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MORE GREAT ADVICE FROM JIM STRICKLAND'S MAIL BAG --

Veterans' Advocate Jim Strickland answers more

questions from VA Watchdog readers.

Veterans' Advocate Jim Strickland provides regular columns for VA Watchdog dot Org.

If you would like to contact Jim about his columns, you can email him here...

The archive of Jim's articles is here...

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NOTE:  Emails from readers will always be anonymous. Changes may be made to protect the identity of the Veteran who wrote to me, make a letter shorter or easier to read and to remove some expletives. Spelling, punctuation and grammar are left as is.

Jim;

I am 60% disable can I get a card to buy on base . I live about 50 miles from a base.

Reply;

No. You must be 100% to get that BX/PX shopping privilege. If your 60% disability is a single condition, not the sum total of 2 or more conditions, you may qualify for 100% Individual Unemployability if you are unable to secure gainful employment. If you aren't able to work, let me know and I'll offer some guidance.

Jim;

My fiance returned from Iraq 1 1/2 years ago and his term in the army ended last January. It was decided that his disabilty was at 50%. Since then he has been waiting on his VA disability check to be mailed to him. In September he was notified that the check had been mailed but it never came. After contacting the VA he was informed that the check had been sent to an old address - even though the had the new one on file. They promised to mail it again to the correct address. But it was sent to the old one a second time and returned to the VA. Again, he contacted the VA, verified his address, and the VA promised to send it to the correct one. No luck, it was sent to the incorrect address for a third time and returned to the VA.

In October he started to receive his monthly check, but the amount owed dating back to January has not showed up. He contacts the VA once a week and they always tell him the check is coming. A few times he has been told that the VA will send it when the VA wants to, he has been hung up on, and he's been told to just stop calling and to quit asking Senators and Representatives for help because they have no power in dealing with the VA. This is pretty abusive behavior towards a man the VA designated as having PTSD.

We are at wits end. We had contacted our state and local congressmen and women, but have not gotten anywhere. Our U.S. Congressman Kay Bailey Hutchison is even on the Senate Veteran's Affairs Committee and her aides have not been able to help us. We have contacted every veterans group we could think of such as the VFW and the American Legion to no avail. We've contacted Iraq Veteran's groups also. Are we going about this the wrong way? Is there something we haven't thought of?

Obviously, I am worried about his mental health and how this situation is affecting him. He has returned to college, which has become quite a positive activity in his life. However, this ongoing problem continually kicks him everytime he thinks things are looking up. I found the VAWatchdog.org website and thought I'd ask for some advice.

Reply;

Thank you for being concerned for your Veteran.

You must stop calling everyone. It only adds to the confusion. There is no way to speed this along once an error has been made. It will eventually be corrected but only through the usual bureaucratic, bumbling and stumbling way that VA has of doing things. Repeated calling about these sorts of issues is like arguing with a stop sign...it'll only frustrate you and it won't have any effect on the sign.

I strongly recommend that communications to the VA are only in writing and only with postal service mail...that means registered mail and a return receipt requested. No fax, no hand delivery and most of all, no telephone calls. I can't emphasize that enough...it's very important. The people who answer those phones have to look at antique computers and they are poorly trained and almost completely unsupervised. The information they give and take is almost always wrong.

No...Senators and Representatives have no authority to make VA do anything. They can write laws but they can't enforce them. To be honest, your issues are so far down on their list I doubt that they've even noticed. That a check is late or a Vet is inconvenienced is just business as usual at VA and won't rise to a level of a representative getting involved. I only use Congressional Intervention in my work when there are dire circumstances...the imminent death of a Veteran lacking appropriate benefits, for example.

There is only a single solution to resolve your issue.

Write a simple letter to the VARO. Please look through the archives of my work (link below) to understand how to write to the VBA. Briefly, try to make your letter look as much like theirs as possible. Use all appropriate references and keep it to a single page. Don't get personal. No anger, no whining, no bitching allowed. It's just business to them.

State your issues as briefly as possible...keep it respectful. Mail it as above, registered with return receipt. And wait. You may wait a year and then write again. Don't write before
that year goes by. Please don't call them to ask where your letter is. If you sent it registered, it's there in the queue.

This isn't the right way to treat a Veteran. I am not any happier than you are about this. However, I'm a pragmatic person and I deal in the reality of how things are, not how they should be. Today's VA is a mess and it's getting worse, a lot worse. You haven't seen anything yet.
 

Jim;

IN 2002 I WAS AWARDED 100% TOTAL AND PERMEANT FOR PTSD....70% FOR PTSD AND 30% FOR IU.....EVERY YEAR SINCE I RECEIVE A QUEATIONAIRE ABOUT ANY INCOME I MAY HAVE MADE....EACH YEAR I SEND THE VA A REGISTERED LETTER STATING I HAVE NOT RECEIVED ANY UNCOME OTHER THAN MY VA AND SSI....I RECEIVE THIS QUESTIONAIRE AROUND SEP OR OCT.....THIS YEAR I DID NOT RECEIVE IT....SHOULD I CONTACT THE VA OR MY VET REP????OR DO THEY STOP SENDING THE LETTER AFTER A PERIOD OF YEARS ???ANY ADVICE WILL HELP...THANKS.

Reply;

Yes, you should contact your VARO by writing to them to ask them to send you that letter. Or, you may go here http://www.vba.va.gov/pubs/forms/
VBA-21-4140-1-ARE.PDF  and print the form and mail it to them. Until you've been 100% for 20 years, VBA can and will require this form. I hear many Vets who continue to receive it even after their 20 year period has passed and the mailing should have been discontinued.

Jim;

I am a vet (U.S. Army 81-87) who was enrolled last year in the V.A. Healthcare plan. I had a medical emergency and went to the nearest hospital which wasn't a V.A. hospital, but this is lawful to do if you think you are in a life or death situation. After I was stabilized the V.A . asked if I wanted to be transferred to the V.A. hospital, which I said yes to. They then informed me they had no beds but if one opened up they'd come and get me. This procedure went on for a week until I was finally discharged from the non-V.A. hospital. When the bill came they originally balked at paying any of it. But then they relented to pay the initial emergency visit. However, they refuse to pay for the rest because I was 'stabilized' and able to be transferred to a V.A. hospital. When I informed them I agreed to be moved but they had no beds available they said it didn't matter--the rule says when you are stable you must then be transferred to the V.A. hospital to continue treatment, so, they conclude, it doesn't matter whether there are beds available or not, they will not pay for anything after stabilization. I am appealing this to Washington, but I have read on the V.A. website (they document all appeals that make it to Washington) of a similar case as mine and that person lost (this case was in 2006). I am writing you to seek advice as to what to do, or who to turn to. I have written my congressmen here in Colorado, but have yet to hear back from them. Please let me know if you can help. Many thanks.

Reply;

Over the course of exchanging 2 or 3 emails, we discovered that you do not have a service connected disability, you do not have a 100% disabled rating, your civilian hospital admission was not related to either a service connected condition nor was it because of aggravation of a service connected condition and it was not because of a VA sponsored vocational rehab condition. You have only been in the VA health system for about a year and you qualified for VA health care due to your very low income.

The rules that apply here are fairly clear;

To the extent allowable, payment or reimbursement of the expenses of care, not previously authorized, in a private or public (or Federal) hospital not operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs, or of any medical services not previously authorized including transportation (except prosthetic appliances, similar devices, and repairs) may be paid on the basis of a claim timely filed, under the following circumstances:

(a) For veterans with service connected disabilities . Care or services not previously authorized were rendered to a veteran in need of such care or services:

(1) For an adjudicated service-connected disability ;

(2) For nonservice-connected disabilities associated with and held to be aggravating an adjudicated service-connected disability;

(3) For any disability of a veteran who has a total disability permanent in nature resulting from a service-connected disability (does not apply outside of the States, Territories, and possessions of the United State, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico);

(4) For any illness, injury or dental condition in the case of a veteran who is participating in a rehabilitation program under 38 U.S.C. ch. 31 and who is medically determined to be in need of hospital care or medical services for any of the reasons enumerated (earlier).

That you were not transferred to the VA is a moot point. You were not and are not eligible for reimbursement of any civilian health care expenses that you incurred.

It's my belief that the VA erred when they paid the emergency room portion of that hospital admission. The VA is compounding its error by telling you that you're being denied because you had stabilized...if they understood their own rules, they would not have paid for any portion of this.

That VHA has erred is not a surprise. I believe that if you continue to press the issue, eventually someone will notice that the ER was paid in error and they'll recover that money and you'll owe everything. Were I you, I'd forget about any further VHA payment and use my time and energy to negotiate and settle with the hospital.

Finally, you submitted to me a citation of a case exactly like yours where the VHA, the VARO and the BVA all turned the Veteran down for exactly the reasons I give you above. In the future, you might want to consider that providing citations to cases like yours that have been lost may not be the best way to argue your case.

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Larry Scott  --

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