Thousands of military veterans in this country look for assistance through Veteran Affairs for much-needed healthcare benefits. What they often find, however, are obstacles to receiving those benefits, including long wait times on receiving appointments, denial of claims and, in some cases, the absence of any assistance whatsoever. However, there are organizations trying to help. Military Veteran’s Advocacy work to mitigate instances previously mentioned, for the betterment of veteran assistantship through taking on cases, educating veterans, and fighting on their behalf to put forth legislation to improve the Veterans Benefits Association. Chairman of Military Veterans Advocacy, John B. Wells, is an attorney who served as a Navy commander from 1972-1994. Wells attended law school at night while being active duty. A disabled veteran himself, he dedicated his time to studying veterans’ law and helping those who have been overlooked by the VBA.

 

Military Veterans Advocacy’s main principles are to legislate, litigate and educate.

 

 “We go beat up congress for benefits, we sue the VA, and we teach educational outreach including taking legal education to attorneys on veterans’ law,” said Wells. This organization strives to provide all service members as well as their families with training in education for active-duty members, veterans and attorneys rights and benefits. This is to equip veterans with the necessary tools to ultimately understand the law as well as their rights.

 

 “We look at the state of the law and inform veterans of what their rights are under the law. We also inform them of efforts that we have to expand the benefits. We do that to veterans themselves, we use social media, and we also do presentations,” said Wells. Some of MVA’s key focuses according to their mission statement include, “Communicate with federal and state agencies concerning the rights of active-duty service members, veterans, and their families. Meet with Members of Congress, Senators, and their staff to propose and discuss legislation. Appeal the improper denial of veteran’s benefits and train civilian attorneys to practice military and veteran’s law” (Military).

 

Despite being a small organization made up of volunteers who receive no pay whatsoever for help provided, MVA has had an impactful outreach when it comes to expanding healthcare benefits to soldiers.

 

 “The Blue Water Navy Act was probably the first major accomplishment in expanding benefits to about 90,000 veterans. On the PACT Act, the herbicide portion was probably about 150,000 veterans but we also supported initiatives in the pact act for radiation exposure and burn pits, so the total on that runs up to about 3.5 million now”, said Wells. The Blue Water Navy Act was put in place to tend to the blue water navy veteran, which totals about 50,000 to 90,000. These veterans as well as some of their families were exposed to a chemical known as Agent Orange through drinking, laundry, and cleaning with contaminated water in Vietnam. As a result, those veterans are prone to various cancers, “There are eight types of cancer on the list – bladder cancer, chronic B-cell leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin’s, lymphoma, prostate cancer, respiratory cancer (including lung cancer), and soft tissue sarcomas (other than osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, Kaposi’s sarcoma, or mesothelioma)” (Foster).

 

President Trump signed legislation on the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act on June 25, 2019. He also added a section to the act, which extended the surface area of exposure to an offshore location which mirrors the territorial sea (Military).

 

President Biden signed off on the PACT act Aug. 10, which not only broadens eligibility on healthcare for veterans (Vietnam, Gulf War, post 9-11 era) who were exposed to toxic substances as well as burn pits, but also allows veterans to receive a toxic screening upon enrollment and every five years after. This act also extended to the authorization of 31 new medical facilities within the U.S.

 

When asked what some of the flaws within the veteran affairs (veteran’s affairs) system are, Wells said, “the biggest problem is in qualifying for them; you generally have to be service connected.” Veteran’s Affairs base disability ratings as well as whether someone can receive healthcare benefits upon service connection. This means that one must have endured specific injury or illness during active-duty service, or that injury or illness must have been aggravated during time of service. The reason why this may pose an issue is because of documentation and how challenging it can be to prove these service connections. Airforce Master Sergeant and retired veteran, Anthony Brown, said documenting every injury or illness is critical, “if you go in there and you tell them that you had this and it’s not documented, you don’t get credit for it…they look at everything through documentation and if it’s not documented it’s not there, that’s just the way it is,” said Brown.

 

As of August 2021, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 4.9 million or 27 percent of total veterans, had a service-connected disability (Latest). This number seems small in conjunction to the total amount of veterans reported by BLS within October 2021, sitting at 18 million within the U.S. (Latest). This further poses the question of how many veterans within the remaining 13.1 million rightfully deserve to have service-connected disability?

 

“The veterans benefits administration is completely archaic, top heavy, bureaucratic and they seem to be more concerned with methodology than results,” said wells, and “runs on what’s called the m21-1 adjudication manual…very bureaucratic, requires them to go through a lot of hoops that they don’t really need to go through, and it continually slows the process down.”

 

Wells referred to the VA appellate system as well as US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims as a “nightmare,” expressing that both needed “top to bottom” renovation.

 

Continuing with system flaws that contribute to the slowing down of the overall VBA process, Wells explained the specific system used to house veteran records, “Their computer system, the VBMS (Veterans Benefits Management System), or as I like to call it, very bad management system is on the cutting edge of the 1990s and I’m not being facetious. That’s when the thing was developed and it’s about 30 years behind what it should be,” said Wells.  

 

The VA utilizes VBMS to handle all veteran file claims. It is an online database that houses veterans’ electronic claims and is depository of all information related to a specific veteran as well as his or her compensation claim (CCK). This system “While it is supposed to contain all of a veteran’s files, VA has been inconsistent when it comes to scanning in medical records, vocational rehabilitation records, and overpayment/financial records. VA is more thorough in regard to veterans’ compensation claims, as the majority of those are scanned in; however, it is not always done properly. VA often mislabels documents related to a veteran’s claims or appeals.  For example, Rating Decisions are sometimes labeled as Statements of the Case, making it difficult for adjudicators and representatives alike to determine where a veteran’s claim is procedurally.” (CCK)

 

Despite the VA implementing a new Electronic Health Record system, it is unapparent when this will go into effect due to pushed back dates.

 

“The Boise VA Medical Center, originally scheduled to go live June 25, and moved to July 23, has been postponed. At this time, VA has not set a new EHR launch date for that facility. Deployment of the EHR at VA Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle, Washington, will shift to March 2023, from August 2022 and the VA Portland Health Care System in Portland, Oregon, will move to April 2023, from November 2022.” (VA) 

 

Wells adds that the healthcare system is not as much of a problem as the benefits system.

 

“The healthcare system is actually progressing quite a bit; again, our biggest issue is veteran benefits administration because you can have the best healthcare system in the world, but if they can’t get benefits it’s not going to do them any good. We’re asking for a complete review of the appellate review; court of veterans appeals,” said Wells.

 

“When I was on active duty I always said if I take care of my troops my troops will take care of me… well there are a lot of veterans out here and nobody is taking care of them,” said Wells. “We are a small group…our impact is probably much higher than you would think based on our size but we just keep on trying.”

 

Wells’ wife, Janice Burton, said even when some battles are won, that victory can come too late, “one of the sad sad things about it all is when the veteran is denied and we win the case after they die… they have a widow or wife you can substitute a claim for but sometimes they don’t have a wife or children, and therefor they lose it all,” said burton, “they fought for so long to get the benefits and then they didn’t get them, that happens far too often.”

 

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Resources

CCKBlog. “Inside the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS).” CCK Law, 9 Feb. 2021, https://cck-law.com/blog/inside-the-veterans-benefits-management-system-vbms/.

Foster, Jenny. “Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act Overview.” The Veterans Law Group, 10 Aug. 2022, https://www.veteranslaw.com/blue-water-navy-vietnam-veterans-act-overview/#:~:text=Who%20are%20Blue%20Water%20Navy,been%20exposed%20to%20Agent%20Orange.

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“Latest Releases.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 11 Aug. 2022, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/.

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“Military-Veterans Advocacy.” Military Veterans Advocacy, https://www.militaryveteransadvocacy.org/.

Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs. “Veterans Affairs.” Go to VA.gov, 15 Mar. 2010, https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/benefits_book/benefits_chap02.asp.

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“VA Adjusts Electronic Health Record Rollout Schedule to Assure Continued Success.” Department of Veterans Affairs Electronic Health Record Modernization, https://www.ehrm.va.gov/news/article/read/va-adjusts-electronic-health-record-rollout-schedule-to-assure-continued-success.