Veterans Affairs employees destroyed veterans’ medical records to cancel backlogged exam requests

The Daily Caller ^ | February 24, 2014 | Patrick Howley

[2ndDivisionVet]

Employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) destroyed veterans’ medical files in a systematic attempt to eliminate backlogged veteran medical exam requests, a former VA employee told The Daily Caller.

Audio of an internal VA meeting obtained by TheDC confirms that VA officials in Los Angeles intentionally canceled backlogged patient exam requests.

“The committee was called System Redesign and the purpose of the meeting was to figure out ways to correct the department’s efficiency. And one of the issues at the time was the backlog,” Oliver Mitchell, a Marine veteran and former patient services assistant in the VA Greater Los Angeles Medical Center, told TheDC.

“We just didn’t have the resources to conduct all of those exams. Basically we would get about 3,000 requests a month for [medical] exams, but in a 30-day period we only had the resources to do about 800. That rolls over to the next month and creates a backlog,” Mitchell said. ”It’s a numbers thing. The waiting list counts against the hospitals efficiency. The longer the veteran waits for an exam that counts against the hospital as far as productivity is concerned.”(continued)

[SFC Chromey]

No surprise here. It took one of my soldiers 11 years and 7 medical board applications before he finally received his medical retirement. Oh, and it didn’t matter that he had all of the incident records, was awarded the Purple Heart.

Throughout the years he received conflicting instructions on the disability ratings and effect of continued participation in his army reserve unit.

The entire situation was FUBAR.