The Mid-atlantic Regional Group
Blinded Veterans Association
Other News
January 15, 2010
Today the VA sent out this announcement concerning the addition of new Federal Recovery Coordinators to assist manage those more complex seriously wounded returning war veterans who need continued department of defense and VA care or services. BVA Bulletin has often included articles about our role in raising awareness that seamless transition as they like to call it for our wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan has been problematic and this also has been in our testimony before congress.
Also on another issue, BVA staff received a lot of phone calls and emails concerning the status of the section of Senate Bill 1963 on Elimination of Co-Payments for catastrophically disabled veterans who need in-patient rehabilitation services. There seems to be some confusion because the bill did pass in December on the senate side. However, the senate bill S 1963 includes several other major sections in it, and the house bills passed last July are very different so this bill must be agreed to in a conference committee between the chairman and ranking members of the two VA committees and then it must go for a floor vote on the House of Representatives again. We would expect this could take until February at the earliest to begin to go for votes.
Also, some veterans are calling BVA asking about if there prescription co-payments are going to also be eliminated, this is not part of the legislation and that would cause huge additional costs to the final legislation that could not be covered by congress. The Elimination of the co-payments would be for admissions for specialized rehabilitative services, like going to a Blind Center for training, not for prescriptions or for general medical out-patient clinic appointments. Sorry, if there was confusion that everything in regards to all co-payments would suddenly go away. That is not how the legislation was written and the supporters of the bill could not have passed it this far if they tackled all types of out-patient co-payments for everything. The goal was to eliminate the $1,300 co-payments for blinded veterans to attend the blind centers and help those veterans who could not afford those kinds of large co-payments for rehabilitation care.
There is a meeting on Wednesday, January 20th with the various veteran service organizations and the Chairman of the House VA Committee Congressman Bob Filner to discuss the issues before congress this session and trust us, S 1963 is first issue on agenda for our blinded veterans and many other organizations like Paralyzed Veterans of America and DAV.
VA, DoD Expand Ranks of Federal Recovery Coordinators Key Members of Team Helping Most Severely Wounded
WASHINGTON (Jan. 14, 2010)– Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced the hiring of five new Federal Recovery Coordinators, bringing to 20 the number of professionals coordinating care for the most seriously injured service members.
“Our Federal Recovery Coordinators are key members of a team of health care professionals, therapists, case managers and other specialists, who make up VA’s comprehensive care management system for returning service members and their families,” Shinseki said.
The new coordinators will be added to the following locations, with the total number of coordinators in each location indicated in parenthesis:
· Eisenhower Army Medical Center, Ga. (3);
· San Antonio Military Medical Center, Texas, (4);
· Naval Medical Center, San Diego, Calif. (4);
· Tampa VA Medical Center (VAMC), Fla. (1);
· Bethesda, National Naval Medical Center, Md. (3);
· Walter Reed Army Medical Center, D.C. (3);
· Houston VAMC, Texas, (1); and
· Providence VAMC, R.I. (1).
The Federal Recovery Coordinators program was created in 2007 to assist service members, Veterans and their families with access to care, services and benefits provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Department of Defense (DoD), other federal agencies, states and the private sector. Currently, the coordinators work with 419 of the most seriously injured service members and Veterans. The program is administered by VA and operated jointly with DoD.
The program’s clients include service members and Veterans who are receiving acute care at military treatment facilities; diagnosed with specific injuries or conditions; considered at risk for psychological complication; or likely to benefit from a recovery plan.
BVA will continue to work to ensure that those with vision injuries and blindness are assisted in there transfers between the two big systems.
Tom Zampieri
Director Government Relations
BVA's Legislative Alerts Group
End of Document