WASHINGTON — The questionable medical practices were first found at a Veterans Affairs medical center in Tennessee, then at VA facilities in Georgia and Florida.

Now, Veterans Affairs officials will face fresh questions about patient safety at a House hearing Tuesday after an internal review found continued weaknesses with colonoscopies and other procedures at the agency’s medical centers.

The latest findings — that fewer than half of VA facilities selected for surprise inspections in May had proper training and guidelines in place — are contained in an inspector general’s report to be released at the hearing. The findings, obtained in advance by The Associated Press, suggest that errors in colonoscopies and other minimally invasive procedures may be more widespread than initially believed.

You can read the rest of the Associated press article here on: NAVYTIMES

In order to ensure the availability of quality and timely health care to veterans with service connected conditions, special authority based on military service, low income, and those with special health care needs, in January 2003 VA made the difficult decision to stop enrolling new Priority Group 8 (high income) veterans whose income exceeded VA income thresholds.

The new regulations take effect on June 15, 2009 and enable the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to relax income restrictions on enrollment for health benefits. While this new provision does not remove consideration of income, it does increase income thresholds. You may be eligible for enrollment under this new provision.

For more information go to PG 8 Enrollment Relaxation.

An Enrollment Calculator is available to help Veterans determine their potential eligibility for VA health care services under the proposed regulation. Check to see if you qualify under the new rules for VA health care:

Priority 8 Group Enrollment for VA Medical Calculator

You can also read more about it @ NAVYTIMES.COM

The veterans health care system, closed since 2003 to new enrollments for veterans whose medical conditions are not service-connected, reopened effective Monday with new income caps that will allow more people to get in.

Post 9/11 GI Bill

Dedi–Dedi–Dedi-Dedication
Here you go, from the VA’s GI BILL Website:

Starting May 1, 2009, the Department of Veterans Affairs will begin accepting applications for the Post-9/11 GI Bill. The application form is available online.

The form requires that individuals currently eligible for another education benefit make an irrevocable election from their existing program to the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Typically individuals who are eligible for more than one benefit may use a combined total of 48 months of entitlement. Therefore, for those individuals eligible for the Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB) program, please be advised that if you have entitlement remaining under the MGIB, the number of months of Post-9/11 GI Bill entitlement you will be eligible for will be equal to the number of months remaining under MGIB. However, if you exhaust all of your MGIB entitlement, then you may be entitled to a maximum of 12 additional months of entitlement under the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

Starting May 1, 2009 VA will begin processing applications for Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits and you will receive a letter explaining VA’s decision regarding your eligibility for the program. Payments for the Post-9/11 GI Bill will not be processed until August 1, 2009.

Click here to access the application form which includes instructions for submitting completed applications.

Now of course in full Governmental function, The link provided does not work.. FEHH!!!! MAJOR FAIL! Keep checking back as I am sure it will soon.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

Below is the release from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) on the GI Bill, they were a major force in helping us get this legislation passed:

IAVA is pleased to see that the VA adopted many of our recommended changes to the Post-9/11 GI Bill regulations. The recently published final regulations addressed over half of IAVA’s top concerns. These changes are worth thousands of dollars to veterans who will be using this new benefit, and specifically include:

• Ensuring that school health insurance programs are covered by the new GI Bill.
• Encouraging private universities and colleges to participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program by increasing flexibility:
  • Allowing separate schools within a college to participate
  • Removing restrictive requirements on how schools fund the program
• Allowing spouses/dependents to benefit from a servicemember’s enlistment kickers.
• Clearly defining when a servicemember with readjustment issues can leave school and not be billed for courses not completed.

We were also grateful to see the VA include GI Bill eligibility for officers of the Public Health Service (PHS) and National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and clarify that other forms of financial aid will not affect GI Bill benefits.

While a majority of these regulatory changes were pro-veteran, IAVA still has some concerns with the regulations that should be addressed immediately. For example:

• Unfair prohibition on transferring benefits to children between the ages of 18-26
• Denying enlistment kickers to part-time students and distance learners
• Denying the Montgomery GI Bill buy-in refunds to part-time students and distance learners

To learn more about the Post-9/11 GI Bill, click here.

Please use these resources to better help you negotiate these waters.

Nurses Make a Difference

WASHINGTON — To provide compassionate, highly-trained nurses to serve the health care needs of the nation’s Veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is establishing new partnerships with five of the country’s finest nursing schools.  With these new partnerships, the VA Nursing Academy will expand the number of collaborations between the department and nursing schools from 10 to 15.

“The expanded role of the Department of Veterans Affairs in the education of nurses will ensure the department has the nurses needed to continue our world-class health care for Veterans,” said Dr. Linda D. Johnson, director of VA Nursing Academy. “The VA Nursing Academy expands the teaching faculty, improves recruitment and retention, and creates new educational and research opportunities.”

The VA Nursing Academy is a virtual five-year pilot program with central administration in Washington.  It expands learning opportunities for nursing students at VA facilities, funds faculty development of VA staff for additional faculty positions to competitively selected school partners. The five-year, $59 million program began in 2007.

Five nursing schools will form new partnerships with five VA medical centers and join the VA Nursing Academy this year.  They are:

• Carolina University, Asheville, N.C.
• University of Alabama, Birmingham, Ala.
• University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu
• Pace University, Manhattan and Brooklyn, N.Y.
• Waynesburg University, Pittsburgh.

VA Nursing Academy already includes 10 partnerships: the VA medical center in Gainesville, Fla., with the University of Florida; the VA medical center in San Diego with San Diego State University; the VA medical center in Salt Lake City with the University of Utah; the VA medical center in West Haven, Conn., with Fairfield University in Connecticut; the VA medical center in Charleston, S.C., with the Medical University of South Carolina; the Hines, Ill., VA medical center with Loyola University of Chicago; the VA Michigan Consortia (Detroit and Saginaw) with the University of Detroit Mercy and Saginaw Valley State University; the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center with the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences; the VA medical center in Providence, R.I., and Rhode Island College; and the VA medical center in Tampa, Fla., and the University of South Florida.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing has reported that in 2007 more than 36,000 qualified applicants were turned away from entry-level baccalaureate degree programs in nursing schools because of insufficient numbers of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space and clinical mentors.  VA currently provides clinical education for approximately 100,000 health professional trainees annually, including students from more than 600 schools of nursing.
VA Nursing Academy enables competitively selected VA-nursing school partnerships to expand the number of nursing faculty, enhance the professional and scholarly development of nurses, increase student enrollment by about 1,000 students and promote innovations in nursing education.

Further information about the program can be obtained from VA’s Office of Academic Affiliations web site at www.va.gov/oaa.

“VA is entering the world of Web 2.0, because that’s where this generation of Veterans is already communicating,” said Dr. Gerald M. Cross, VA’s Principal Deputy Undersecretary for Health. “We’re opening our doors to them virtually to let them know what they can expect when they step through our doors in reality.”

The Web site will feature videos, Veteran stories, and a blog where Veterans are encouraged to post feedback.  The site also will restructure the traditional index-of-benefits format found on other VA pages into question-based, categorized, and easily navigated links by topic.  This will allow Veterans to find benefits of interest easily and discover related benefits as they explore.

“We hope our returning Veterans find this site easy and helpful, but also engaging,” Dr. Cross said. “As the site grows, we will be linking to Veterans’ blogs and highlighting more of their own stories from their own views.  We are their VA, so we are eager to provide a forum for Veterans to discuss their lives.”

WASHINGTON — Iraq and Afghanistan veterans: Get ready for a phone call.

The Department of Veterans Affairs said Thursday that on May 1, it will start calling 570,000 recent combat veterans to make sure they know what services are available to them.

The first calls will go to about 17,000 veterans who were sick or injured while serving in the wars. If they don’t have a care manager, the VA says they will be given one.

The next round of calls will target 555,000 veterans from the wars who have been discharged from active duty, but have not reached out to the VA for services. For five years after their discharge from the military, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have access to health care at the VA.

The effort will cost about $2.7 million and will be handled by a government contractor.

The agency has faced complaints that a backlog in claims and bureaucratic hurdles have prevented some recent veterans from getting proper mental and physical care. Earlier this week, two Democratic senators accused the VA’s top mental health official of trying to cover up the number of veteran suicides and said he should resign.