA says.

A July 20 memo to Haley’s new director, Kathleen Fogarty, from Haley’s fiscal services office said “fee basis expenditures will be limited to those only authorized as emergency.” Asked how many patients have been rejected in a bid to get fee basis care, Haley officials responded in an e-mail, “zero patients.”

Hollingsworth called documents obtained by the Times “unofficial information” and took issue with the word “cuts” in describing reduced spending, noting money is constantly shifted as workload and costs go up and down.

“These are not cuts to services but redistribution of funding,” she said in an e-mail.

VCS Report Featured in Stars & Stipes Blog

October 5, 2011, Washington, DC (Stars & Stripes) – Tomorrow marks the 10th year since the start of the Afghanistan War.

The Iraq War began two and half years later. In that time more than 2.2 million troops have deployed to a war zone – 42 percent of whom have gone at least twice.

Here’s how some of the impact of a decade of war shakes out by the numbers as of September, according to VA and DoD data compiled by Veterans for Common Sense through a series of Freedom of Information Act requests.

* 6,211 dead

* 45,889  wounded in action

* 367,749 veterans with a mental health condition

* 1,442,987 million veterans eligible for VA healthcare, but only about half have been treated.

* 9,700 new patients at the VA each month, on average

* 624,266 veterans who have filed a disability claim

* 107,718 veterans with an approved PTSD claim, about 17 percent of total claims

* 2,293 active-duty suicides since January 2001,  including 298 war-zone suicides.

The veterans group estimates that by Dec. 31, 2013 – a year before all combat forces will be pulled out of Afghanistan —  there will be almost a million new veteran claims at the VA.

VCS Releases “Iraq and Afghanistan War Impact Report”

October 3, 2011, Washington, DC (TIME Magazine) – Nearly three-quarters of a million veterans back from Iraq and Afghanistan who are now out of the military have sought medical care from the government, and more than half of those service members suffer from a mental health condition, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

These are among the stunning numbers in a new report compiled by Veterans for Common Sense, a veterans’ advocacy organization. VCS shared the new report with TIME prior to public release scheduled for this week.  The group culled the information from government data mostly obtained through a raft of Freedom of Information Act requests submitted to the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The bullet-point report portrays the sweeping impact of a decade of war on U.S. troops, including the fact that over 2.2 million service members have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and 42 percent of those troops have deployed to war two times or more.

The study reports the 6,211 deaths and 45,889 troops wounded in action so far, but it also sheds light on a dirty little secret about how the Pentagon has long minimized the number of reported casualties by excluding the number of injuries that are not the direct result of the bullets and bombs of the enemy. Another 56,874 service members have been medically evacuated from Iraq or Afghanistan because of accidents and other injuries. That brings the total number of casualties to 108,974.

The Pentagon says those 56,874 troops mostly are not casualties, but troops evacuated for medical problems unrelated to service. Go visit Walter Reed and chat with the troops banged up in Humvee wrecks and other incidents and tell them that. Also, the Pentagon’s own dictionary (yes, they have one) defines a casualty as, “Any person who is lost to the organization by having been declared dead, duty status – whereabouts unknown, missing, ill, or injured.”

The precise number of service members back from war, out of the military, and seeking treatment from the VA is 711,986, according to VCS. More that half of those troops, 367,749, suffers from a mental health condition.

A typical veteran is in his early twenties. The U.S. will be caring for hundreds of thousands of these vets for decades.

http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2011/10/03/over-700000-new-vets-seek-health-care-half-with-mental-problems