Doc’s Post

Great information to learn more about CHAMPVA, the eligibility for CHAMPVA, and how Maxim can help support CHAMPVA beneficiaries at home!

Please help spread the word. We have an estimated 90,000 to 100,000 veterans in Montana. As required by law every 10 years, the Montana Legislature State Administration and Veterans' Affairs Committee is surveying the long-term care needs of our veterans. The results of this survey will help us as legislators assess the needs of vets, create a 10-year plan, pass legislation when needed, and budget for those needs. We recognize that not every veteran is in a position or willing to take the survey, so their spouses, family members, friends, and care providers are encouraged to take the survey for them if that is the case. The link for the survey is: veteransurvey.mt.gov.

10 YEARS LATER, HAS ANYTHING REALLY CHANGED AT THE VA? Ten years ago, the nation was shocked by the revelation of the Phoenix Veterans Affairs scandal. Veterans’ lives were lost unnecessarily and tragically —all because the VA bureaucracy mislead the public about how long wait times were and because veterans were trapped in a broken system. It was necessary for the VA’s egregious mismanagement of veterans’ health care and wait time manipulation to be exposed. The scandal highlighted the urgent need for veterans’ health care reform to ensure that our nation's heroes receive the timely and quality care they deserve. Since then, CVA has given outraged veterans and military family members a voice and delivered important victories. For example, the VA MISSION Act's passage gave millions of veterans access to non-VA community care options for the first time, offering alternatives to a broken system. However, recent documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests reveal that the VA continues many of the practices that led to the Phoenix scandal a decade ago. These FOIA documents showed ongoing VA wait time manipulation and active efforts to steer veterans away from community care choices, even when that means longer wait times and travel distances for the care veterans have earned. What was once a scandal has unfortunately become the status quo at the VA, and our veterans continue to suffer as a result. In the face of these challenges, our community continues to tirelessly advocate for lasting change. When veterans make their voices heard, people listen. As the VA continues to ignore the MISSION Act and acts as a barrier to veterans who want to use community care, it’s critical that we keep speaking up and looking out for our brothers and sisters.

Currently, a veteran must contact the VA within 72 hours of receiving non-VA emergency care; otherwise VA may deny payment for these services even if the veteran is eligible for treatment. Veterans suffering medical emergencies should not have to worry about whether VA will deny coverage or refuse payment because of administrative notification time requirements. H.R. 3644, the Addressing Care Timelines (ACT) for Veterans Act would provide an additional 24-hour period for veterans to inform the VA when receiving care at a non-VA facility under the Veterans Community Care Program. DAV supports H.R. 3644, in accordance with DAV Resolution No. 205, which calls for the improvement of emergency care benefits for service-connected veterans: specifically, for VA to provide a more liberal interpretation of the law governing payment for emergency care and reimbursement to veterans who have received emergency care at non-VA facilities. We ask all DAV members and supporters to contact their representatives and urge them to co-sponsor and support H. R. 3644, the ACT for Veterans Act. #DAVCAN #ACT4VETS

Currently, a veteran must contact the VA within 72 hours of receiving non-VA emergency care; otherwise VA may deny payment for these services even if the veteran is eligible for treatment. Veterans suffering medical emergencies should not have to worry about whether VA will deny coverage or refuse payment because of administrative notification time requirements. H.R. 3644, the Addressing Care Timelines (ACT) for Veterans Act would provide an additional 24-hour period for veterans to inform the VA when receiving care at a non-VA facility under the Veterans Community Care Program. DAV supports H.R. 3644, in accordance with DAV Resolution No. 205, which calls for the improvement of emergency care benefits for service-connected veterans: specifically, for VA to provide a more liberal interpretation of the law governing payment for emergency care and reimbursement to veterans who have received emergency care at non-VA facilities. We ask all DAV members and supporters to contact their representatives and urge them to co-sponsor and support H. R. 3644, the ACT for Veterans Act.

In this blog Donna Young, Director of Income Generation at The Air Ambulance Service and Convention Board member, discusses how she found her community through Convention and how it can help others to Learn and Thrive together. Read here: https://bit.ly/3Jt9xvu #CIOFFC

We couldn’t do what we do without our home care providers. They take care of our nation's heroes and keep them safe! While we know their importance, check out this blog to learn more about the work of a home care provider and why they are so important to our elderly and aging veterans: https://bit.ly/3wabgm3

VETERANS!!! I AM ALS needs your help! Are you a Veteran receiving home care? Are you about to reach your 65% expenditure cap for non-institutional care alternative programs? We're pushing to pass the Elizabeth Dole Home Care Act (https://lnkd.in/eHNYTaJW) and we need stories from Veterans who are about to reach their 65% expenditure cap for non-institutional care programs. Your story could be the key to convincing Congress to pass this bill NOW. The Elizabeth Dole Home Care Act would raise the cap from 65% to 100%, allowing Veterans to stay in their homes instead of being forced into nursing homes. Please share your story. Together, we can make a difference! https://lnkd.in/e9ZdwDHk

Why do children and civilians left without homes, food, water, and without rights ? Why are kids and innocent people killed without real reasons? Why do soldiers die without reasons? Why do soldiers have to leave their land to fight with other soldiers to take over their land? Why do soldiers work overseas, leaving their families in order to defend their country when no one come to attack their country? Why are soldiers' limbs amputated because of war, and nobody takes care of them? Why do soldiers develop psychiatric and mental illness from war and are not given proper treatment and care? Why Soldiers loss their lifetimes to protect others and follow ideas from higher ranks than nobody takes care of their children when they die? Why soldiers are losing their lives and facing unknown destiny while the real problems don’t have any rooted solution just new soldiers are facing the same problems and new civilians are vectimed and so on …. ? Why do soldiers' limbs are amputated because of stupid war, and nobody takes care of them? * Soldiers develop psychiatric and mental illness after war, and they are not given proper treatment and no good health care for them. Why do innocent people and Soldiers loss their lifetimes to protect others and follow ideas from others ? While nobody takes care of their children when they die? Why do soldiers leave their lives and face unknown destiny while the real problems don’t have any rooted solution just new soldiers are going to face the same problems and killing innocent people and children for nothing and so on ….? Finely, soldiers can protect VIPS. Unfortunately, they couldn't protect themselves.

Assigning meaning to the events around us gives us a purpose. It creates a story in which we are characters, often the good ones. It makes us feel like we have control over it because all stories no matter what the genre is are familiar and therefore we have the illusion of being able to predict their end. It is comforting……and misguided!!! When we assign meaning to a situation, create a story in which we become the good characters, someone inadvertently is put in the role of a villain. After all, every good story has a villain. For example, without the evil stepmother in the picture, Cinderella is just a story about a young girl grieving the loss of her mother and a rich guy who finds her attractive only when she is in full glam. He is literally not able to recognize her until she puts an expensive shoe on! But I digress. Turning someone into a villain is misguided and can blind us to the real problem at hand. As VA continues to grapple with the fiscal crisis that impacts its hospitals across the nation, staff in these facilities are looking for safety and control. And in doing so assign meaning to this crisis that creates stories where local facility’s senior leadership become villains. There is comfort in knowing that there is someone to blame for all the bad. Someone who is there in front of you. Someone who is accessible. And within reach. But comfort, no matter how safe it feels, is not to be confused with a reality. Because there is nothing comfortable about the real problem VA is facing. The existential crisis of whether VA will remain an entitlement program that our Veterans earned or will it transition into a private sector model based on profit is not solvable on a local level. There is no local senior leader in any VA that has the ability to address this problem. It is a problem whose solution belongs outside of VA. With Congress. With voters. With our whole country. There are no easy villains to blame. Or magical quick solutions. It is a journey. We are all on it together, whether we assign a meaning to it or not. #healthcare #leadership #va #veterans #fiscal #queer #nonbinary #hardtimes {image description: Nonbinary person smiling into the camera as they are standing in the office. They are wearing glasses, blue topaz stud earrings, light blue shirt and red lipstick.}