Tag: Veterans

When is Enough… ENOUGH? – More Chronicles from the VA

QuestionHonest question.  I surpassed my ultimate threshold in waiting for the VA to improve in 2010 and stopped accepting the excuses, the platitudes, and the whiny discourse from the VA.  Elected officials charged with scrutinizing the US Government, when has patience been surpassed, and you will cease allowing this nefarious Kabuki?  The veterans are waiting, the taxpayers are fed up, and you need to make a decision and act.

Consider the following investigation by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) – Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG).  The scenario:

“The VA Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) conducted an audit to determine how effectively the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) billed private insurers. [Billing private insurance is a piece of legislation that the VA has haphazardly followed.  The VA remains the first party payer and is authorized under 38 USC 1729 to bill and collect reasonable charges for nonservice-connected care where such veterans have other private health insurance.]  Prior OIG investigations have shown that VHA has missed opportunities to recover funds that could be used to help finance care for other veterans.  VHA’s Office of Community Care (OCC) manages community care programs and bills private insurers when needed.  OCC must submit reimbursement claims before insurers’ deadlines are reached, or they may be denied.”

The legislature passed laws demanding action, and the result was:

      • OCC did not establish an effective process to ensure staff billed veterans’ private health insurers as required
      • OCC did not collect an estimated $217.5 million that should have been recovered, a figure that could grow to $805.2 million by September 30, 2022
      • OCC’s billing and revenue collection process also was not synchronized with insurers’ filing deadlines, and claims information was not always available for billing
      • Pending workload volume and staff shortages hindered effective billing
      • OCC was broadly aware of challenges to its process to bill and collect revenue from private insurers; its responses were insufficient to correct these issues.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are sitting on the table, and the VHA – OCC still cannot properly follow the law.  Worse, they are slower than molasses running uphill in Michigan in January to pay community providers, inventing hoops and red tape nonstop for providers, which increases the cost of healthcare.  This is not the first VA-OIG investigation on this issue in 2022, let alone since 2000; with the same findings, the same recommendations are issued, and nothing improves.  Thus, I have two questions:

  1. When is enough ENOUGH?
  2. How does this reflect the VA Administration’s commitment to the vision of the VA?VA 3

Consider the following; the VA-OIG regularly conducts comprehensive healthcare inspections of VHA facilities.  The findings of these investigations are supposed to spur institutional improvement.  Regularly the VA-OIG places the following comments into the reports of these investigations, hoping nobody will ever read the report and find these facts.

“The VA-OIG found deficiencies in identifying sentinel events and conducting institutional disclosures.  Additionally, there were repeat findings from the June 2017 comprehensive healthcare inspection related to inter-facility transfers.”

Imagine a private company being inspected by the government for a moment where previous investigation findings were not improved; what would happen?  An army of lawyers would descend on the customers looking for those harmed/injured, legions of lawyers would pour through employee records looking for injuries and other potential claims, the government would seize assets and halt production, all this and more.  The media would be covering 24/7 news cycles on the slightest allegations of wrongdoing.  Elected officials would be hurrying to write legislation and find a media talking head to bloviate to.

What do we hear where the VA is concerned; not even crickets!  The VA has played complicit roles in veteran deaths, and still not a peep, word, or even crickets.  Remember, these findings occur frequently enough that not finding these remarks is a cause for celebration and is exceedingly rare.  Thus, I have two questions:

  1. When is enough ENOUGH?
  2. How does this reflect the VA Administration’s commitment to the vision of the VA?VA 3

Other oft findings from comprehensive healthcare inspections include the following:

      • Medical center leaders were generally knowledgeable about selected data used in Strategic Analytics for Improvement and Learning models (SAIL Metrics). – What does “generally knowledgeable” indicate? Why have we accepted general knowledge from those who should have specialized, detailed, and comprehensive knowledge and use this knowledge in daily practice?
      • Outpatient satisfaction survey results were generally higher than VHA averages but revealed opportunities to improve specialty care experiences for female veterans. – Please note beating the VHA average is good but nothing to brag about. Beating the VHA averages is akin to claiming to be the biggest pig in a pig wallow.  Sure, you’re big, but you are still covered in mud!
      • Employee satisfaction survey scores for the medical center were lower than VHA averages. – Not a surprising finding in any way, shape, or form. Employee morale is scathingly low, and it shows in every customer interaction!  More comparing pigs by size in a pig wallow, and it’s not like the VA would punish whistleblowers, fire productive people, castigate, denigrate, deride, and treat employees like chattel… Oh, wait, yes, it is!

Interestingly, I receive 3-10 of these monthly investigation reports from the VA-OIG, and too often, they read like someone is cutting/pasting the findings from one report to the next.  Thus the conclusions of these findings occur frequently enough that not finding these remarks is a cause for celebration and is exceedingly rare.  Therefore, I have two questions:

  1. When is enough ENOUGH?
  2. How does this reflect the VA Administration’s commitment to the vision of the VA?VA 3

Let us consider another VA-OIG investigation, which, unfortunately, recurs too frequently where inappropriate conduct is a norm, not an exception.  VA facility leaders’ response to inappropriate relationships.  Regular readers will know how common it is to find inappropriate relationships and sexual misconduct by VA Employees to other employees, underlings, and veterans.  The scenario:

“The VA Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) conducted a healthcare inspection to evaluate leaders’ response to the knowledge of inappropriate provider-patient relationships.  The VA-OIG determined that while facility leaders initially addressed three inappropriate relationships between mental health providers (Providers A, B, and C) and mental health patients (Patients A, B, and C), multiple factors affected the effectiveness of those actions.”

Finding the following:

      • The OIG found that effective facility leader actions to investigate and address the inappropriate relationships of Provider A and Provider B occurred only after an Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection complaint.
      • Facility leaders ineffectively addressed Provider C’s inappropriate relationship before Patient C died by overdose.
      • Facility leaders failed to report Providers B and C to their state licensing boards promptly.
      • Failed to report Provider A to the appropriate professional certification board.
      • Facility leaders did not take actions to address the circumstances that contributed to the death of Patient C, who was involved in an inappropriate romantic relationship with Provider C.

Regrettably, the VA-OIG could not determine if an adverse patient event occurred when finding that the inappropriate relationship played a role in a veteran’s suicide by overdose.  I understand investigative scope creep, but this is ridiculous.  You have a dead veteran in an inappropriate relationship with a provider, and you cannot investigate if this was an adverse event.  What type of bureaucratic inertia sponsored this madness?

Some items in this investigative report stand out, beginning with the fact that the facility leaders who refused to take action remain employed by the VA!  Knowing about problems and not taking prompt and decisive action is negligence in performing one’s duties.  Possessing authority and refusing to implement policies and procedures, ensuring compliance by professionals, defies description and should result in VISN leaders losing their jobs!  Unfortunately, these inappropriate relationships are not rare; even if the VA-OIG has not gotten around to investigating the problems, ask the VA employees, and you will find the proof of concept and incredibly high frequencies.  Hence, I have two questions:

  1. When is enough ENOUGH?
  2. How does this reflect the VA Administration’s commitment to the vision of the VA?VA 3

In the annals of government fraud, waste, and abuse, the following VA-OIG investigation must rank in the top 20 somewhere.

“The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) initiated this review to evaluate whether purchases of iPads and iPhones for veterans met mission needs while minimizing waste during fiscal year (FY) 2020 and through the first two quarters of FY 2021.  In July 2020, Connect Care officials purchased 10,000 iPhones with unlimited prepaid data plans for the homeless veterans enrolled in the HUD-VASH program.  However, 8,544 of the 10,000 iPhones remained in storage as of July 2021, as demand for the iPhones was much lower than anticipated.  The OIG found that this resulted in an estimated $1.8 million wasted data plan costs.  The OIG also identified opportunities for improvement regarding data plans for nearly 81,000 iPads purchased.  Because Connected Care did not have strong enough oversight procedures for reducing or eliminating data plan waste, it incurred approximately $571,000 in additional wasted data plan costs.”

When I was offered telehealth, I was responsible for providing the equipment and maintaining an Internet connection.  This was made clear by the VHA Administrators before they signed off on allowing me telehealth and reiterated by my providers when they renewed permission.  How can the VHA and VA leadership and contracting officials imagine this is acceptable?  How many of these devices are still in the hands of veterans?  How many have broken, been pawned, or otherwise not survived?

Again, not casting aspersions, merely asking questions, namely the following:

  1. When is enough ENOUGH?
  2. How does this reflect the VA Administration’s commitment to the vision of the VA?VA 3

I could weep from the frustration felt in reporting another veteran’s death by suicide, receiving care from mental health providers with the VA, and being investigated by the VA-OIG, where the providers are complicit.  The scenario:

“The VA Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) conducted a healthcare inspection to evaluate VA-OIG-identified concerns related to the assessment and documentation practices of a behavioral health certified registered nurse practitioner (BHNP) and leaders’ completion of BHNPs’ ongoing professional practice evaluations (OPPEs).”

The findings:

      • The BHNP did not perform thorough suicide risk assessments for a patient who died by suicide.
      • Identified multiple deficiencies in a BHNP’s assessment and documentation practices, including the absence of comprehensive suicide risk assessments, failure to complete abnormal involuntary movement and metabolic assessments for patients prescribed particular antipsychotic medication, missing informed consent or a risk-benefit discussion when prescribing off-label medications, failure to resolve rule-out diagnoses, and substantial copy and paste use.
      • Finding adverse clinical outcomes for one of eight patients for whom the BHNP did not document a comprehensive suicide risk assessment, as required by The Joint Commission.
      • Finding the Nurse Manager evaluated BHNPs as satisfactory in the OPPE elements of copy and paste use for the fiscal year 2018 through the first half of the fiscal year 2021 and safety plan completion for high-risk suicide patients for February 2020 through the first half of the fiscal year 2021, without these elements being evaluated.

Is it clear why I am asking about where the limitations of patience are?  The supervisor was directly responsible for leading the BHNPs and failed, and while it is not mentioned, we can presume this person remains employed.  Failed to train staff, failed to supervise staff, refused to do your job.  Yet, you remain employed (probably) and (potentially) were promoted, as this is the regular pattern for VA employees caught but who are politically acceptable or connected.  The supervisor is directly connected to a dead veteran, a family is weeping this holiday season, friends are missing, and all I can do is keep asking the politicians:

  1. When is enough ENOUGH?
  2. How does this reflect the VA Administration’s commitment to the vision of the VA?VA 3

Do you also feel the weight of responsibility; your tax dollars fund this abuse.  Representatives of your government are complicit in adverse patient events, including death, and they refuse to engage, holding government employees accountable and fixing the mess.  Veterans signed a check, telling the government we will perform duties and obligations.  Why aren’t the veterans honored for their sacrifice and respected by elected officials and government employees, especially at the VA?

America WeepsThe VA’s mission statement is “to fulfill President Lincoln’s promise “To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan” by serving and honoring the men and women who are America’s veterans.”  The statement is meant to echo the reverence given to the men and women who serve in the American military with honor.  Reflecting that this body (the Department of Veterans Affairs) is tasked with serving them respectfully, similar to how they served their nation.  One final question is, “Does killing, abusing, and harming veterans equate to honoring the VA mission statement?”

© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

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“That’s Crazy!!!” – More Chronicles from the VA Chapter 8

I-CareI fully admit I got behind in April.  Dear reader, my apology.  I have been whipsawed between emergency room visits, depression, extreme pain, and other issues.  Not offering an excuse but a tiny peek into my world as a disabled veteran.  Luckily, I have maintained employment because my employer allows me to work from home.  My driving privileges are threatened again with removal due to the neurological issues I suffer, and this will dynamically change my life, but this article is not about me, but the continued catastrophe called the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Inspector General (VA-OIG) reports published.

We begin with a financial efficiency review reported from the inspection of the Durham VAHCS of North Carolina.  I know the jokes write themselves when we discuss any government agency and financial efficiency, but I digress.  This is a head exploding report of leadership failure in the observation and governance of employees who did not perform the functions they were hired to perform.  The VA-OIG found the following from October 1, 2020, through March 31, 2021:

    • The healthcare system had 309 inactive obligations totaling $81.7 million.
    • Of these 309 obligations, 200 (totaling over $74 million) had no activity for 181 days or more.
    • In a subsample of 20 obligations, VA staff had not reviewed 17, as required.
    • Contrary to VA policy, healthcare system staff used purchase cards instead of contracts for 21 of 40 sampled transactions (53 percent), totaling approximately $328,000. These 21 transactions were missing required supporting documentation to verify that the transactions were approved and payments were accurate, resulting in $308,000 in questioned costs.
    • 105 more administrative full-time equivalent staff than the expected number, all not doing their jobs as required under Federal Law!

While not all of the findings, those mentioned are the most egregious and in need of corrective action.  Would the citizens of Durham, North Carolina, please tell me, has this been reported in the local news?  Has anyone lost their jobs as the VAHCS right-sizes the financial department?  I can find no additional information that this problem has been corrected, and I am really curious!VA 3

Oh, the irony is thick; consider the following:

“The Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General Training Act of 2021 would help ensure that VA employees continue to be empowered to assist the OIG in improving VA’s operations and using taxpayer dollars to the greatest effect; helping protect patients and improving their care; and ensuring veterans and others receive services and benefits for which they are eligible.”

The above-quoted material originates from Chris Wilber, who testified to Congress’s HVAC Subcommittee on oversight and investigations.  What is the number one failure on every comprehensive healthcare inspection (CHIP); the lack of staff training, the inadequacy of staff training, or adequately trained staff.  Yet, the statement by the VA-OIG indicates that training has met a threshold for providing adequate training.  Let’s talk about a specific action, “the VA secretary signed a directive in September 2021 mandating that all employees complete a one-time training within one year—an important step in improving VA’s culture of accountability.”  It is now May 2022; the VA-OIG is pushing for training directives to be legislated, not dependent upon any single VA Secretary.  Are you freaking kidding me?  Where is the congressional oversight and scrutiny that allows VA training to continue to be subpar and threaten the lives of veterans?

Long have I wondered how the VA could frustrate VA-OIG actions, investigations, inspections, etc.  Guess what; the answer has become available:

“… there have been instances in which the OIG has been informed that staff have been told that they cannot share information with OIG investigators without first clearing it through supervisors or leaders—contrary to the Inspector General Act of 1978 (the IG Act), as amended.  Under that authority, VA employees at all levels have a duty to cooperate with OIG personnel, including providing information and assistance in a timely manner.”

Employees have been caught lying to the VA-OIG regularly, and what action is taken to remove those employees promptly and efficiently from government service?  From direct observation and employee conversations, it is clear that plans are carefully laid before a scheduled VA-OIG visit to present what the VA-OIG wants, but to gloss over the problems, and nothing ever happened to the managers, supervisors, and employees who lied and misdirected the VA-OIG.  All contrary to established Federal Law!VA 3

Want a specific example of employees intentionally misrepresenting information to the VA-OIG?  Look no further than the statement by Chris Wilber, and this incident was covered as a failure of leadership in a previous article.

“Hospital staff at a VA facility in Fayetteville, Arkansas, had concerns about potential substance abuse by the chief of pathology that were not heard and promptly acted on by local management, which allowed him to work while impaired for years.  He misdiagnosed about 3,000 patients with errors resulting in death or serious harm and is currently imprisoned.  The OIG found a culture in which staff did not report serious concerns about the chief pathologist, in part because they assumed that others had reported him, or they were concerned about reprisal.”

From personal experience, I reported problems to the VA-OIG concerning patient abuse, fraud, waste, and other issues.  Never were my concerns acted upon promptly, and I was removed from employment for being a whistleblower.  The culture of corruption at the VA is incredible.  The examples mentioned by the VA-OIG only further sustain the problem with leadership and how sick the VA truly is as an organization!VA 3

We next turn our attention to the VA-OIG report on the inspection of information technology security at the VA Financial Services Center, another head exploding example of leadership failure bordering on criminal!  The findings include:

    • component inventory
    • vulnerability management
    • flaw remediation
    • Identifying 252 vulnerabilities, of which 228 the local IT team could not identify.
    • the VA-OIG team identified access control deficiencies, as 107 of the 278 FSC systems failed to generate or forward audit logs for analysis.
    • the video surveillance system was not fully functional. Ineffective monitoring and recording facility activities supporting information systems minimize the FSC’s incident response capabilities.

How do you spell failure; these findings spell failure to me rather pointedly and dramatically!  Want to laugh; staff training remains a concern, but not a finding, of the VA-OIG inspection team.  Frankly, with this level of incompetence, staff training should have been a finding.VA 3

To be concise and illustrate further the poor leadership, convoluted processes, and brazen noncompliance of VA officials, the following discussion is about two different VA-OIG reports that reached similar conclusions.  First, we have the VA-OIG report on “Noncompliant and Deficient Processes and Oversight of State Licensing Board and National Practitioner Data Bank Reporting Policies by VA Medical Facilities.”  Second is the VA-OIG report on “Concerns with Consistency and Transparency in the Calculation and Disclosure of Patient Wait Time Data.”  Nothing says convoluted processes more than having two written policies, both originating from Washington DC.  The superseded policy does not have an expiration date.  This means that employees have a designed incompetence excuse ready for not adhering to the most current and applicable policy.  Don’t believe me; one of the key findings was, “VHA has presented wait times to the public without clearly and consistently disclosing the basis for their calculations.”  Designed incompetence does not come more blatant than this, and who suffers, the veteran.  Worse, wait time correction and policy clarification has been stalled by COVID-19, the neverending excuse paying dividends to bureaucrats everywhere!Timelines for Wait Time Calculations

However, both reports are substantially summated by the VA-OIG; thus, “The lack of programmatic oversight contributed to the failure of VHA leaders to detect and intervene upon facility noncompliance.”  Meaning that due to COVID-19, the VHA has refused to do their jobs in deference to the pandemic, and since this is a good enough excuse, the VA-OIG has bought the designed incompetence, lock, stock, and barrel.  The VHA leadership is failing; doctors or dentists let go for poor performance were not reported to state and federal boards, so these providers lacking can continue to harm patients.  It is a federal law (42 US Code § 11151, US Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration Bureau of Health Workforce, NPDB Guidebook, October 2018, chap. A., 8 USC ⸹ 7462(a), 38 USC ⸹ 7401(1), among others) that providers let go for cause must be reported within 7-days to the regulatory boards at the state and federal levels.  Wait times are hidden because they are so bad; the VHA is embarrassed, so the leaders fall back on designed incompetence to shield themselves while looking for another excuse for poor performance!  In both reports, the ramifications of noncompliance are putting people at risk for sentinel events (death, injury, disability, etc.), and the leadership is at best lackadaisical in the performance of their duties.  VA 3

Where are the congressional overseers in ending the abuse?  When will this insanity and bureaucratic inertia end?  How many “sentinel events,” including deaths and permanent injuries, will it take until those tasked with scrutinizing the executive branch finally take committed action and hold people accountable?  When will the elected representatives stop throwing good taxpayer money at problems that money cannot fix?  If these questions are too difficult to answer, please stop running for elected office, for the citizenry is not happy!

We conclude with two related reports so astoundingly obtuse they defy logic and sanity.  The first is the annual CliftonLarsonAllen LLP (CLA) audit of the VA’s information security for 2021.  The second is the continuing failure of the new electronic health record modernization (EHRM) program.  The VA has failed the CLA audit for more than a decade, with many of the hits repeated year-over-year.  In fact, the CLA audit is so bad this year; it has taken my mental breath away and stunned me into a gibbering idiot!  Reading this report was infuriating; describing it as my head exploding is akin to comparing an M-80 to a nuclear bomb.  How in Dante’s Inferno can this level of incompetence be allowed to remain employed?  But, as bad as the CLA audit is, the continued failure of the new electronic health record system pales in comparison.  The new EHRM continues to suffer from reliability weaknesses, which is polite speak from the VA-OIG for the new system fails to do the job.  We are three years from the new extended deadline, we are already past the original deadline, and the system is worthless today than it was a year ago.  With this success rate, the new EHRM will be utterly bereft of value and need replacement before the year’s end.  How many millions (billions, or trillions) of good dollars must chase this ineptitude before the plug is pulled and those involved held accountable?VA 3

Join me in having your head explode:

“Additional deficiencies included known tasks not being reflected on schedules, no risk analysis, lack of longer-term actions scheduled, and no complete baseline schedule or overall schedule that fully integrated individual project schedules. VA also did not comply with federal regulations when it paid its contractor for deliverables before accepting them (reviewing compliance with contract requirements).”

Consider this other gem from the VA-OIG report, “$1.95 billion in cost overruns per year” are estimated, meaning the final tab will be significantly higher and compounded year-over-year.  In plain speak, the contractor is being paid for products delivered that fail, the products offered are not usable, there is no schedule of completion, there is no schedule for deliverables, many of the products paid for have never been delivered, and costs are overrunning like a plugged toilet. Worse, no one is being held personally liable for these problems, which were apparent in the last EHRM update from the VA-OIG a year ago!  Like the CLA Audit, I am thrilled the VA agrees with the VA-OIG findings, but what are they DOING to fix the problems?

FYI: the image below is a year old, and comes from the last major update to the EHRM.EHR-VA-OIG

?u=https1.bp.blogspot.com-aqaqk18MHoEWRHHsCi_TyIAAAAAAAAAXc7hY4JQuyylIQHYudoR8sbezGZntic4SSwCLcBs640Betrayal2BSayings2Band2BQuotes2Bwww.mostphrases.blogspot.be.jpg&f=1&nofb=1There is no excuse for behaving like the VA’s bureaucratic legions behave.  Bureaucrats, from the city government (including the school board) to the Federal Government, you hold a sacred trust to act better than you are currently performing.  I refuse you any leeway for acting like pompous overlords when you are paid through forced taxation!  You have trespassed upon my patience and kindness long enough, and the day of reckoning has arrived.  You work for me; you work for every taxpayer and citizen in this country, and you have violated our trust, charged us too much and too often, and if you do not begin to show yourself worthy of the sacred trust, we will force you from your cushy jobs and hold you liable for the monies you have squandered!  The law is on our side; you need to begin showing you honor our trust and investment forthwith!

© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

“That’s Crazy!!!” – More Chronicles from the VA Chapter 7

Oh, how I wish and long for, and am working for, the day when the VA is cleaned up, cleaned out, and corrected completely!  The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) – Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) has been busy reporting more on the failures of the VA to act.  Yet, where is Congressional action in scrutinizing the executive branch’s actions?  Honest question, repeated only for emphasis; we elected you to do two jobs, write fair and equal legislation for all citizens, and scrutinize the executive branch; when are you going to do your jobs?

Let’s begin with some softball issues repeated from previous VA-OIG comprehensive healthcare inspections (CHIPs), specifically how employees report feeling morally distressed while working at the VA.  Moral distress is a leadership failure and is widespread enough to reflect the problem is not limited to a single VAMC/VAHCS.  From Virginia to California, Maine to Florida, and Montana to Arizona, too many VA facilities are poorly led, poorly administered, and poorly executed.  The VA is actively abusing the veterans for political gain; some have asked why I consider the VA is actively abusing veterans; let me see if additional disclosure can explain the problem.

“VHA Directive 1004.08.  VHA defines an institutional disclosure as “a formal process by which VA medical facility leader(s), together with clinicians and others as appropriate, inform the patient or personal representative that an adverse event has occurred during the patient’s care that resulted in, or is reasonably expected to result in, death or serious injury, and provide specific information about the patient’s rights and recourse.”

The above quote is from the regulations governing VA care.  The VA-OIG quotes this directive, which has been published and is openly available, yet repeatedly the VA-OIG finds directors.  Hospital administrators who are informed and able to repeat this directive.  Who repeatedly refuse to follow this directive or train their staff to follow this directive.  When sentinel events occur (death, permanent injury, non-permanent injury, disability, etc.), the families report having no idea what to do because the disclosures were never provided to the veteran or designated caregiver.  Is this not abuse of the patient?  Is this abuse not driven by ideologues who gain from the harm they cause others?  Should this abuse not be scrutinized until it is eliminated?  Please feel free to read some of these comprehensive healthcare inspection reports from the VA-OIG, see the resulting injuries and problems caused by the failures of government medical providers, and then tell me whether these atrocious actions need more or less scrutiny and qualify for the title abuse.

North Carolinian veterans, VISN 6 is all yours, and would you be shocked to learn that even with newer leadership, moral distress remains a persistent problem in the VA employees throughout VISN 6, which just happens to include Durham, Asheville, Fayetteville, Hampton, Richmond, Salem, and Salisbury North Carolina?  Probably this is not unfamiliar as the patient experience survey scores remain persistently below VA averages, reflecting that new leadership is akin to putting lipstick on a pig.  Interestingly, medical staff credentialing remains a significant concern in North Carolina.

Western New York veterans, especially those receiving patient services in the Buffalo VAHCS, do you agree with the VA-OIG report?  The Buffalo VAHCS includes Buffalo, Batavia, Jamestown, Dunkirk, Niagra Falls, Lockport, West Seneca, and Olean, and the comprehensive report is mystifying to me.  For example, the VA-OIG reports that “Patients generally appeared satisfied with their care.”   At the same time, “Employee survey data revealed opportunities for leaders to improve workplace satisfaction and reduce feelings of moral distress.”  This is a combination not generally found in these CHIP inspection reports.  Something is definitely off, and I would love to know what, especially since the leadership needs significant improvement in identifying and reporting sentinel events.  Do you agree with the VA-OIG findings?  Please let me know your firsthand experiences, for the double-talk in this CHIP report is above what I usually observe.

With almost identical findings and recommendations in the Syracuse NY VAMC’s comprehensive healthcare inspection, covering communities of Syracuse, Auburn, Freeville, Potsdam, Rome, Binghampton, Watertown, and Oswego, NY., I am concerned that the veterans in New York are in as bad or worse shape than Phoenix’s veteran community.  Hence, I have to ask the VA-OIG, has something changed in your measurement and analysis tools to report such disparate findings as “Employee survey data revealed opportunities for leaders to improve servant leadership and decrease employees’ feelings of moral distress.  Patients generally appeared satisfied with the care provided?”  The double-talk level is higher in these CHIPs from NY, which is rarely observed outside of Phoenix and VISN 22.  Two final thoughts on the CHIPs, staff training, continues to be a high-risk finding, and this continues to be a leadership failure for every VAMC/VAHCS/VISN in the VA; why has progress not occurred?  Training is a system, and leadership and organizational risk, system redesign, and improvement is a quality, safety, and value problem of the highest importance; why is action never taken by leadership or the congressional representatives who are expected to scrutinize the executive branch?

28 March 2022, the VA-OIG released their long-awaited annual “Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection Summary Report: Evaluation of Medical Staff Privileging in Veterans Health Administration Facilities, Fiscal Year 2020.”  I have been interested to see what, if anything, the VA had accomplished in improving their medical staff privileging.  If I were a congressional representative, knowing that medical staff continues to harm and kill veterans, I would have been anxiously awaiting to see if the repeated hits from past years had finally been rectified.  Unfortunately, the VA continues to live down to expectations (digging the hole ever deeper), suffers from failed leadership, and the veterans continue to die or suffer abuse.

What did the VA-OIG discover?  Understand, “The OIG conducted detailed inspections at 36 VHA medical facilities to ensure leaders implemented medical staff privileging processes in compliance with requirements.  The OIG subsequently issued six recommendations for improvement to the Under Secretary for Health, in conjunction with Veterans Integrated Service Network directors and facility senior leaders.  The intent is for VHA leaders to use these recommendations to help guide improvements in operations and clinical care at the facility level.  The recommendations address findings that may eventually interfere with the delivery of quality health care.”  The OIG identified deficiencies with focused and ongoing professional practice evaluation, provider exit review, and state licensing board reporting processes.  Specifically:

    • use of minimum criteria for selected specialty licensed independent practitioners’ focused professional practice evaluations
    • inclusion of service-specific criteria in ongoing professional practice evaluations
    • completion of ongoing professional practice evaluations by other providers with similar training and privileges
    • recommendation by executive committees to continue licensed independent practitioners’ privileges based on professional practice evaluation results
    • completion of provider exit review forms within seven business days of licensed independent practitioners’ departure from a medical facility
    • the signing of exit review forms by service chiefs, chiefs of staff, and medical facility directors if licensed healthcare professionals failed to meet generally accepted standards of care
    • initiation of state licensing board reporting within seven business days of supervisors’ signatures on exit review forms to indicate licensed healthcare professionals failed to meet generally accepted standards of care.

The OIG found ongoing issues from the fiscal year 2019 CHIP summary report that warranted repeat recommendations for improvement.  The OIG issued three repeat recommendations related to the following:

    • inclusion of minimum specialty criteria for focused professional practice
      evaluations
    • inclusion of service-specific criteria in ongoing professional practice evaluations
    • recommendation by executive committees of the medical staff in continuing licensed independent practitioners’ privileges based on professional practice evaluation results.

Boiling the findings of the VA-OIG down, essentially, the administrators and leadership are not weeding out poor and horrible practitioners, reporting these underperforming practitioners, and not acting in the best interests of the veterans seeking care at VAMCs and VAHCSs across the country.  I repeat, only for emphasis: Is this not abuse of the patient?  Is this abuse not driven by ideologues who gain from the harm they cause others?  Should this abuse not be scrutinized until it is eliminated?  Please feel free to read some of these comprehensive healthcare inspection reports from the VA-OIG, see the resulting injuries and problems caused by the failures of government medical providers, and then tell me whether these atrocious actions need more or less scrutiny and qualify for the title abuse.  The link to the full report is available; please feel free to make your conclusions and post your thoughts in the comments section.

On a final note for today, consider with me the problems of the Atlanta VAHCS with pallets of unopened mail containing patient health information, community care provider claims needing payment, and a plethora of other unopened mail.  Understand that when community care providers cannot obtain compensation from the VA, they go to the veterans, who then send in correspondence, which is unopened, thus causing more problems, concerns, and issues for an already abused veteran community!  Want your head to explode?  Look at the pictures the VA-OIG helpfully sent along with this VA-OIG report, and ask yourself if any other business or organization could get away with this type of abuse of the customer.

What did the VA-OIG find?  Well, prepare for your head to explode, again:

    • VA Leadership should have established a formal agreement explicitly detailing each office’s responsibilities.
    • VA HCS leaders did not include responsible managers in decision-making discussions and lacked a clear understanding of the volume of mail processing work they were accepting.
    • Atlanta VA HCS did not ensure mailroom staff was adequately prepared or trained to handle or sort the influx of mail. POM (Payment Operations Management) officials were later reluctant to help, citing the verbal agreement.

Buried in the report is this tidbit, “POM is implementing similar transitions at sites across the country; POM and medical facilities need to ensure adequate staff with sufficient training to handle the mail processing workload.  VA concurred with the OIG’s five recommendations.”  Meaning that in a VAMC/VAHCS near you, unopened mail due to verbal agreements will soon add more distress and disgust to the veteran experience.

I have documented in these articles how verbal agreements, verbal standards of work performance, and verbal processes and procedures are the problem and way of life in too many CHIPs and observed practices at the VA.  Yet, these verbal shenanigans are more apparent than in the dilemma Atlanta faces due to unopened mail.  Payment operations to community care providers are on a controlled and fixed timeline.  Failure to process these payments according to the required timeline leaves providers unpaid, which diminishes the community care provider pool of providers.  Talk to a community care provider, and they will discuss the risks of doing business with the VA and the real possibility of not being paid timely enough or being caught in sufficient red tape never to receive payment.

I know of a provider who called me three years after receiving care and was still trying to appeal and correct the paperwork to receive payment.  A provider recently contacted me who wanted to ruin my credit for failing to pay the balance due from care received, and they are charging interest.  Correcting this problem cost me 48 business hours, 20 calls, and frustrations galore.  By the way, the problem still has not been rectified, an appeal is in process, and we have to wait for the VA to make a decision; this incident was caused by the VA changing the process and the paperwork.  The provider told me they are not accepting any more veterans seeking care, the risk is too significant, the timeline to receive payment is too long, and the VA never pays what is charged.  For example, I recently received a declaration declaring payment to a community care provider.  The VA sent me to this provider, which means they knew the prices beforehand and agreed to the fees.  The declaration declared the VA was charged $2,000 and paid $120, not actual amounts, but close enough to communicate the problem.  With inflation, or without inflation, if you were paid less than 1/10th of what you billed (invoiced), would you continue to conduct business with that company or organization?  Now add the unopened mail problem to the mix.  Would you continue to conduct business with this entity?

America, the Department of Veterans Affairs is sick.  All of the other alphabet agencies in the Federal Government are sick.  We continue to elect people who actively refuse to care enough to act according to their mandated duties.  We cannot afford the government we currently have, which is part and parcel of the problem with inflation in America right now!  Debt is entered into to pay for this bloated feckbeast called government; from the city to the federal government, the bloat is too great to be sustained!  Why is the VA able to skirt responsibility, accountability, and improvement?  They can hide behind the size of their convoluted and twisted organizational shield.  Why can the Post Office and the IRS get away with deplorable, at best, customer service?  They are protected by the congress refusing to scrutinize and hold people accountable.  When your head is done exploding, please remember and act in the ballot box to hire better representatives!

© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

“That’s Crazy!!!” – More Chronicles from the VA Chapter 6

I-CareI promised a follow-up article after Chapter 5; it took me the better part of 48 hours to cool down sufficiently to write coherently to effect an update.  On 18 March 2002, I wrote about an appointment with my Primary Care Provider (PCP) being tardy, unprepared, and bureaucratese in supposedly holding a phone appointment with me.  01 April 2022, not an “April Fools Joke,” at 0731 hours, lasting 9 minutes, my PCP called me to get my approval to have me changed from her PACT team to another provider’s team.  Apparently, in the highly red taped world of PCPs at the El Paso VAHCS, there must be an hour-long handoff call when a provider initiates a change of PACT team.  I have my doubts and smell designed incompetence!

Let me pause here for a moment.  I generally need two hours to write an article after conducting research.  18 March 2002, it took a bit longer to draft that one due to the need to blow off steam with some choice words and choke down the urge to beat a few brick walls with my fists.  I am generally a very controlled person, and the fact that this PCP was so stunningly incompetent, rude, and HIPAA clueless, I admit I lost my cherub-like demeanor!  That the patient advocate was able to get my secure message, upload the comments into the electronic medical record, and contact the provider before the provider had even logged the patient notes, speaks volumes about the ineptitude of the PCP.  Worse, in the call on 01 April, the PCP was still on speakerphone, still disregarding HIPAA security, and quoted lines out of context from my message to the patient advocate.  Speaking volumes about the processes and procedures of the patient advocate’s office to investigate patient claims without breaching confidentiality.  Another topic for another day entirely!PACT_model

28 March 2022, I received the following from the patient advocates office, quoted completely:

“We have received your secure message addressing your concerns.  I will be sending a Patient Advocate Tracking notification with your concerns to our Primacy Care Service for review.  They will be contacting you via telephone to discuss your concerns.”

I never heard anything from this mysterious “Primary Care Service” group/team.  01 April 2022 was the first response, and that was from the PCP.  Sourcing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG), the PCP is the second most important member of the Patient-Aligned Care Teams (PACT) at the VA; the patient is the essential member and an actively engaged and knowledgeable patient is preferred.  I promise the VA-OIG has not even scratched the surface of the problems with recalcitrant, snowflake, and bureaucratic PCPs endangering patient health with the VA.  Not my first run-in with an inept PCP; I sincerely hope it is my last!PACT 3

In returning to the 01 April call, we find another interesting piece of data.  The PCP affirmed that abdominal pain could radiate from, say a hernia, to other parts of the abdomen, but this is for a specialist to diagnose, not a Family Practitioner.  Get that; the PCP is directly reversing all the published documentation by the VA and the VA-OIG by declaring that a specialist is the only person who can adequately decipher and detail why pain is occurring—putting all the PCPs in the VA Health Administration under the bus as merely button pushers and drug dealers.  Then the PCP has the temerity, nay the chutzpah, to suggest a trust deficiency existing between myself and the PCP.  Is it any wonder that people are detested, forlorn, melancholy, madder than a wet chicken with a raging case of hemorrhoids with the care they receive from VA healthcare providers?

Again, I repeat, only for emphasis, when any updates arrive on this issue, I will publish them in their entirety to allow the VA the opportunity to rebut, refute, or explain.  Like the ongoing saga with VISN 22, the Phoenix VAMC, and being arrested and injured three times by the VA Police, I am not holding my breath and awaiting a logical response.  If this were the only problem in the two weeks since the PCP shenanigans, the VA would be in pretty good shape.  Alas, we know, dear readers, that the VA is in dire condition, and the elected leaders need to be scrutinizing the VA a LOT more closely than they are.VA 3

We begin the latest chapter of VA-OIG reports with yet another physician bilking the government:

“Robert Clay Smith, a Louisiana physician, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, wire fraud, and illegal remunerations (taking kickbacks).  According to court documents, the scheme, which ran from 2013 until 2017, involved individuals associated with a medical supply and billing company recruiting Smith to dispense pain creams and patches to his workers’ compensation patients by offering him a split of the profits.  The company acted as the billing agent for Smith, handling all the paperwork and submitting the allegedly fraudulent claims to the US Department of Labor, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, and private insurers.  In exchange, the company paid Smith 50 to 55 percent of the profits collected from successfully billing insurers, at markups of 15 to 20 times what the medications cost.”

Plus the following:

“Robert Schneiderman of Langhorne, Pennsylvania, admitted to participating in a massive compounded-medication kickback scheme that he and others ran out of a pharmacy in Clifton, New Jersey.  Schneiderman pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and one count of conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute.  From 2014 through 2016, Schneiderman and his coconspirators used Main Avenue Pharmacy, a mail-order pharmacy with a storefront in New Jersey, to run a fraud and kickback scheme involving compounded drugs like scar creams, pain creams, migraine mediation, and vitamins.  Schneiderman was the president of Main Avenue Pharmacy and was a founder and CEO of its corporate parent.  Main Avenue Pharmacy received over $34 million in reimbursements from healthcare benefit programs on compounded medications alone.  Approximately $8 million of that total was paid by federal payers.  Schneiderman himself earned over $400,000 through the course of the scheme.  This case was investigated by the VA OIG, FBI, Department of Defense OIG, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and Department of Health and Human Services OIG.”

Don’t forget this one:

“Dr. Harry Doyle, a psychiatrist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and his wife, Sonya Doyle, have agreed to pay $3 million to resolve alleged violations of the False Claims Act.  The alleged violations include submitting false billing to the US Department of Labor Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) for psychiatric services that were not provided and upcoding and double-billing patient claims.  The Doyles have also agreed to be voluntarily excluded from federal healthcare programs for 25 years as part of the settlement.  This is the largest recovery against a single psychiatrist in the history of the OWCP.  A multiagency investigation of Dr. Doyle’s practice revealed that from January 2013 through April 2021, the Doyles allegedly billed for services not rendered, some of which occurred when they were not physically present in the United States.  This case was investigated by the VA OIG, the Department of Labor OIG, and the United States Postal Service OIG.”

More is coming on this one:

“Ten Texas doctors and a healthcare executive have agreed to pay more than $1.68 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations involving illegal remuneration in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark Law.  According to a multiagency investigation, from 2015 to 2018, the doctors allegedly received thousands of dollars in illegal remuneration from eight management service organizations (MSOs) in exchange for ordering laboratory tests from Rockdale Hospital doing business as Little River Healthcare, True Health Diagnostics LLC, and Boston Heart Diagnostics Corporation.  Little River funded the illegal remuneration to the doctors in the form of volume-based commissions paid to independent contractor recruiters, who used the MSOs to pay numerous doctors for their referrals.  The MSO payments to the doctors were disguised as investment returns but were based on and offered in exchange for the doctors’ referrals.  As part of their settlements, the defendants have agreed to cooperate with the Department of Justice’s investigations of other parties involved in the alleged law violations.  To date, 17 doctors and two healthcare executives involved in this scheme have agreed on settlements totaling more than $2.7 million.  The civil settlements resulted from a coordinated effort between the VA OIG, Department of Health and Human Services OIG, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas [emphasis mine].”

Elected officials, the next time you are asked about the incredible amounts of fraud in government-provided healthcare and insurance, do not buy the media talking points that the fraud is minimal, contained, or anything but designed incompetence on the part of the bureaucrats to act as a jobs program for investigators!  The same investigators who are refused sufficient tools to investigate shenanigans by employees in the Federal Government adequately.?u=http2.bp.blogspot.com-fGEUjJsJ2h4VcJgswaisnIAAAAAAAABcsoFqEewPF_E4s1600quote-if-the-freedom-of-speech-is-taken-away-then-dumb-and-silent-we-may-be-led-like-sheep-to-the-george-washington-193690.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

Frankly, all of these cases need the government workers to be held accountable, and the myriad of red tape loopholes CLOSED!  I remember an election; I forget who and the exact when, but a significant election plank in the platform was healthcare reform, promising to clean up the swamp and bring accountability to Washington and the government.  The public is still waiting, and I know enough of you have run on this topic from both parties to repaper the walls (inside and outside) of the White House.

Yet, even if only outside providers and executives were scheming, the VA might not be in too bad a condition.  Except for the employees of the VA, VHA, and VBA, which continue to be caught up in ethics violations at a minimum:

“The VA-OIG conducted an administrative investigation that included a congressional request to look into allegations that Charmain Bogue, former executive director of the Veterans Benefits Administration’s Education Service, committed ethical violations arising from her spouse’s consulting work for Veterans Education Success (VES).  VES is a nonprofit advocacy group that regularly had business before the Education Service.  The allegations also pointed to possible incomplete financial disclosures by Ms. Bogue concerning her spouse’s consulting business.  In their work, investigators uncovered evidence of other potential conflicts of interest and related misconduct by Ms. Bogue [emphasis mine].”

VA-OIG finding:

    1. Bogue participated in Education Service matters involving VES without considering whether it raised an apparent conflict of interest and acted contrary to the ethics guidance she received from her supervisors.
    2. Bogue sought résumé feedback from the president of VES to aid in her search for career advancement without considering whether this raised apparent conflict of interest concerns in subsequent VES matters. VES also endorsed Ms. Bogue for presidential nominee positions.
    3. Bogue provided insufficient detail about her spouse’s business in 2019 and 2020 public financial disclosures; VA ethics attorneys had found them compliant. She remedied the subsequently identified deficiency in her 2021 disclosure.
    4. The OIG found that Ms. Bogue refused to cooperate fully in the OIG’s investigation by refusing to complete her follow-up interview. Her husband and VES president also refused to participate in OIG interviews, and the OIG lacks testimonial subpoena authority over individuals who are not VA employees.   Bogue resigned from VA in January 2022.VA 3

UPDATE: 14 April 2022 – Sen. Grassley was hoodwinked by the VA on this issue and The Daily Signal (linked) has more of this report.  I covered this before, I repeat only for emphasis, when you are discharged from the VA, you lose your ability to be a “whistle-blower.”  As a point of fact, this is how the VA is able to hide a lot of their shenanigans, get rid of the person rocking the boat, invent the paperwork, cover the whole incident over as a “bad-apple” and keep you collective heads down and mouths shut until the VA-OIG investigation concludes.  The VA’s ability to abuse whistle-blowers is further compounded by Federal Attorneys who cherry-pick the cases they know they can win.  Which further protects the VA’s shenanigans and disheartens and mystifies those who have been wrongly terminated.  The Daily Signal reflects this pattern of corruption perfectly citing the records obtained by Empower Oversight.

Some commentators have claimed that blaming elected officials for not scrutinizing or not providing tools to investigate entirely is unduly unfair to the congressional representatives.  Really?!?!?!  The VA-OIG conducts an investigation, the people being investigated refuse to comply, and the VA-OIG is toothless to enforce a full and complete investigation to initiate Attorney General and FBI investigations and actions to recompense the defrauded taxpayer.  Ms. Bogue and the VES have invalidated any trust the taxpayer should have in their respective activities, but this, like so many other investigations into VA employees, will die of apathy before anyone is held accountable.  Even though a congressional representative demanded an investigation, nobody is being held liable.  Nobody is forced to compensate the defrauded taxpayer, yet the taxpayer is still expected to elect the same old representatives to their jobs.  Blaming the congressional representatives (legislative branch) for not scrutinizing the executive branch, one of only two jobs these people have, is somehow unfair?  NO!Exclamation Mark

Remarkably, between the 18 March disaster with the PCP and 01 April’s compounding idiocy, the VA-OIG published an ironically titled investigation report.

“Improved Governance Would Help Patient Advocates Better Manage Veterans’ Healthcare Complaints.”

Imagine that, more designed incompetence negatively impacting the veterans seeking care at a VA medical facility, stating the obvious by the investigators.  Who on earth would be responsible for seeing that regulatory agencies had the tools needed to scrutinize and demand corrective action?  Calling all elected officials, did you notice that one of the prima facia tools a veteran has to report problems, conveniently called “patient advocates,” does not have the sufficient authority, adequate oversight, and tools to execute their jobs?  The VA-OIG reports the following:

“The Patient Advocacy Program helps advance the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) efforts to improve customer service, support veterans’ access to quality care, and provide a mechanism to resolve healthcare issues.  Patient advocates document veterans’ concerns, communicate the resolution, provide follow-up and feedback, and identify trends for potential opportunities to improve medical facilities.  In FY 2020, VHA tracked about 162,000 serious complaints in its patient advocate tracking systems.”

Angry Wet ChickenOn a side topic, VA-OIG, how do you define a “significant complaint” and separate it from other types of complaints?  Honest question, the information was, to quote my PCP, “remarkably” missing from your investigation report!  Would the VA-OIG like to know why so many veterans’ complaints have risen to a “serious” level?  You reported the exact problem:

“A complaint is considered resolved when the complainant communicates the outcome, and the record is closed in the tracking system.”

Maybe, the VA-OIG merely overlooked the logic problem, but complaints increase when the solution pushed down the throats of the veterans does not fix the actual situation.  Honest question, no sarcasm involved.  Is a “serious” complaint one where significant harm or death to the patient has occurred?  Is a serious complaint one that breaks federal laws, EMTALA, comes readily to mind??u=https3.bp.blogspot.com-fYRTNk48SCwT8ua0IRDWPIAAAAAAAAFZUpexSmJsN2Kos1600overcoming-adversity-help-yourself-believe-cubby-motivational-1289878102.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

Having had “solutions” forced down my throat, speaking only for myself, I am thoroughly sick of having the patient advocates bureaucratize my complaint, then fail to act, and then compound the problem by quoting policy to me as a reason to close the complaint, when the VHA never have written policies and procedures!  Maybe, you might want to look into the root causes of some of those “closed” complaints and ask root causation questions!

What did the VA-OIG find when they investigated the patient advocates?

    • VHA lacked adequate governance of the Patient Advocacy Program.
    • VHA did not effectively issue and implement adequate policy, monitor complaint practices, and provide guidance to medical facility directors responsible for local program management.
    • Patient advocates did not always enter complaints into the system.
    • Even though complaint records generally appeared to be closed on time, patient advocates did not always document the communication of the outcomes to the complainants.
    • The VA-OIG substantiated an inadequate program policy to identify clear expectations and responsibilities.
    • The VA-OIG found that they (patient advocates) did not always adhere to the documentation requirements to show full complaint resolution.
    • At the local and VISN levels, responsible personnel did not consistently analyze patient advocate tracking system complaints about trends.

Feel free to read the complete abomination of designed incompetence for yourself.  Essentially the VA-OIG concluded that the VHA has been burning taxpayer money in a patient advocacy program, and the designed incompetence is so apparent it can be tracked from L2, where the James Webb telescope is located!  Worse, you won’t need the James Webb telescope to see the designed incompetence!James Webb Space Telescope

Unfortunately, I could have guessed the first three findings without looking.  Every VA program is designed so ineptly, reprehensibly led, criminally incompetent, and with such dastardly deceptive doings that fiction writers’ storylines have to be written better to sell books.  You cannot make this stupidity up and make a profit.  Hollywood would run screaming into the night if they made a true story about the ineptitude found at the VA!

Knowledge Check!Elected officials, where are you?  The VA-OIG presents copies of their findings to you, and I have yet to witness a single one of you holding the VA Leadership criminally responsible for the failures at the VA.  Even when the VA is killing hundreds of veterans, the US Congress refuses even to act upset, let alone scrutinize for a change!  Remember how many veterans were intentionally killed in Phoenix waiting for treatment?  How many VA employees lost their jobs and pensions or were forced in front of a judge for murder?  It is a fair question, where are the elected officials in the legislative branch working to end the criminal “fraud, waste, abuse,” and designed incompetence in the executive branch?

© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

Continued Inanity from the US Government – Where are the Elected Officials?

Angry Wet ChickenI made the mistake of ranking the various government agencies on how intractable, unintelligent, and irresponsible they are.  I ranked the IRS based upon previous experience more competent than the VA.  That is a mistake I will not repeat any time soon, as the VA and the IRS are in a neck and neck race to the bottom!  Consider how the IRS sends you paper mail notifications; if you have questions, you are referred to a website for answers and provided several customer service numbers.  Except, when the website fails, you call the notifications’ numbers and are told that you need to visit the website for faster service.  The website refers you back to customer service, whose phone queues are always so full you are automatically disconnected after being reminded to use the website for faster service.

As my mind experiences a total meltdown, I begin twitching, and my head eventually explodes; check out this cat picture:Funny Cat Backgrounds, Pictures, ImagesDignified Stray Cat Photos Celebrate Their Unique Beauty

Some will declare this is a one-off incident; surely, the IRS is not this dysfunctional.  Try it for yourself sometime.  I never ask anyone ever to, believe me, experience this for yourself.  Check out the IRS website https://irs.gov.  Try to get solid and reliable information, and see how fast your head wants to explode.  I have been trying to appeal a decision the IRS made arbitrarily since 21 March 2022 and gotten nowhere fast.  Best of all, I have a deadline of 20 May 2022 to register an appeal, yet the website cannot answer my questions and points me back to the phone number on my notification.  The phone number auto-answer assistant refers me back to the website shortly before disconnecting my call.

As a small business owner, I had trouble getting my Tax ID number; the website said to call customer support, the phone number referred me back to the website and then disconnected my call because the queues were too full.  Ad Nauseum Ad Infinitum, but the joke is undoubtedly on me; the IRS proclaims they respect my time and are anxious to resolve the concern.  Can’t you just feel the concern and anxiety emanating from the IRS?  Where are the elected officials who need to be scrutinizing the Executive Branch and demanding better returns on the taxpayer’s investment?

As my mind experiences another total meltdown, I begin twitching, and my head eventually explodes; check out this cat picture:Cats wallpaper - Cats Wallpaper (5194935) - FanpopJust say nope | Grumpy Cat | Know Your Meme

If you’re keeping count, this is the third recent article on the culture of corruption at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in as many weeks.  No, I am not behind; the rate of the frequency of VA – Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) reports has legitimately been this overwhelming.  Never forget, an indictment is not a conviction, and perpetrators remain innocent until proven guilty in a court of law and the trial and sentencing have been completed.

“Hunter Matthew Burroughs and Stephen Keith Andrews were indicted by a federal grand jury in Fort Smith, Arkansas, for their roles in three separate conspiracies to defraud the US government and private workers’ compensation insurers.  Their alleged crimes include a billing and kickback fraud scheme with multiple physicians and medical clinics and separate fraud schemes involving the shipment of medications from Arkansas to two Louisiana physicians, who then distributed those medications from their clinics in violation of Louisiana laws.  Additionally, Burroughs was charged with wire fraud for allegedly falsifying emails he provided in a civil lawsuit involving his sale of the company.”

Not to be outdone:

“Robin Calef of Brockton, Massachusetts, was sentenced to one month in prison followed by three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to one count of theft of public funds in November 2021.  She was also ordered to pay restitution of $102,289 to the VA.  In December 2006, Calef’s sister was receiving VA monthly benefits, passed away.  She failed to inform the VA of her sister’s death, and the VA continued to deposit monthly benefits into a joint bank account held by Calef and her sister until September 2017.  Bank records revealed that Calef made monthly withdrawals of approximately the exact amount of VA benefit funds deposited into the joint account.”

And:

“Derrick Brewer of Enfield, Connecticut, pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government funds.  In March 2018, Brewer submitted paperwork to the VA offices in Hartford as part of an application for service-connected disability benefits.  Specifically, he submitted form DD-214, which indicated that his discharge from his former service in the US Coast Guard was characterized as “Honorable.” However, the form had been altered before its submission.  According to official Coast Guard records, Brewer’s discharge was characterized as “Other Than Honorable Conditions” following his convictions under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  There is no record of the discharge characterization ever being upgraded.  As a result of this submission, Brewer collected nearly $70,000 in VA benefits from March 2018 through September 2020.  Sentencing is scheduled for 27 May 2022.”

And:

“Sarah Jane Cavanaugh of Warwick, Rhode Island, was arrested on charges of using forged or counterfeited military discharge certificates, wire fraud, and fraudulently holding herself out to be a medal recipient to obtain money and property or another tangible benefit, and aggravated identity theft.  It is alleged that Cavanaugh claimed to be a wounded US Marine Corps veteran and recipient of a Purple Heart and Bronze Star and schemed to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in veteran benefits and charitable contributions from organizations that provide monetary aid; to veterans in need.”

And:

“From 2002 to 2019, Terrie Lynn Christian of Newaygo, Michigan, engaged in a fraudulent scheme that targeted children’s benefits programs administered by VA and the Social Security Administration (SSA).  This scheme, which involved obtaining benefits for two fictitious children, resulted in government losses of over $660,000, including approximately $110,000 for VA.  Christian was sentenced in US District Court to 30 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and restitution of over $660,000.  The VA OIG and SSA OIG investigated this case.”

Do you notice anything odd in these stories of fraud; the documents did not stand up to scrutiny, but fraud was still perpetrated.  I have authentic documents proving service; I have had to present original documents several times and sign affidavits testifying these documents are my documents.  I am a veteran, and under the threat of severe penalties, I swore that I was not attempting to defraud the US Government.  Would someone please explain how these people, and so many others, can commit fraud so frequently?  Would someone please explain how the VHA and the VBA accepted clearly doctored documents and fraud executed?  Finally, where are the VBA and VA employees being held accountable for failing to do their jobs and allowing this fraud to be perpetrated with complicity?Mediocrity Joke

Time after time, I have been denied help, been given the bureaucratic runaround, and refused assistance until my documentation can be certified.  Then after my documents are approved, they are still rejected by bureaucrats who refuse to do their jobs.  Yet, crimes and fraud are perpetrated with the same bureaucratic inertia and complicit behavior.  Elected officials, do you understand why taxpayers are frustrated?

What reignites the explosion of my head is that these are only two of the multiplicity of government agencies.  Nobody knows how much fraud is perpetrated by employees and customers, and worse, even fewer care.  Elected officials, will you please explain why you are not more concerned and avidly involved in ending the fraud?

Let me cast your mind backward to 2005.  United States v. Alvarez, 567 US 709, is a case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 was unconstitutional.  The Stolen Valor Act of 2005 was a federal law that criminalized false statements about having a military medal.  Elected officials, when the judges legislated from the bench, overstepping their authority, why didn’t you immediately go back to work and redraft legislation to end the theft of valor and penalize people committing fraud?  Instead, you rolled over like a dead, bloated, floating body, and valor theft has worsened!Plato 3

Elected officials, why have you not drafted new legislation to curb government theft?  Why have you consistently refused to act to curb the bureaucrats from abusing taxpayers?  Why do you remain silent on the shrinking morals in America that open the doors for more abuse of the law?  We elected you to the office to take action; what are you doing?  Yes, mayors, city councilors, judges, dog catchers, school board members, county commissioners, and every other single officer elected, you are included in this plea for action!

Dont Tread On MeAgain, I implore you, the voters, to scrutinize your elected officials for their continued employment.  Yes, start today.  I know the elections are months away, but it requires time to evaluate performance, become knowledgeable, and prepare to act on election day.  You deserve a better government, and those in office deserve to be unemployed!

© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

“That’s Crazy!!!” – More Chronicles from the VA Chapter 5

I-CareI had originally planned on writing something else today, but my mental train was derailed, caught on fire, and I had to change my plans.  18 March 2022, I received an email signed from Sonja Brown of the Albuquerque VAMCS, who discussed how it takes 10-20 years for the VA to make a decision about which clinics to close, how to build new clinics, and the possibility of change (not) occurring in the New Mexico VA Medical System.  Doesn’t that warm your heart; two decades is a maximum timeframe for ending unprofitable clinics to save the taxpayer money.  Now multiply this problem by every government agency, and we find the reason for reducing the government bloat!VA 3

Luckily, I still have VA-OIG reports to discuss, not that I got behind, but February and March have been especially prolific.  In January, the pace set appears to be sustained, at least for the first quarter of 2022.  Some have commented that I do not write very often about the National Cemetery side of the VA’s voluminous bureaucracy.  Your wish is granted; a whistleblower reported that the Houston National Cemetery was not being operated properly.  The VA-OIG substantiated “some of the claims made by the whistleblower.”  However, the leadership at the Houston National Cemetery had, for the most part, already begun making changes before the VA-OIG arrived.

Thus, I congratulate the Houston National Cemetery leadership for being almost proactive and 100% more responsible than any leadership in the VHA and VBA.  My heartiest gratitude to you and your staff.  May you continue to show initiative, forward-thinking, and attention to detail, and may the rest of the VA’s hegemonically impotent leaders learn from your example.VA 3

A Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection (CHIP) was conducted at the James J. Peters VAMC in the Bronx, NY.  While a lot of the report is cookie-cutter, similar to all the other CHIPs that cross my inbox, I remain fascinated with a frequently used term from the report, “Servant Leadership.”  From the website linked, we find the following to define “servant leadership” at the VA:

“We are all leaders, all of the time.
Servant Leadership is an approach for optimizing the delivery of client-centered services by strengthening employees to be an engaged and empowered workforce.  The philosophy and practice of Servant Leadership is one that emphasizes caring, authenticity, and putting clients and employees first, and ahead of personal goals or leadership aspirations.  Servant Leaders strive to meet both organizational objectives and the growth / development of their workforce.”

Please note ALL the grammar and punctuation errors are included in that quote.  Far be it for me to pass along any advice on grammar, spelling, punctuation, and proper communication techniques.  But, even this quoted material reflects the fact that there is a Grand Canyon-like chasm between DC leadership and the worm’s eye-view in a VA Hospital, VBA operations center, or the National Cemetery.  Be a leader at the VA, and you will NOT last your probationary period after hire; I have experienced this personally!VA 3

Worse, try and help the VA from the worm’s eye to see the problems and fix the issues, and the VA Leadership will chop you into little tiny pieces and feed your carcass to the fishes.  Yet, every single CHIP report mentions problems with “servant leadership” as opportunities for growth and development.  More bureaucratese for designed incompetence as an excuse, the VA-OIG will believe.  How sick to death I am of these shenanigans!  Don’t believe me; check out the full CHIP report, it’s linked above, read a few of the other CHIP reports from the VA-OIG, and discuss the actual problems you think the VA is experiencing.

Servant Leadership is officially defined, by Purdue University, quoting Robert Greenleaf from 1970, as:

“The servant-leader is servant first.  It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve first … a philosophy and set of practices that [enrich] the lives of individuals, builds better organizations and ultimately creates a more just and caring world.”

Notice a problem between the two definitions of servant leadership?  Recognize an issue yet with the entire concept of servant-leadership?  Let me give you a hint through a question, What does a “just and caring world” really define?  The whole concept of servant leadership is easily twisted, plasticized, and framed in a way that removes liberty, destroys justice, and wrecks havoc on a free society, all because the philosophy sounds good, but the practice leaves chaos and destruction in the name of creating a more just and caring world.Servant Leadership and Health Care: Critical Partners in Changing Times

I am not condemning anyone who wants to try and improve their leadership skills through learning servant leadership or applying some of the servant leadership philosophies in their leadership toolbox.  I am merely stating that care and caution should be used when trying to reshape the world on such ambiguous and amorphous terms as “just and caring.”  The VA is trying to force a leadership template for all leaders to follow.  This type of leadership philosophy warps the world and makes leaders into managers with excuses for failure, e.g., designed incompetence.

On a different topic, please read the following carefully:

“The VA Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) reviews nonpharmaceutical proposals submitted to the VA National Acquisition Center (NAC) for Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts valued annually at $10 million or more for high tech medical equipment, $3 million or more for all other FSS contracts, $100,000 or more based on manufacturer sales under dealers or resellers, or as requested by the NAC.”

Here is why the above is critical:

“The VA-OIG determined commercial disclosures were accurate, complete, and current for only 24 of the 103 proposals reviewed.  This means 24 proposals were reliable for determining negotiation objectives and fair and reasonable pricing.  The remaining 79 could not reliably be used for negotiations until the noted deficiencies were corrected.  The OIG recommended lower prices than offered for 76 proposals.”

If you, in your employment, had a 23% accuracy rate, and someone else had to come behind you, redoing all of your work, how long would you last in your job?  Note there are still 3 proposals that do not meet regulations and requirements out of 103 contract reviews.  Read the rest of this incredible report for yourself and know what your elected representatives are failing to curtail and control.  Then answer the following question: “Why should we re-elect ANY of the current elected officials?”VA 3

On the topic of designed incompetence of an almost criminal nature, we find the VBA still making headlines and breaking rules of ethics, morals, and logic with aplomb!  Before getting into the VA-OIG report, it is crucial to note that the VBA has exclusively gone to a third-party model for Compensation and Pension exams.  The most important part of the VBA’s operations, the comp and pen exam, is now conducted solely by third-party contracts companies.  A VA doctor sees a person trying to get their benefits from the VBA no longer but a third-party physician’s assistant at best, who is (supposedly) overseen by a medical doctor.  The lack of transparency and the complicated processes of the VBA are gordian, and transparency is hidden; read that as missing entirely.You know it's true - Imgflip

Here comes the VA-OIG, not to the rescue, but to rub salt into the wounds of veterans whose claims continue to be denied for lack of evidence.

“[The] VBA complied with the requirements of the law by reinstating 69 questionnaires on its public-facing website.  However, disability benefits questionnaires that were incomplete, inaccurate, or of questionable authenticity from non-VA medical providers were not always processed correctly when determining benefits entitlement—causing underpayments of about $13,900 and overpayments of $74,800 over the nine months studied.

Improper processing occurred because VBA lacked sufficient controls to ensure disability benefits questionnaires from non-VA medical providers were properly relied on when determining entitlement to benefits.”

Let’s let this sink in for a moment.  The VBA moved to a third-party model, then denied access to the VBA’s questionnaires to determine benefits, then had to be forced to reinstate the questionnaires.  Improper VBA processes and procedures led to over and underpayments of benefits, and claims processors still do not have the tools to make informed and logical decisions reliably.  Best of all, veracity (questionable authenticity) remains questioned in the process when the third-party contractor submits the forms for benefits.VA 3

You cannot make this stuff up; fiction writers can come nowhere close to creating a story this inane!  Is designed incompetence as a concept clear now?  The VBA developed a process using a more expensive model and then questioned the inputs for veracity from the contracted party, and the veteran suffered more!  Do you think the VBA intentionally designs its processes to help and create a more just and caring world (servant leadership)?  I think the VBA intentionally designed their processes to screw veterans in the hope they die before the government ever pays money on their claims.  Let me know what you think in the comment section, for this is a travesty of justice anyway I slice the data.

As a veteran who has been trying to get a compensation and pension decision corrected since leaving the service in 2004, having suffered both overpayments, which I had to repay, underpayments, and erroneous overpayments where the funds paid were (eventually) refunded, the news from the VBA designed incompetence is a particular form of hell for me to read and discuss.  I have had the third-party comp and pen exam doctors refuse to see me three times in the last two years.  Delaying a VBA decision repeatedly.  I have had the VBA reject the third-party data and a new comp and pen exam scheduled, rescheduled because I cannot wear a mask, and then conducted by a hostile and infuriating provider who refused to listen to the patient.Are you an Incompetent Developer? - Web Development & Web Design Blog

When veterans talk about fighting the VBA for a fair and honest decision, they mean a literal fight!  Don’t take my word for it; ask veterans how their comp and pen exam has gone; when you find those struggling with the VBA, listen carefully to their stories, and you will hear very similar stories.  The VBA represents government inefficiency, designed incompetence, and bureaucratic inertia to the Nth degree!

The following link might, or might not, work as intended; the link directs you to all testimony recorded from congressional hearings.  If it works, you will be able to read the statement of David Case, Deputy IG, who was testifying before the HVAC subcommittee on drafted legislation “Quality Education for Veterans Act of 2022”.  A brief synopsis from his testimony is included below:

“This bill would significantly strengthen the OIG’s efforts to prevent fraud in VA’s education and training programs.  Given that more than $10 billion in taxpayer funds is expended on education and training programs each year and hundreds of thousands of veterans, service members, and family members receive these benefits, the OIG supports efforts to strengthen programmatic and beneficiary protections.  The statutory changes in the draft bill do not appear to be burdensome or costly to educational institutions or VA, and yet they have the potential to make a significant impact on the amount of education fraud that occurs.  The OIG agrees that these changes would work to lessen the harm suffered by veterans and beneficiaries and reduce losses to the government.”

Ever wonder how much a VA-OIG inspection costs or where and how the VA-OIG is funded; here is the answer and the problem.  Tell me, why is the VA-OIG not financed from the VA budget?  Simple question, not hard, and requires an explanation!  The explanation should be detailed, transparent, and I guarantee that the answer will reflect the designed incompetence and failure to scrutinize the executive branch adequately.  The VA is one of the few, if not the only, Federal Government Agency with a specialized inspectorate general, dedicated solely to independent oversight and continuous improvement of the VA.  I think the VA-OIG might be failing in its mission.VA 3

Fraud is rampant in the VA because the VA refuses to act, work, change, and improve.  How will throwing more money at VA programs alleviate the hurt, stop the fraud, and spur continuous improvement?  Almost every week, my inbox fills with accounts of fraud occurring, but the roots of the problems are never addressed, and people are not held accountable for failing to perform the work they were hired to complete.  Failing to hold people responsible promotes fraud, waste, and abuse.  Allowing whistleblowers to be fired promotes a discouraged whistleblowing culture, and the perpetrators are allowed to continue their nefarious misdeeds!  How is the VA-OIG going to tackle these systemic issues in the culture at the VA?  When will continuous improvement begin; I do not want to miss growth and development!

Knowledge Check!America, the VA is sick.  A symptom not a disease; the larger disease is a refusal to act morally upright.  The majority of those employed in the behemoth of government service have little to no moral compunction, are not servants of the taxpayer, and consider themselves “Too BIG to fail.”  We need a smaller government, and I hope this message helps enlighten and support shrinking the government!

© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

New Year – Same Ol’ Disaster at the VA! – Are You Disgusted yet?

Angry Wet ChickenWords fail to describe how much I detest seeing the same abuses week-after-week, month-after-month, and year-over-year.  To witness the disaster known colloquially as The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), as told from the Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG).  Not merely witnessing but also being abused by the VA leaves such a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Matthew C. McPherson of Olathe, Kansas, was sentenced to two years and four months in federal prison without parole for defrauding the government.  From September 2009 to March 2018, McPherson participated in a conspiracy to obtain contracts set aside by the federal government for award to small businesses owned and controlled by veterans, service-disabled veterans, and certified minorities.  McPherson, who is neither a certified minority nor a veteran, owned and operated construction companies that used the veteran or minority status of coconspirators to obtain federal contracts to which the companies would otherwise not be entitled.  The companies received approximately $346 million in federal contracts.  On June 3, 2019, McPherson pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and major program fraud.  In addition to his prison sentence, McPherson has forfeited to the government more than $5.5 million, which represents his share of the fraud proceeds.”

Honest question, how is this fraud any different from an elected official using insider trading to profit off the stock market?  On another note, does this sound like a plea deal?  If so, what was the deal, and who is being targeted?  Plea deals used to be rare; now, they are cropping up anytime the government has a shaky case.  Could Mr. McPherson have beaten the entire crime by using a better lawyer or connecting with a more powerful politician; of course, and that is disgusting!

I have applied for these government contracts, and the paperwork burden is immense, the bureaucrats authoritative and disreputable.  When will the bureaucrats face criminal charges for abuse of power in allowing for the defrauding of government?  Simple question, yet one to which no elected official will address.VA 3

Speaking of fraud and the need for bureaucrats needing to be held accountable:

“Dr. David Bellamah, a vascular surgeon who operates vein and surgery centers in Missoula and Kalispell, Montana, has agreed to pay the federal government $3.7 million to settle alleged False Claims Act violations.  According to the civil complaint, from January 1, 2015, to March 31, 2017, Bellamah performed medically unnecessary surgeries based on improper techniques and submitted fraudulent bills for payment to four federal healthcare programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, and CHAMPVA.  The settlement agreement between Bellamah and the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Montana, Department of Health and Human Services OIG, Defense Health Agency, VA, and a third party directs Bellamah to pay approximately $1.9 million in restitution and $1.8 million in additional damages.”

The article link is missing from the VA.gov website, reason unknown as of this writing.  I received an email about this story, which is why I know of it, but cannot link someone else to it.  Still, the questions remain, someone in the VA legion of bureaucrats had to have known and contributed to facilitating this fraud, and they are not being held accountable.  Why?

  • “Patsy Truglia of Parkland, Florida, was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for his role in two consecutive conspiracies to commit healthcare fraud.  According to a multiagency investigation, from January 2018 to April 2019, Truglia and his coconspirators generated medically unnecessary physicians’ orders via a telemarketing operation for durable medical equipment (DME).”
  • “Ramón Julbe-Rosa pleaded guilty to 12 counts including theft of government property and introducing unapproved new drugs into the United States.  His multiple fraud schemes included defrauding the Social Security Administration and Medicare by receiving Social Security Disability Insurance benefit payments while working; fraudulently receiving unemployability benefits from VA; and falsely stating that his primary residence—purported to be in Morovis, Puerto Rico—was damaged by Hurricane Maria, leading to the fraudulent approval of a Small Business Administration Disaster loan.”
  • “Wayne Bowen of Jacksonville, Florida, has pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft for using his estranged identical twin brother’s name, Social Security card, and military discharge papers to apply for federally subsidized housing benefits.  Due to his fraudulent use of his twin’s identity.”
  • “Matthew Smith of Palm Beach, Florida, has pleaded guilty to his role in a compounding pharmacy scheme that defrauded the Department of Defense’s Tricare and VA’s CHAMPVA benefit programs of approximately $88 million.  Smith admitted to his role in fraudulently billing the two insurance providers for expensive, medically unnecessary compound drugs.  To further the scheme, Smith and his coconspirators paid approximately $40 million in kickbacks to patients, patient recruiters, and doctors in exchange for them ordering expensive pain creams, scar creams, and vitamins without regard to the patients’ medical needs.”
  • “Seven Texas doctors have agreed to pay more than $1.1 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations involving illegal remuneration in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark Law.  According to a multiagency investigation, from 2015 to 2018, the doctors allegedly received thousands of dollars in illegal remuneration from eight management service organizations (MSOs) in exchange for ordering laboratory tests from Rockdale Hospital doing business as Little River Healthcare, True Health Diagnostics LLC, and Boston Heart Diagnostics Corporation.  Little River funded the illegal remuneration to the doctors in the form of volume-based commissions paid to independent contractor recruiters, who used the MSOs to pay numerous doctors for their referrals.”

?u=http3.bp.blogspot.com-CIl2VSm-mmgTZ0wMvH5UGIAAAAAAAAB20QA9_IiyVhYss1600showme_board3.jpg&f=1&nofb=1Take a moment, read the full articles reporting these crimes, and ask yourself, have ALL the guilty parties been held accountable before the law, or are some parties noticeably missing?  If you reach different conclusions, please note this in the comments, and let’s discuss.  Show me your thinking, I want to learn!

Fraud, to succeed, requires willing people in positions of authority not to do their jobs properly.  Yet, for all the rules, mandates, political attention, and legislation, the fraud continues.  Why; because if you are the approving authority and have a plausible excuse, you are never held accountable!  The situation is untenable; the maze of red tape regulations preclude honest people from participating and opens the doors for nefarious actors to swindle, cheat, steal, and profit.  Simple question, when will those legally responsible for not allowing fraudulent activities be held accountable?VA 3

The VA-OIG conducted a Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection (CHIPs) of the Charles George VAMC in Asheville, North Carolina.  Want to understand more about the quagmire of the VA personally?  Read one of these CHIP reports.  Long have I wondered how leadership could be fully measured when the leader of the hospital leadership team has been in their position for two (2) days.  The VA-OIG couches this by claiming the associate director had been in the role for 18-years.  Do you see a problem?VA 3

Where and how are veterans being abused, staff training, and the “Disruptive behavior committee.”  Some might ask, how is staff training an abuse to veterans?  What do you consider “disruptive behavior?”  Did you know if you ask a doctor questions, that doctor can report you as presenting disruptive behavior to the Federal VA Police and get the veteran charged and fined?  If you request to speak to the administrators and they refuse, you can also be charged with presenting disruptive behavior, hindering hospital operations, disturbing patients, being arrested, and fined?  The bureaucrats have designed a self-fulfilling system in the VA that protects wrong-doing and punishes anyone who dares question the status quo, and this is trained into the employees.  Worse, this is about the only training they receive that is competently delivered!

A CHIP was completed at VISN 8, the Sunshine Healthcare Network in St. Petersburg, Florida.  Congratulations are for passing the CHIP with only two recommendations for improvement.  Honestly issued praise.  My concern is the low bar for success that was surpassed, but this is not the fault of VISN 8’s leadership, but the VA leadership in Washington, DC.VA 3

Long have these articles mentioned and decried the designed incompetence found in every single process, procedure, and action taken by the VA.  It is not surprising then that design incompetence is still seen and cost resources.  Nothing new, but you, the taxpayer, need to be aware of this, for the excuses have run so thin you can read contractual mouse print through the excuses!

The history:

“In October 2017, VA entered into an interagency agreement with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to use its Electronic Catalog (ECAT) to order VA medical supplies and equipment not available through existing contracts.  VA created the ECAT Ordering Guide to describe VA policies and procedures for placing orders and outline the ordering officials’ responsibilities.  As of April 1, 2021, VA had spent approximately $592 million on purchases through ECAT.”

The findings:

“The VA-OIG found that the Procurement and Logistics Office (P&LO) did not govern the ECAT program adequately.

    • The ECAT Ordering Guide excludes the requirement for VA ordering officials to consider the Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts for sales orders; purchasing through FSS could have saved VA up to $4.4 million.
    • The guide also incorrectly describes how to apply the Rule of Two, potentially excluding veteran-owned businesses from contracting opportunities.
    • Ordering officials did not follow documentation requirements in the ECAT Ordering Guide, and P&LO did not conduct required annual reviews of the interagency agreement.”

Do you see the designed incompetence?  The VA gets green-lighted to consolidate ordering to save time and money, then develops the processes and procedures to open the door for fraud, theft, and abuse, providing excuses for the VA-OIG to accept when responsibility and auditing occurs.  Hence, roadblocks are launched instead of saving money and reducing the government’s costs.  Instead of bringing order out of chaos, more logs of chaos are added to the fire.VA 3

Worst of all, the VA-OIG has to invest money to tell the VA common-sense solutions, couched as recommendations, to fix the problems the VA purposefully designed into the process.  That is your tax dollars at work, your neighbors losing opportunities, and your employers getting the shaft intentionally by the VA.  Again, only for emphasis, I ask, “When will the bureaucrats be held accountable for their malfeasance and culpability in abusing people, committing fraud and theft, and refusing to do their jobs properly?”

When discussing malfeasance and designed incompetence, the following inspection at the Carl T. Hayden VAMC in Phoenix, Arizona, is applicable as an example.  The VA-OIG conducted an inspection to assess allegations concerning sterile processing services.  The list of findings reveals a lot of bureaucratic shenanigans, and with my knowledge of the leadership, I deduce the shenanigans were driven by leadership at the hospital.

  • The VA-OIG found Sterile Processing Services (SPS) staff failed to don personal protective equipment in decontamination areas.
  • The VA-OIG did not substantiate that SPS staff falsified Resi-Tests by documenting the same lot number for endoscopes.
  • The VA-OIG identified missing documentation of Resi-Test results from October through December 2020 but found that the policy was followed. Leading to a question about the effectiveness of the policies and the designed incompetence in those policies and procedures, which the VA-OIG never addressed as this would have been outside the investigatory scope; more designed incompetence?
  • The VA-OIG found no infection concerns associated with inadequate reprocessing of equipment.
  • The VA-OIG did not substantiate that SPS staff failed to follow validation testing requirements for biological indicators and Bowie-Dick tests for sterilizers.
  • The VA-OIG found that SPS staff followed reprocessing steps according to standard operating procedures and instructions for use.
  • The VA-OIG did not substantiate that SPS staff did not have adequate reprocessing supplies.
  • The VA-OIG found that floor-grade instruments received in decontamination areas were discarded and not reprocessed.
  • The VA-OIG found that SPS staff reviewed instructions for loaner trays upon receipt at the facility.
  • The VA-OIG did not substantiate that SPS staff failed to receive documentation for instruments sterilized at another VA facility.
  • The VA-OIG concluded that SPS leaders were knowledgeable of the practice standards.VA 3

Again, a mixed bag of findings.  After a tumultuous year of sterile scandals, it is refreshing (almost) to observe a sterile facility operating at standard.  Draw your own conclusions about the role of the leadership in this inspection.  To me, the most critical part of sterilization of reusable equipment is the proper use of personal protective equipment, but the VA-OIG did not appear to see this as crucial as I do.  From the inspections I have experienced, failing to use personal protective equipment properly is an automatic failing grade, but the VA-OIG only made a single recommendation for improvement.

quote-mans-inhumanity-2While the above are not all the reports from the VA-OIG launching 2022, they present the bulk of the criticisms and reflect the need for greater scrutiny and improved leadership at the VA.  More to the point, these represent the danger the American public is in from a runaway government that keeps biggering (with a nod to The Lorax and Dr. Seuss)!  The VA is abusing your veteran neighbors, and you are paying for it.  Doesn’t this stir in you feelings motivating to action?  If not, please ask yourself why.  Do veterans deserve to be abused relentlessly?  Do you like being complicit in a crime perpetrated by bureaucrats, cheered on by elected officials, and paid for by your tax dollars and the future of your children through forced taxation and out-of-control debt?  The choice is yours, I know my choice, and I WILL continue to resist the government atrocities every step of the way!

© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

What Draws People Together? – A Discussion

Father MulcahyWith gratitude to C. S. Lewis, today’s article is not meant to be my pontificating on a particular topic, but a discussion where we work to find commonality and increase knowledge.  I cannot stress this enough; I am not the end-all resource on a topic, especially topics I remain utterly ignorant about.  Love, friendship, charity, and many more are topics I am learning about and if you are a subject matter expert, feel free to join the conversation, add comments below, and let’s learn together.

As we begin, I will stress one more point; it is a pattern I have learned well.  “We teach that we may learn more perfectly.”  Thus, while I remain thoroughly ignorant, I will teach what I know, what I have found, and what I suspect so that I may learn more perfectly what I desire.  Welcome!

“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” ― C.S. Lewis

As a kid, love was getting beat, having chores heaped up, and being punished as my mother was God’s right-hand person.  Her favorite saying was, “That was God punishing you for what you did.”  I have had a complicated relationship with God ever since I could remember.  Worse, this relationship has been clouded with a misunderstanding about love, chastisement, and punishment.  The quote above from C. S. Lewis is one I have been thinking about and continue to try and understand its application.

“What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.” ― C.S. Lewis

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’” ― C.S. Lewis

These two messages on friendship are, to me, very important.  But, I have found that the importance varies based upon whether people form around a personality trait or a truth.  For example, I choose to be a bibliophile.  Books are fundamental to my personality, identity, and methods of looking at the world.  But not all books are worthy of being in my library or possessing the same value.  When I find people who have read the same book, found similar truths, these people become value-added relationships, and together we move forward.  As a foodie, as a baker, as a distinguished eater of good foods, I have met many people.  But very few of them joined my society for very long, as their association is built upon food, not truth.  Are the distinguishing characteristics understood?

“You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” ― C.S. Lewis

Consider this unique perspective and inherent truth; we are immortal spirits having a mortal experience.  But, inherent in this truth from C. S. Lewis is the individual’s choice to be either an immortal horror or everlasting splendor.  To some people, I am an immortal horror because of my actions in their society, and to these people, I offer a sincere apology.  These people know who they are, know how they were hurt, and if I could, I wish, I could go back in time and change my actions.  I wish the opposite were true, that there were people who would consider me an eternal splendor, for that is what I have been working to achieve in human relations for a long time now.  Still, I remain an immortal personality, spirit, and individual.

“Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive.” ― C.S. Lewis

Or something to be forgiven for… do you think C. S. Lewis intentionally left this part out in this statement?  What is more difficult, forgiving someone else, forgiving ourselves, or being forgiven?  I do not have this answer, but I find the question intriguing.  I am not venturing into religion, religiosity, or preaching religious dogma in asking this question.  I am merely asking for consideration of a tool.  Forgiveness is a useful tool, for, through forgiveness, we begin the process of forgetting, healing from physical, spiritual, and mental/emotional wounds.  Wounds that cannot find closure and healing any other way.  But one of the things I learned about injuries is focusing on them, poking them, ripping scabs off, all these things, and more are reopening those wounds, where forgiveness is like a really good bandage that holds both a pain reliever and a healing cream to speed healing.  Yet, how often do we refuse this tool, or worse, use this tool for a limited amount, not allowing the entire wound to heal?

“..Friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

I have met some ugly people whose physical features are terrible, but they are beautiful and lovely immortal beings.  On the opposite, I have unfortunately met some physically beautiful people who are ravening wolves and immortal horrors, where I curse the day we ever crossed paths.  What never ceases to amaze me is that physical beauty and internal splendor or horror are not mutually exclusive or inclusive.  The physical is generally the results of choices others have made and reflect the injuries overcome, whereas the internal is all individual choices, compounded over time, into horror or splendor.  One of the truths I have found is patience is generally the perfect revelator of another person’s horror or splendor, and rushing the judgment always leads to a need for forgiveness.

“We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Do we understand this pattern, as laid out by C. S. Lewis?  How often has a good friend promoted solitude, silence, and private thoughts and contemplations within ourselves that have led to meditation and deeper friendships?  I married my best friend.  Sometimes we fight like brothers, more often though her input has caused this pattern to be unfolded to me in new and interesting ways.  Sometimes we disagree on topics and get quite vocal in our discussions.  Sometimes we disagree quietly and wait for the other to come around when in reality, we are generally waiting for ourselves to realize and learn.  For the better part of almost three decades, we have lived after the manner of learners, and this friendship has only deepened.  Even though sometimes frustrations run high, the friendship has value for inspiring this pattern to be effective.

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” ― C.S. Lewis

“Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.” ― C.S. Lewis

Does hardship ever come without pain?  I remember my first week or so in US Army Basic Training; the pain in my muscles was incredible, and the torture of physical exercise I thought was going to kill me.  Yet, I put on weight (muscle) because of basic training, I learned endurance, and the results have been nothing but beneficial.  Thus, I could say, basic training was a megaphone of pain to rouse a deaf person to action, and the resulting life changes have been extraordinary.  Do we kick and curse the pain, or do we hold deep to the hope that the pain will lead to something extraordinary?  The choice is important, the pain is temporary (always), and the resulting consequences determine our destiny.

“The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only – and that is to support the ultimate career. ” ― C.S. Lewis

Never Give Up!We conclude with this thought and provide honor to those who are the homemakers!  One of the first things I learned as a military dependent is that the military spouses, the homemakers who watch hearth and tend the wounds, are incredible people.  As a military servicemember, I learned a new appreciation for my homemaker and the friends and family who supported her in the ultimate career.  As a veteran, my appreciation for the role of the ultimate career professional has only deepened and widened.  As we go into Thanksgiving celebrations, remember the homemakers, male and female, who, through tending hearth and home, make the job of supporting the homemaker easier and more bearable.

© Copyright 2021 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

That’s Crazy!!! – More Chronicles from the VA (CH 4)

Angry Wet ChickenHave you ever been so embarrassed by something that any mention seems to depress you?  I am in this position right now; the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) – Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) has released more investigation reports and analyses of the VA.  Analyses that should be cause for the most profound concern by congressional representatives, and instead, they act like nothing is wrong, nothing to see here, go away.  Well, I am too embarrassed to “go away,” and I demand action to clean house and curb this atrocious behavior!

“Courage involves pain and is justly praised, for it is harder to face what is painful than to abstain from what is pleasant.” – Aristotle

Too often, I am left asking where the Federal Government Employees are and what their responsibility is in fraudulent schemes.  For example, we begin with a $50 Million scheme that had to have been suspicious to employees at Medicare, TRICARE, CHAMPVA, and many other health benefit programs.

  • Nicholas Defonte and Christopher Cirri, both of Toms River, New Jersey, and Pat Truglia of Parkland, Florida, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. Each defendant played a role in defrauding healthcare benefits by offering, paying, soliciting, and receiving kickbacks and bribes in exchange for completed doctors’ orders for durable medical equipment, specifically orthotic braces. The defendants then fraudulently billed Medicare, TRICARE, the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA), and other healthcare benefit programs. Cirri, Defonte, and their conspirators owned and operated multiple call centers where they obtained prescriptions for compound medications and other medical products reimbursable by federal and private healthcare benefit programs. The defendants caused losses to Medicare, TRICARE, and CHAMPVA of approximately $50 million.VA 3

Next, we see another case where Federal employees should have been aware, vocal, and the problems fixed before the scheme turned three years old.

  • Matthew Camera of Erie, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty to violating federal drug laws. From January 2017 to June 2020, while employed as the pharmacy chief at the VA medical center in Erie, he unlawfully obtained multiple dosage units of hydrocodone and oxycodone from pill bottles awaiting delivery to VA patients. Sentencing is scheduled for March 22, 2022.
  • Michael Nolan of Tampa, Florida, and Richard Epstein, of Aurora, Colorado, were sentenced in a conspiracy to defraud two federal health benefit programs, Medicare and the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA). From October 2016 through April 2019, Epstein and Nolan ran a telemarketing company in Tampa called REMN Management LLC that targeted the elderly to generate thousands of medically unnecessary physicians’ orders for durable medical equipment and cancer genetic testing. Epstein and Nolan also created and operated Comprehensive Telcare LLC, a telemedicine company through which they illegally bribed physicians to sign the orders regardless of medical necessity. They then illegally sold the signed physicians’ orders to client-conspirators to support false and fraudulent claims submitted to Medicare and CHAMPVA. The conspiracy resulted in the submission of at least $134 million in fraudulent claims and approximately $29 million in payments. Nolan was sentenced to six years and six months in federal prison, followed by three years supervised release and was ordered to pay $2.1 million. Epstein was sentenced to five years and three months in federal prison, followed by three years supervised release and was ordered to pay $3 million. The court ordered Nolan, Epstein, and other conspirators to pay over $29 million in restitution.
  • Twenty people, including the two founders of Hertel & Brown Physical & Aquatic Therapy and 18 of its employees, were indicted in Erie County, Pennsylvania, of conspiracy to commit wire and healthcare fraud and healthcare fraud. According to the indictment, the defendants engaged in a multifaceted conspiracy from January 2007 to October 2021 that involved a range of fraudulent activities. These included allegedly using unlicensed technicians to provide therapy and then billing for the treatment as though licensed therapists had performed it, regularly billing for treatment using the name and credentials of physical therapists who were on vacation, recording, and billing for time that exceeded the actual treatment time, among several other allegations.
  • Robin Calef of Brockton, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty to one count of theft of public funds. Calef shared a bank account with her sister, a veteran receiving monthly benefits from the VA. Her sister passed away in 2006, and Calef failed to report her death to the VA. Through September 2017, Calef stole approximately $102,289 in VA funds from the shared bank account. Sentencing is scheduled for March 1, 2022.
  • Lisa Hoffman, a former pharmacy procurement technician at the East Orange VA Medical Center in New Jersey, pleaded guilty to theft of government property. From October 2015 to November 2019, Hoffman was responsible for ordering medication, including large quantities of HIV medication, for the center’s outpatient pharmacy. She stole approximately $10 million worth of HIV medication and sold it to Wagner Checonolasco of Lyndhurst, New Jersey. Hoffman is scheduled to be sentenced on March 9, 2022. Checonolasco previously pleaded guilty and is expected to be sentenced on December 15, 2021.
  • Thirteen defendants, including three compounding pharmacy owners, three physicians, two pharmacists, and three patient recruiters, pleaded guilty to a years-long, multistate scheme to defraud the Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) and TRICARE. The defendants submitted false and fraudulent claims to the OWCP and TRICARE for prescriptions for compounded and other drugs prescribed to injured federal workers and armed forces members. The defendants paid kickbacks to patient recruiters and physicians to persuade them to prescribe the drugs. Medications were selected based on the reimbursement amount and not on the patients’ needs. The drugs were then mailed to patients, even though they often never requested, wanted, or needed them. The defendants were indicted in June 2018 and are scheduled to be sentenced in February 2022.
  • Andrew Ziacik of New Kensington, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to one day of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay $4,000. Between 2013 and 2017, Ziacik was an appointed federal fiduciary for his older brother, a service-disabled veteran. Ziacik was responsible for receiving his brother’s VA income and paying his brother’s debts. However, Ziacik admitted that he violated the terms of his fiduciary agreement by using the VA funds to purchase a Harley Davidson motorcycle, a diamond ring, and a GMC Sierra truck. As part of his sentence, Ziacik will pay restitution to his brother of $75,000.I-Care

When it comes to incompetence, neglect of duties, and abuse of veterans, the final entry in today’s chronicles of shame reflects blatant criminality, and repercussions and remunerations are only a small part of serving justice.  Never forget the following fact, “overpayments should have been considered an administrative error and the debt waived since veterans are not responsible for repaying overpayments that are found to be the result of administrative errors” [emphasis mine].  The VA-OIG investigation reflects the following:

        • April 2021, the VA Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) discovered the VBA had incorrectly created a debt of about $210,000 for a veteran.
        • Because of the size of the debt and VA’s plan to withhold the veteran’s entire monthly compensation benefits (over $1,100), and given the veteran’s history of treatment for mental illness, a prior suicide attempt, and suicidal ideation, the VA-OIG review team promptly contacted VBA for corrective action.
        • When contacted by the veteran at four different VA offices, staff assured the veteran all was good, the overpayment was not his to pay, and it would be worked out administratively.

These are the investigation facts; to get this administrative error corrected, the problem had to percolate to the VA-OIG instead of any number of the checks and balances, quality assurance measures, and other in-house processes to catch the VBA from damaging a veteran.  The VBA failed!  How many hundreds of employees were responsible for this disaster and leadership failure?  When will those employees be held accountable?  The case presented is but one of thousands of cases every year where the VBA makes a mistake.  The veteran, their family, and the taxpayer are abused, robbed, cheated, and responsibility shirked and avoided by the employees.VA 3

Imagine for a moment, you wake up, got to the mailbox.  You find the VBA will take your monthly benefit, the money you need to live on because they made an error, but you have to pay for their mistakes unless a power greater than the local agency exerts sufficient force to correct the problem.  Assurances from the VBA are pie-crust promises, easily made, easily broken, and crumby!  The final statement in this charade from the VA-OIG is priceless.

“VBA should consider steps to avoid this type of error in the future.”

Angry Grizzly BearSeriously, the VBA’s internal processes failed and would have continued failing if the VA-OIG had not stepped in and demanded immediate action on the veteran’s behalf!  How many other veterans are not so lucky; too many!  America, the shame of the VA is beyond the pale, and a complete reckoning and corrective action should be the action of Congress as the President refuses to clean house in the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch MUST step up and do their constitutional duties!  The legislative and the executive branches must answer to us, the taxpayers and citizens, for the continual debacles displayed by recalcitrant and intransigent federal employees.  In front of real judges, real people must answer and be held accountable for the crimes of neglect of duty demonstrated!

© Copyright 2021 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

“That’s Crazy!!!” – More Chronicles From The VA

Bobblehead DollThe week of 27 September 2021 started funkily and has gone downhill rapidly!  I reported Monday being refused medical service for not wearing a mask.  On Tuesday, I visibly struggled for breath, standing in the VA pulmonologist’s office in front of the pulmonologist who was holding my pulmonology function test results.  I am holding a letter showing I cannot wear a mask, wearing a face shield, and being told by the doctor, “I do NOT care, he needs to WEAR A MASK, or I AM NOT SEEING HIM” [emphasis his].  Eventually, the doctor agrees to see me, provided I remain more than 6 feet from him, and he does not have to touch me.  The doctor then proceeds to lecture me about getting the vaccine, wearing a mask, and of course, breathing through my breathing difficulties.

As they say on the Home Shopping Network, “But wait, there’s more!”  Crazy has only just begun, unfortunately!

A patient with iron-deficiency anemia died at the hands of VA Doctors at the San Juan Puerto Rico VAHCS (2017), and the VA-OIG is just completing and reporting on their death in 2021.  The patient who came in for a colonoscopy developed rectal bleeding, which required an anticoagulant, and the patient subsequently died.  A tragic set of dominoes was set up and knocked down in this patient’s case, and the VA is entirely at fault for the patient’s death.  How badly the patient’s family must feel with this report in hand and knowing they can do absolutely nothing!VA 3

100% crazy indeed; but wait, there’s more!

Justice was served cold and raw, and while I was hoping for a harsher sentence by far, I am still hoping his victims can recoup some of their losses and obtain retraining.  “Jonathan Dean Davis, the owner of Retail Ready Career Center in Texas, was sentenced for deceiving the VA of $72 million. Beginning in 2014, he offered six-week heating, ventilation, and air conditioning course, promising to prepare veterans for careers in the HVAC industry. However, upon entering the workforce, many of these veterans discovered that the course had failed to teach them many of the basic skills necessary for entry-level technician jobs. Davis was also ordered to pay $65.2 million in restitution and forfeit $72.5 million to the federal government.”

It is very hard to describe what goes into the GI Bill besides money and time in service.  It is even tougher to explain how cheated you feel when the benefit is cut by the government, stolen by school administrators, and reduced by petty rules and regulations.  To see your benefits stolen through shoddy training and see your hopes and dreams dashed, as well as your benefit, turned into useless paper, the heartbreak is incredible!  The punishment for all involved should have been greater, and some federal employees should have shared the blame for failing to do their jobs!I-Care

Hold onto your seat, folks; the insanity has not even reached its peak yet; there’s more!

“The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) inspected the VA Illiana Health Care System in Danville, Illinois, to determine the validity of allegations, specific to COVID-19 and the Community Living Center (CLC), of failure to observe infection control practices, failure to minimize the risk of exposure to COVID-19, inconsistent ongoing testing, and failure to notify residents, families, and staff of positive test results. During the inspection, the OIG identified concerns related to leaders’ post-outbreak actions.  The VA-OIG substantiated a failure to observe general infection control practices, including in the following areas:

    • Leaders failed to minimize the risk of exposure to COVID-19.
    • Leaders did not respond adequately to staff exposure.
    • Leaders did not have a plan for the transfer and isolation of residents.
    • Leaders did not implement recommended infection control measures when performing aerosol-generating procedures and continued to hold group therapies.

The VA-OIG substantiated the lack of a post-baseline testing plan and a failure to test CLC staff after potential exposure.  The OIG identified actions taken by leaders following the CLC outbreak that lacked input from frontline staff to identify corrective actions and opportunities for improvement.”  This is the politically correct way of saying that the community living center leaders are thoroughly incompetent and should not be trusted in their current positions.

Leadership failure in spades, employees, patients, families all placed at risk because of incompetence and politics of the facility leaders, and the VA-OIG does not have the teeth needed to FIRE and REPLACE the leaders who are clearly out of their depth and ability!  For months the media and political leaders have been harping and preaching how dangerous COVID as a viral infection is.  Yet, the leaders in the Illiana VAHCS seem to be operating to a different set of rules and policies.  Will any elected leader be asking why?  Insanity runs deep in Illinois!VA 3

On the topic of COVID-19, and the failures of VA providers to do their jobs, we find another dead veteran due to what in the private sector would be a classic case of malpractice!  Yet, care at the VA is protected from malpractice, and the providers are safe from responsibility and accountability for their failures.  While the following is specific to North Carolina, similar examples are found across the United States.  Insanity thy name is represented in spades at the VA!Angry Wet Chicken

“The VA OIG conducted a healthcare inspection at the Fayetteville VA Coastal Health Care System in North Carolina to assess concerns related to the quality, coordination, and timeliness of care, and the impact of COVID-19 on a patient with unintentional weight loss who was later diagnosed with oral cancer and died at another VA medical center.”

    • The VA-OIG substantiated that the primary care provider and dietitians did not provide quality care to the patient.
    • The VA-OIG substantiated that dietitians conducted incomplete nutritional assessments.
    • The VA-OIG substantiated that the patient’s PACT nurse and dietitians failed to coordinate care by not communicating the family’s request for a face-to-face appointment and the patient’s declining nutritional status to the primary care provider.
    • The VA-OIG found that incorrect scheduling resulted in the patient not being seen by a dietitian for a follow-up appointment and a delay in scheduling a non-VA dental appointment.

“The VA-OIG concluded that COVID-19 impacted the care provided by dietitians because of the use of telephone visits, which did not allow dietitians to visually assess the patient’s physical characteristics caused by a declining nutritional status.”

Blaming a viral disease for the failure of people to do their jobs is the height of skullduggery, showing pusillanimous disregard for the patient and a timid weak-kneed, and yellow-bellied timorous approach to medicine.  None of you deserve to be in the medical field if you cannot properly take personal protection and see patients who need to be physically seen!  Now, let’s call a spade a spade and call out your wimpy, limp-wristed, lily-livered weakling leaders who refuse to act like leaders in a hospital and prefer to act like scared amoebas in a petri dish!  There is NO EXCUSE for your paltry excuses, your shady practices, and your hiding in offices and behind the disruptive behavioral committees when your policies and procedures FAIL when YOUR training plans fall apart, and when reality bites hard enough to disrupt hospital operations and your policies are the problem endangering patients!VA 3

Crazy…  Thy name is abused in the VA, and the leaders are failing to understand sanity!  But … wait, there’s more!

There are times when I describe the insanity at the VHA, VBA, National Cemeteries, and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as designed incompetence.  The following is the purest example of designed incompetence witnessed to date.  Consider with me the following:

?u=http3.bp.blogspot.com-CIl2VSm-mmgTZ0wMvH5UGIAAAAAAAAB20QA9_IiyVhYss1600showme_board3.jpg&f=1&nofb=1Blue Water Navy Outreach requirements were met, but processing and procedures remain lacking and need improvement.  The VBA was legislatively mandated to extend veteran benefits to a classification of sailors who operated in blue water conditions off Vietnam or within 12 Nautical Miles of Vietnam.  The VBA went forward and established the computers, the records, the systems, etc., to handle these claims.  The results, a complete farrago!

“The VA-OIG substantiated that the VBA has not established procedures for its employees to follow when the computer search tool they use to determine ship locations during claimant service dates returns unlikely results (for example, providing an inland location in a search for an aircraft carrier). In addition, VBA employees inaccurately decided approximately 46 percent of veterans’ claims (2,100 of 4,600) from April through June 2020, which led to about $37.2 million in improper payments to veterans ($25.2 million in overpayments and $12 million in underpayments) during that period. About 95 percent of these errors resulted from VBA employees deviating from policies governing disability-rating decisions.”

Did you catch that the VBA intentionally designed a system that failed to perform the task because humans and computers were lenient to deviate?  Nobody is held accountable for the continued loss of benefits, treatment, and wasted resources of the government and the veterans involved!  Here’s the rub, this is NOT the first time this has happened!  The VBA is notorious for failures like this and never held accountable by the elected officials hired to scrutinize the government!  Name a military excursion where benefits had to be carved out by legislative order, and you will find foot-dragging, designed incompetence, inconsistencies in decision making, and piss-poor performance at every level of the VBA.  Why?LinkedIn VA Image

Let’s imagine you hold a job that has a reporting requirement to an authorizing body that can shut you down.  You arbitrarily change language in metrics and reporting, do not tell the authority but still expect the authority to license you and your efforts.  How likely do you think the governing body will look favorably upon your changes?  The VA is legislatively mandated to report to Congress on its capacity in five areas, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, blind rehabilitation, prosthetics and sensory aids, and mental health.  But, by changing the language, metrics, and methods of talking about injuries, the VA can hide, misreport, underreport, overreport, and play reporting games with the report to Congress and the VA-OIG second look get away with the deception.  Never forget, the maskirovka comes with veteran patient abuse!Angry Grizzly Bear

The VA-OIG has reported continuously to Congress, to deaf ears and plastic lips, the following, “… VA cannot compare its current mental health capacity with its 1996 capacity because of changes in diagnosis and treatment, service provision, and data collection. For example, VA must report on the number of veterans with “serious mental illness,” but VA no longer uses that term. And non-VA care, which veterans increasingly seek, must be excluded from reports on VA’s capacity to provide care. The OIG believes that by modernizing the reporting metrics, Congress would be better positioned to assess VA’s capacity to provide care for today’s disabled veterans.”

Congress continues NOT to push the VA to adopt 1996 language and metrics for reporting, or change the law to update the language and metrics to capture the data more accurately, thus allowing the lies and deceptions to continue.  Will anyone in the media EVER ask Congress WHY?VA 3

What kills me, the insanity discussed in this summation of VA-OIG reports does not even scrape the iceberg.  In my email inbox, I have to select between continued financial failures by leaders, veteran suicide during an inpatient residency, and the continued moral distress of employees by facility leaders.  I have twenty more VA-OIG reports sitting awaiting summation because the insanity has blossomed, and the VA-OIG is working hard to clear their reports for the end of the calendar year.  Each and every one of these reports deserve analysis, discussion, and mega-doses of sunshine disinfectant.  The sheer enormity of the insanity means that timely discussion physically cannot occur.  By overloading the system, the perpetrators of veteran abuse can escape sunshine disinfectant, and that is a sore injustice!Satire? Obama ISIS Speech Depresses Nation | Hooper's War - Peter Van Buren

Pray for the families of those who have died at the hands of the VA providers and for those currently dying under the hands of VA providers.  Congress needs to act, and we, the electorate, must hold their feet to the fire until they are consumed, or they stand and do their jobs!  There are no excuses for the insanity contained in these VA-OIG reports!

© 2021 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
The images used herein were obtained in the public domain; this author holds no copyright to the images displayed.