VA Expands Mental Health Care Staffing

Last year, VA pledged to add 1600 mental health clinicians and 300 support staff, an increase of about 10 percent, in order to better serve the needs of Veterans (and cut down on wait times). And earlier today, we announced progress on that front:

As of Jan. 29, VA has hired 1,058 mental health clinical providers and 223 administrative support staff in support of this specific goal.

“We aren’t slowing down our efforts even after these initial positive results,” said Shinseki. “We still need to hire more mental health professionals in order to reach our goal, but each new hire means we can treat more Veterans and provide greater access to our mental health services.”

Be sure to check out the release for more on the push for more mental health care workers.

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Intel Report, February 8

This week’s wrap-up of Veterans news and resources:

  • When doctors look to predict outcomes, they rely heavily on historical data to guide them to better treatment. VA researchers in Palo Alto and elsewhere have been awash in traumatic brain injury data, and now they’re linking up with civilian hospitals to get even more depth. Check out more from The Atlantic.
  • Winter storms are battering the northeast as I write this, so please pass along this contact information to any homeless Vets you encounter, or make the call yourself to help connect them with shelter and other resources: 1-877-4-AID-VET. This is a good time to put the number in your phone, too.
  • Wondering what benefits you and your dependants may be eligible for? Check out our 2012 Federal Benefits for Veterans handbook, now available online in both English and Spanish. This comprehensive guide provides information on education, home loan, health care, and burial benefits.
  • Speaking of benefits, the folks over at the Veterans Benefits Administration asked for questions on disability compensation from their Twitter audience. Check out some of their answers.
  • Some may let a life-altering injury slow them down, but Todd Love seems to have sped up. After losing three limbs in Afghanistan, the Marine Veteran has gone skydiving, alligator wrestling, and certified as a SCUBA diver. And he’s not done yet. Take a look at his story.
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Student Veterans: Tell Your Side

As the population of student Veterans continues to grow at hundreds of campuses across the country, so does the need to tell our side of the story. It’s an important thing to get right; student Vet graduates are a pool of job seekers, and employers need to see us as dedicated and capable applicants.

This is something you can help affect right now, in two ways. The first is to connect with American Public Media to share your challenges, experiences, and triumphs as a student with military experience. I hear plenty of folks that suggest journalists can’t or won’t get it right, so this is an opportunity to correct the record.

The second is to set yourself up for success on campus to make it through graduation in the first place. Georgetown’s SVA faculty advisor Barbara Mujica gave a good rundown on how you can step up to increase resources and visibility of Veterans on campus, with everything from starting a local SVA chapter to establishing lines of communication with administrative offices and faculty.

One thing I’d add: look into opportunities with the Pat Tillman Foundation’s Military Scholars program, an elite class of students who are already leading the way. Applications for this year’s class are open through February 15.

If you’re unhappy with how student Veterans are portrayed in the media, or how your school administration performs, now’s the time to be proactive.

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Veteran Unemployment Below National Average at 7.0 Percent

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Veteran unemployment data for the month of January. The unemployment rate for all Veterans was 7.6 percent—a slight increase from last month but still below the national average of 7.9 percent. For Post-9/11 veterans, the rate was 11.7 percent. While Veteran unemployment has ticked up over the past several months, the long-term trend remains downward.

In the first graph, we see the monthly unemployment rate for all Veterans since January 2010.  While the uptick in recent months is apparent, the long-term trend shows a clear decrease.

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Bridging the VA Trust Gap

When I discussed the possibility of employment at VA with my future boss, he asked if I had used VA services myself.

“Just the GI Bill,” I said. “I’m not going to take my chances in a VA hospital.”

I was a couple years out of the Army, still young but not young enough to ignore the ailments resulting from a combat tour as an infantryman. I didn’t have any exposure to the medical care side of VA, and just assumed it wasn’t for me. I simply “heard” from “them” that the care was subpar. And since then, I’ve proven my own misconceptions wrong. Many VA facilities have ranked among the best hospitals in the country—and I declined excellent federal employee health insurance benefits to utilize VA care exclusively.

I’ve heard similar murmurs from countless Veterans since I’ve been here, and while I understand the skepticism, it’s simply unconstructive and potentially harmful to spread falsehoods and inaccuracies to folks that need help–ranging from common illnesses to surgery and life-long mental health care. Not to mention other services, like home loans and education benefits.

Skepticism formed from second-hand information isn’t beneficial to anyone, and simply put, it doesn’t help your buddy to tell them to stay out of the VA system.

I’ll be completely honest: I’ve had a few frustrating moments with VA medical care over the years, but the good far outweighs the bad. When I go to appointments, I actively look for problems. I usually come away with none (and I don’t tell anyone I work for VA). I try to tell both sides to give balance to that monolithic idea of VA that Veterans hold. It can be difficult, as folks tend to conflate problems like the claims backlog to health care and end up avoiding both. But that isn’t a solution for anyone.

It’s fair to suggest that any tooting of our own horn would be met with skepticism, so that’s where third-party validations come into play. Somewhere in the middle of satisfied and unsatisfied Veterans enrolled in VA care are millions of undecided Vets who, for any number of reasons, don’t pursue benefits. We need to convince those people to swing by, but we have to end this chronic cynicism of VA.

So this is an open invitation to any Veterans service organization, non-profit, church group, sewing circle, online discussion board, student Veterans group—anyone really—who would like to help correct this chronic issue of mistrust. Drop me a line at newmedia@va.gov with “VA trust gap” in the subject line, and we’ll toss around ideas on how we get folks into the system. I can also help connect you with folks from the benefits, health, and cemetery offices to discuss more specific issues.

It’s past the time where we are content with throwing up our hands and ceding large swaths of Veterans because we don’t know how to reach them. A lot of that has to do with building trust on our end, but to begin, we have to get a handle on the untruths out there. So let’s talk. The line is now open.

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New Social Networking Mobile App for Veterans

(Editor’s note: This is an app developed by a third party. VA didn’t develop it and does not support or endorse it.) POS-REP, short for “position report,” is a new social networking mobile app that allows Veterans to locate other Veterans, communicate and find resources in their area. The app, currently in the final stages of Apple approval, was developed by Anthony Allman, an Army Veteran, with a five man team.

The inspiration for the mobile app came from the devastating loss of former Marine Clay Hunt, whose depression and PTSD eventually led to his suicide in March of 2011. On Business Insider, Allman explained there were three other Veterans within ten miles of Hunt. After that realization, the idea of an app that connects Veterans with others in their area was born.

The free download has multiple features, including Radar, which shows a map of other nearby Veterans and allows users to broadcast their own locations if they choose. There is also Sitrep, which allows Veterans to post status updates and communicate with one another.

The mobile app’s long-term goal is to ease the transition from the military by providing additional support and resources through local connections with others who are experiencing, or have experienced the transition themselves.

Learn more about the POS-REP mobile app on their Facebook page and Twitter feed.

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Cutting Verification Red Tape

Muskogee Regional Office

There have been a few times I’ve used VA services when I’ve asked, “Why do they need this information from me? Isn’t it out there somewhere?” This is especially true for anyone who has had to fill out an eligibility verification report to confirm eligibility for benefits—an annual event that put the burden of information on Veterans and drew resources away from VA staff.

Now the red tape is coming off the verification process. From WBTV:

VA will implement a new process for confirming eligibility for benefits, and staff that had been responsible for processing the old form will instead focus on eliminating the compensation claims backlog.

Historically, beneficiaries have been required to complete an EVR each year to ensure their pension benefits continued.

Under the new initiative, VA will work with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) to verify continued eligibility for pension benefits.

About 100 VA employees handle those verifications, so now they’ll be put to good use by tackling the claims backlog.

Check out VA’s benefits page on Facebook, Twitter, and their home page.

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Intel Report, January 18

Your end of the week wrap-up of Veterans news and resources:

  • The National Day of Service is Saturday, January 19, and it’s a reminder that any day can be one of service to your nation or community. Check out how you can volunteer at VA and give back to fellow Veterans.
  • VA’s Adaptive Sports office released a new PSA to encourage disabled Vets to refine their mission in life. Check out the spot here and see how it all came together.
  • There’s a flu bug going around the country, and VA has been working to contain it at all facilities. Think about getting a flu shot soon.
  • It’s a new year, and that means a new round of tax returns and filings. You may qualify for a free tax preparation care of the IRS. See if you qualify.
  • The fastest way to get VA news and information is from our Facebook and Twitter pages. Every VA medical center is now on Facebook, and new Twitter feeds are going up every week. Find your facility here.
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Faster Claims Processing Systems Continue Nationwide Deployment

Muskogee Regional Office

Far and away, the biggest concern I hear from Veterans is the disability backlog. From knowing where to start, to the paperwork and appointments—and then the wait for a decision with care and benefits on the line—the whole process can get frustrating.
It’s an issue decades in the making, and not one with an easy, quick fix. That’s why VA, at the end of last year, implemented a paperless processing systems at 18 regional offices known as the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS), which pilots showed cut decision times in half while increasing accuracy. Now VA is in the process of rolling out VBMS to the remaining 38 regional offices by the end of the year.

From the release:

Critical to VA’s transformation is ending the reliance on the outmoded paper-intensive processes which prevent timely and accurate claims processing.  VA is deploying technology solutions which improve access, drive automation, reduce variance, and enable faster and more efficient operations to eliminate the backlog.

In other words, the processing system used has not kept up with increased demand, even as VA processes more than 1 million claims each year, and technology is the solution. The backlog grew when barriers to PTSD compensation were removed, along with the consideration of certain illnesses presumptive of Agent Orange exposure—and multiple complex injuries from Iraq and Afghanistan added an unprecedented number of claims. But the long term issues stem from yesterday’s technology not meeting today’s demands. VBMS and other transformation initiatives begin implemented at regional offices across the country aim to take care of that once and for all.

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Intel report, January 11

Your end of week roundup of Veterans news and resources:

  • Historically, we haven’t been great at determining how well student Veterans are performing. That’s why VA teamed up with Student Veterans of America and the National Student Clearinghouse to get a better grip on the graduation rate of student Vets. This will help all of us better understand what we do right, and what we need to improve.
  • Despite some challenges, Veterans are leaving the service to continue with successful lives. We profiled 12 of them for our portrait project Strong at the Broken Places—an effort to show the nation what resiliency looks like. The project is ongoing, so if you’d like to participate, drop us a line.
  • Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam Veteran and former deputy administrator for VA, was nominated to head the Pentagon as the new Defense chief.
  • Veterans are used to adapting to tough situations, working in small teams, and operating in high stress environments. Sounds like a small business doesn’t it? Learn how to create your own business, get information on upcoming conferences, and more.
  • Frankly, our old homepage wasn’t great. It was ugly, clunky, and confusing. We resigned VA.gov, so check it out if you haven’t been in awhile, and leave feedback in the comments. We’ll do our best to incorporate ideas.
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