VA tests system for electronic disability claims

Mar 25, 2010 10:27 AM
By KIMBERLY HEFLING, AP
BALTIMORE  –

If the interminable backlog of veterans’ disability claims has any chance of being eliminated, the system must go paperless.  But how to move to a fully electronic system is the quandary, and one Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki wants resolved by 2012, when a modern system is to start rolling out. At a Baltimore VA office, which Shinseki visited Wednesday, 30 claims processors have been rotated in to meticulously review virtual test pages. They are part of the conversation as VA officials address difficult questions: Should millions of veterans’ files in storage be scanned? How is a veteran’s privacy going to be protected? What questions should veterans be asked as they fill out an automated form to start the claims process?  “This is about turning a chapter in VA history,” Shinseki said. “It’s a serious, huge undertaking.”   read more…

Senators want data on prescription drug use

By Andrew Tilghman – Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Mar 25, 2010 20:06:59 EDT

Several senators expressed concern Wednesday about increasing psychiatric drug usage among service members and called on top military health officials to provide detailed data about how many troops are on anti-depressants and other mind-altering drugs. At a hearing on Capitol Hill, Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s military personnel panel, cited a recent Military Times report about the spike in psychotropic drug use in the military community, pointing to evidence that overall psychiatric drug usage has risen about 76 percent since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  “We’ve seen recent reports of increased prescription drug use that are deeply troubling … in fact, the data is stunning,” Webb told the surgeons general from the Army, Navy and Air Force and the Marine Corps’s top health official, who all appeared at the hearing on the military health system.  But military officials are backing off previous statements to lawmakers about psychiatric drug usage.  On Feb. 24, the Army’s top psychiatrist, Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton, testified before Congress that about 17 percent of the active-duty force uses some form of psychiatric medications.   read more…

Kerry Fights for Blinded Vets

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  March 16, 2010
CONTACT:  DC Press Office, (202) 224-4159

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) today introduced legislation that will allow blinded veterans in Massachusetts to keep their entire pension from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA.)  Massachusetts offers a $2000 annual payment to permanently blind veterans, but the VA currently subtracts that annuity from their federal pension checks, denying blinded veterans their full and rightful benefits.  Senator Kerry’s Veteran’s Pensions Protection Act will end that practice, providing veterans the full benefits they’ve earned.  “These veterans have given more for their country than most of us could ever imagine. It defies common sense and common decency to think that red tape would be allowed to deny them the benefits and care they’ve earned,” said Sen. Kerry.   “The Blinded Veterans Association’s entire membership appreciates Senator Kerry’s strong interest and leadership on many veterans’ issues, and especially his introduction of this legislation to have state annuities provided to disabled blind veterans being removed as income from veterans pensions,” said Tom Zampieri, Director of Government Relations for the Blinded Veterans Association.   read more…