In a special town hall event on Wednesday, Nov. 8, VA Secretary Denis McDonough addressed the top requested concerns from Veterans and their families, caregivers and survivors.
The one-hour town hall was streamed live on YouTube. If you missed it, you can watch it online.
If you have questions, please go to 2023 Veterans Town Hall on RallyPoint to submit a question where a VA expert will address your question by Nov. 17.
You can also read the town hall Q&A with answers to some of the most asked questions:
Why is it so difficult and take so long to increase a disability rating?
VA is determined to provide Veterans efficient, quality service and recognizes that timeliness is an important aspect of that service, which is why VA uses timeliness as an indicator to monitor the general effectiveness of the claims process. This past year, VA decided claims almost 20 days faster than the year before.
VA encourages Veterans that have questions about their claim or disability rating to contact VA at 1-800-MyVA411 (1-800-698-2411). Veterans can also meet in-person with a public contact representative at a local VA regional office.
Why is it so hard for us to get community care referrals when care is not available at VA?
Community care is a force-multiplier for VA care—it’s an essential part of our portfolio of care options for Veterans. That includes in-person, telehealth, or being seen at one of our clinical contact centers, such as VA Health Connect. In fiscal year 2023, over 2.4 million Veterans received community care, and over the past several years we’ve continued to make improvements to the overall community care experience. As of May 2023, our overall satisfaction score for community care was 85.3%, the highest ever.
To get a community care referral, of course, you have to be eligible based on your specific health care needs and circumstances. If you meet a least one of the six criteria, our staff are required to make it an option for you as long as the care is available through an in-network community provider. In-network is important because they have to meet our standards and requirements; this is how we make sure Veterans are getting high-quality care that’s properly coordinated with VA.
I’m a Veteran who lives too far from a VA national cemetery. I want my family to be able to visit me if they choose. What options do I have?
In addition to VA’s National Cemeteries, VA also works with State Cemetery partners who run their cemeteries in accordance with the very high standards the National Cemetery Administration (NCA) sets. We encourage you to look at the State and Tribal Cemeteries in your area that offer burials for Veterans and their spouse. Also, there are even smaller municipalities, such as counties, that have Veterans cemeteries as well.
Even if you choose to be buried in a private cemetery, NCA still can make and ship your earned government headstone or flat bronze marker absolutely free (there may be an installation fee that a private cemetery charges). Finally, if you go with a private cemetery and a private headstone, you still can have a medallion from VA affixed to your headstone that annotates your branch of military service.
When will VA propose a rule to allow for gender confirmation surgery?
VA is committed to delivering timely access to world-class health care and earned benefits to all Veterans, family members, survivors and caregivers. VA is actively working on a gender affirming surgery regulatory action.
Why does it take so long to get an answer on a Veterans appeal? As a surviving spouse I need the help of that benefit to make ends meet, especially now with costs rising; it is very hard on one paycheck.
The Board of Veterans Appeals understands that many Veterans and appellants have been waiting a long time for a decision. We acknowledge that this wait can be very frustrating, and we want to explain why getting a Board decision can take a long time and what options are available to Veterans and appellants that may reduce the time they have to wait for a decision.
The Veterans Benefits Administration usually takes 12 to 18 months to review appeals and decide whether to grant some or all of the appeal. The good news is that the line is now moving faster because of increased resources and improved processes under the newer AMA system. I can report to you that in the last 5 years, the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (Board) has issued a total of 496,012 appeals decisions, 103,245 during fiscal year 2023 alone, a new historical record. However, we are also aware that despite the high numbers of decisions each year, there are still over 200,000 pending appeals waiting in line for a decision.
The Board notes this is down substantially from nearly 475,000 appeals waiting for a decision just 6 years ago, which is significant considering the increasing number of Veterans who have filed an appeal at the Board in recent years. We have Congress to thank for providing enough resources for the Board to hire more Veterans Law Judges, supporting counsel and staff to help resolve and process these appeals.
Is it possible to have a rating increase posthumously? My husband passed in 2019. Why aren’t benefits retroactive to 2012 when he first filed?
Accrued benefits may exist:
- if the decision was made within the past 12-months, which can still be appealed, or
- based on evidence in the file on the date of death, or
- if an eligible claimant continues a claim that was pending on the date of the Veteran’s death.
A claim pending on the date of death means a claim that had not been finally adjudicated on or before the date of death, including a claim in which the period to file an appeal has not yet expired. Claimants who wish to apply for accrued benefits should use VA Form 21P-601, “Application for Accrued Amounts Due a Deceased Beneficiary.”
The retroactive amount due and date of entitlement is dependent on many factors. Generally, decisions are considered final one year after the date of a decision notice, unless an appeal was filed. Claims filed after the one-year period expires establish a new entitlement date. This includes claims for increased rating evaluation. The ability to provide retroactive benefits once a claim is closed is limited to either authorization from Congress to provide an earlier effective date or for cases in which it is determined that VA made a clear and unmistakable error.
Are you aware that travel benefits does not work for everyone?
One of VA’s highest priorities is reducing barriers to VA health care and services. It is recognized transportation barriers may pose significant challenges for Veterans.
VA travel pay reimburses eligible Veterans and VA caregivers for mileage and other travel expenses to and from approved health care appointments. The Beneficiary Travel program is predominantly a reimbursement mechanism for mileage-based transport in privately-owned vehicles for Veterans who are 30 percent or more service connected, traveling for a service-connected condition, in receipt of VA pension or fall below VA income guidelines. In addition, these Veterans may be aided with Special Mode Transportation (e.g., ambulance, ground, or air), or common carrier such as taxi, or rideshares such as Uber, Lyft, bus or airfare.
Additionally, all Veterans may be provided cost-free transportation assistance through Veterans Transportation Services, available at over 125 VA medical centers. VA does an extensive amount of collaboration to connect Veterans to services provided by local state Veterans service agencies such as Disabled American Veterans (DAV) and other Veterans Service Organizations.
For more information on these programs, see www.va.gov/healthbenefits/vtp.
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VA’s Veteran Buddy Check Week is planned for Oct. 21 – 25, 2024.
Carry The Load, an organization dedicated to remembering the fallen, will visit 34 VA National Cemeteries traveling 20,000 miles along five separate routes covering all continental 48 states known as the National Relay for Memorial May 2024.
Good article,I realize you guys have many challenges;Biden Administration should be commend on its efforts.
To Secretary Mr.McDonough
There is a backlog for VA disability at the Martinsburg West Virginia Site.. Veterans are waiting 6 months or more to get help with their medical paperwork.
I have been denied TDIU and secondary back condition four times, three times with an attorney. There is overwhelming medical evidence to support this. I am retired from the US Army. I can’t understand why.
I was stationed at Camp Le Juene for six months. I have prostate cancer , cancer of the spleen and other issues. I was at the from July 1968 through March of 1969.
What are they doing to compensate the damage they done ?
The VA pays via direct deposit that is great. However, when being reimbursed for travel pay for an appointment at a VA facility, or reimbursement for RX copays due to a disability rating – how can one determine what the direct deposit amount was for? No notification is received the applied for, authorized reimbursement was paid or what the direct deposit amount was for.
Excellent point!
To: VA Sec Denis McDonough and assistants.
Its hard to believe that burn pits are not brought up and addressed to be a fact that we did that every single day for 10years.
This was done in almost all base camps.
Just my self have gotten lung issues, skin cancer and who knows what else its casing.
Also in camps they used insecticides to help kill all the mosquito’s and other insects in evenings
especially in company’s located in bush or. jungle areas.
I was in 1st Infantry Div 1st Engr Battalion. So just ask others or look it up in military notebooks.
Please put some thought and time into this and you’ll see all the above is true.
Why is it that when it comes to the Viet-nam war us combat veterans 50 years later are still being ignored compensation for agent orange exposure ptsd . The Va knows this talks about it but we are still not getting our retro pay for all those years and years of suffering By the the way it wasn’t a conflict it was a war!!!!!!!
any thought on expanding benefits to those who enlisted between 1977 (post viet nam) and 1991 (Iraq “war”)? I have an associate who sat in a submarine and got occupational radiation exposure while in the Gulf. They have been granted VA medical benefits based on those 2 occurrences. we sat around the world (Vladivostok, Kursk, under Arctic icecap etc) and do not get them
I am 100% totally Disabled and I do receive Dental Care. My Wife is on CHAMPVA and “They” say SHE is eligible for Dental Care as Well..! I have called several Hundred Dentist in Michigan……No One Will ACCEPT CHAMPVA…!!! What does She Do?
If he was really concerned about us he wouldn’t make it so hard to get disability.
True story.
Hey Denis,
VA JOHN D. Dingel veterans hospital is still not fixed. The fact that you came for a visit and they slapped lipstick on a pig didn’t fix the problem. The administrative culture in the facility is still as bad as it ever was. Stop the lip service and actuall make changes.
Yes, yes, yes! If the director is a career bureaucrat and not a veteran, such as Fernando Rivera in New Orleans, he has proved daily that he really doesn’t care about veterans. All Va did complaints from Community Care not doing their jobs to me not having my 16 hours of home health for 8 weeks now, to malpractice by VA Psychiatrists and Infectious Disease Department to continuous disrespect by admin clerks, etc. Nothing changes and no follow up is ever done. Such a shame.
For 2 years Ive been sending regular emails to the Sec of VA Denis
McDonough. He never responds to me in person, to much a of a coward
to actually write to me as a executive he is supposed to be.
My questions are valid. Not vulgar, or plain commentary. I started first
with how the Gulf war registry failed me. They didnt even take my vital
signs during the exam. Then trying to get a WRIISC referral. How badly
that went. Then the WRIISC exam going so very badly, and not trying to
do the DNA test or abdominal adipose tissue resection to look for possible
toxic compounds from the Gulf war. Ended up being mostly psyche test
and minimal testing of any value. Next was the burn pit registry. Turns out
the database says Im no in it. I was the first to apply when it came out.
Finally get the exam, its 10 minutes of mild questions and its over. No
labs or tissue collection. Find out over 8 years less than 8% of Burn Pit
exams get a actual exam, its questionares. Along comes PACT act, and
it fails me totally. 1990 to 2003 its not going to help us. By this point I
push for the Toxic Exposure screening. Its also 10 minutes of questions
and no tissue collection. All this catches the eye of the VA Research Advisory
Committee. They ask me to do a presentation February 2023. Then they
try to alter my presentation or scrap it last minute. Makes Stars and Stripes.
Only to have the writer botches the article. Same with Waco Tribunal Herald
on the PACT act failures. Meeting with the RAC in Hawaii is a huge flop.
Sec of VA comes to Waco to the same day as the RAC meeting to put
on PACT act media show knowing I cant face him and do the VA presentation.
Along comes the War Horse Symposium and these folks make sure no one
cane speak that want pre-chosen. Denis dodges me there.
The Sec of VAs office recognizes my emails. They tell me its being forwarded.
Then I get one of three things. His staff attack VA employees here in VISN
17 trying to help me, blame game. ( That upsets these folks down here). He
once sent Rachael Ramoni my way he wrote a VERY lame response that wasnt
even on mark. Does not answer her phone. Then the last one, blow off.
So September 7th 2023 I make it to a Gulf War RAC meeting in DC. I stand
in front of 810 Vermont Ave at 7am knowing I will bump into people going in
the door. Its how I have met several former VA secs over 26 years. Here comes
Denis at 7:30am, gets out of his limo truck. Walks over to me and Ed Bryan.
I talk with him, show him my VA ACGWV saddle bag from the 20087 committee,
and tell him I would like to talk further about GWI healthcare / benefits. He pulls
out his cell phone and claims to put my name, number in it. We take pictures,
of which I am NOT smiling or shaking hands. Ed and him do the opposite. He
is gone.
The meeting starts well that day, the 8th it goes south. On the 9th media announces
Gulf war vets were over paid $5 million in benefits? Who, all the GWI vets I know
are dirt broke and could not get a GWI rating. 93% rejection with 3.317. I see the
effort is to vilify us that week.
Its mid November now, here comes this Townhall meeting. No active links go up
before the meeting or during it. No where on the net. Its 2:15pm when the press
release goes out how well it went. All the while Im posting on VA / VBA facebook
in that time window no way to login. Just like 2 days before the VA EH exposure
session on webex was showing 404 errors – cant get to it.
No phone calls from Denis to present over 2 years. Im every where he is. VA
itself is ignoring my request. Even playing dirty with me by not paying my
$14,000 Triwest approved ER visit when I nearly died of pneumonia. Its a
really bad year – 2023. Not for Sec of VA Denis McDonough. It is for us Gulf
War vets like myself that cant reason with VA or have a soapbox to deal with
our plight. The RAC is not a answer, its research only and barely that. If
anything this last meeting proved DOD lied about the serum repository for
20 years now – they can dip into the HIV cryo samples from 1988, 1989 to
verify genetic alteration from then to now. Ive fought with the AFIP, and
many others since 2002 over this concept.
Sec of VA was a former White House chief of staff from George W Bush. Means
he knew of me in 2003 as I opposed deployment of troops to Iraq. I was world
famous for it. Bush hated me. So this means its personal, he has a axe to grind
and taking it out on me. this is about playing me down ignoring that I served
on a VA federal Gulf War committee of my own. For him, all is well. No need to
talk to me personally. To me, he is a coward dodging the issues so he can keep
the vets at bay – run us off. We served our country, now hurry up, and die silently.
This isnt over Denis, your a public servant, not a 3rd world dictator.
I have been waiting on my appeal for almost 2 years why
What can be done to reduce the overload of VA doctors having to spend so much time on the computer that it taking away appointment times. One doctor I know only has 3 appointments in the morning and 3 in the afternoon and rest of the time is spent doing computer work. The VA beaucracy is a farse you require the doctors to spnd more time filling out your forms that giving us veterans the service we need. Get with the program we have the best doctors in primary care and speciality clinics
that can be found anywhere in the US.
Don’t try to cut the VA hospitals out and go to outsourcing because you will over burden and system that cannot support the needs of the veteran.
I am a Vietnam Veteran and hate to think what you people in Washington both Democratic and Republican always want to pick on the VA. if you want to reduce spending lets reduce your salaries and benefits and see how you like it.
Signed one pissed of veteran
This is a very serious matter, that no one at VA wants at face value. As a Nam Vet serving all of 1 year in country from 1966-67. We encountered several sprays before Agent Orange was deemed the spray of choice. As a result of multiple Agents. I two oof my children pass away. According to VA. A minority group is recognized for C&P. The minority group: Women serving in country. In my experience. Most served indoors. They where not in combat. Male, military personnel in the field getting the lovely gift of these sprays are not even considered for C&P only unless the Child has spina bifida. Forgetting the fact it is the male through his sperm causing the multiple Birth Defects. “IT JUST DOESN’T COUNT.” No Parent Should Out Live Their Children. I am out living 2. Because of having XY Chromosome VA ignores the pain and suffering. It is high time the VA acknowledges the male sector with the effects of the deadly Dioxins. 50+ years carrying this deadly spray in our bodies is long enough time to be compensated.
PS The two children lost, were from two (2) different women. Proof enough these agents are swimming about in my God forsaking body.
PPS Why two different women. Should have stopped after the first. We knew nothing about the agents sprayed until years later.
I’d love to know why it’s taking over four months and counting just to have my spouse and dependents added, which is easily verifiable and takes all of ten minutes to approve.
It happened. Janesville has finally Flip Out. Received one of their Love Letters. In @35 years I have never seen. They are contacting Social Security for Medical Records, and this will take several months. If there was ever a STALL TACTIC this it. The unmitigated GALL. Called my Regional Office in St Pete. The rep I spoke with was flabbergasted, had never encountered VA asking SSA for anyone’s medical records. I am at my wit’s end, fed up with these so called specialists. Next stop the Office of the Inspector General. Accordingly! IG has heard some HORROR Stories. If it matters……These ‘specialists are making Sec Denis McDonough look so bad. My sincere condolences.
All BS. 12 year fight with the VA. Took 10!years to receive a backdated 100% to the original filed date and still not finished. Totally ridiculous and waste of time in money
Why has VA stopped paying travel reimbursement?
I dont think we can trust the lying coming out of the director mouth. 3 months waiting on imaging, community care doesn’t pay their bills ,I love how they don’t allow comments on YouTube, because it would counter their lies, **** the
Veterans enrolled in VHA @ VAOPC Manila are being treated disparagingly. We’re not getting any finanicail assistance (beneficiary travel) despite traveling to VAOPC from any distance outside National Capital Region (NCR) when rated at 30% or greater. We’re not getting beneficiary travel for Comp/pen VES examinations. Travel regulations permit SECVA based on language contained in statutes “SECVA MAY AUTHORIZE” yet Manila veterans get nothing. Manila veterans with VBA adjudicated disabilities are being denied ENROLLMENT into VAOPC. They’re directed to enroll ini FMP Program. By virtue they’re not getting access to basic care, outpatient care or preventative care. Example onset covid, Veterans with VBA adjudicated disabilities who were denied VAOPC enrollment had NO ACCESS TO COVID VACCINES. Why..VISN 21 only provided covid vaccines to Veterans who were enrolled at VAOPC Manila. FMP and VAOPC Manila refuse to provide medical care for non service connected ailments that aggravate the Veterans svc connected disabilities. This is a direct violation of 38 CFR 17.35. Why doesn’t SECVA have town hall for Veterans residing outside continental United States. We’re still veterans SECVA is ignoring our calls for assistance! Deaf ear closed mind mentality. That’s not “World class Healthcare ” as he announced along with President Biden. Practice what you preach!
Complete total lie. There were no links to this. There were no links posted on VA Facebook before, or during this meeting. Any where, I looked and asked.
I searched YouTube, and other sources including here. This press release went up after the event.
Said for 2 days this was a sham. You just proved it.
Since I put in a question at RallyPoint and it was answered (although not in any real way) the ability to ask questions was there. It opens up 1/2 through October, and closed 2 weeks ago
True- it is CYA Crap for sure- and I know that Veterans are not buying what he is selling.