The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the United States’ highest award for military acts of valor. The President of the United States, as the commander in chief of the armed forces, awarded the first MOH in 1863, and as of Sept. 5, 2023, there have been 3,536 Medals of Honor awarded across military branches.
Those who perform such acts of valor may have unique health challenges that need special assistance. VA recently collaborated with the Congressional Medal of Honor Society (CMOHS) to develop a pilot program providing direct and specialized assistance for the 65 living MOH recipients nationwide.
Medal of Honor pilot
The MOH program pilot launched in May 2023. VA identified seven initial pilot sites that have a recipient with urgent needs. Based on VA’s Veterans Experience Office and the Veterans Health Administration’s National Social Work Program recommendation, these sites began establishing an MOH Recipient Care Coordination Team, with a facility-based clinical social worker serving as the designated point of contact. Other team members may include a social work chief, traveling Veteran coordinator, Community Care specialist, emergency/urgent care supervisor and administrative specialist.
These teams are dedicated to ensuring MOH recipients have access to VA and community provider services and a guide to walk them through the VA health care and benefits they have earned, whenever and wherever they need it, including coordinating warm transfers between care coordination teams for traveling MOH recipients.
VA also is reaching out to MOH recipients to inform them of resources and benefits available to them. Some MOH recipients have been invited to visit with VA leadership and the director of CMOHS Healthcare and Advocacy as they travel across the country.
MOH program outreach and in-home visits have resulted in referring more recipients to relevant services, such as the VA Eye Clinic, Homemaker and Home Health Aide Care, Veteran Directed Care and Caregiver Support Program. For easier physical accessibility, the VA pilot sites designated a VIP parking space for MOH recipients’ visits and medical appointments.
Immediate impact to Medal of Honor recipients
The pilot program has already positively impacted several MOH recipients. For example, four MOH recipients enrolled in VA health care were assigned to a Patient Aligned Care Team, eight had their service-connection information updated, and four received a service-connection increase.
Another example of immediate impact is when Debi Bevins, VA’s Office of Client Relations director, met MOH recipient Edward Byers on the plane as they traveled to the 2023 CMOHS Convention in New Orleans. The coincidental encounter gave Byers an opportunity to share his challenges with Bevins, who in turn relayed the issues to her team and helped resolve Byers’ issues within a day. When VA Secretary Denis McDonough spoke at the convention, Byers took the floor to publicly commend Bevins and her team for helping him quickly resolve his concerns.
Along with providing MOH recipients with services, VA is honoring those awarded with the nation’s highest military honors with due reverence. The Central Alabama Health Care System hosted a ceremony to honor U.S. Army Veteran and MOH recipient Ralph Puckett on Sept. 5, 2023. During the event, Puckett was photographed in uniform, and his portrait is now displayed in the Central Alabama Health Care System’s new Poydasheff VA Clinic so visitors can learn about their local hero.
Many VA facilities are named for MOH recipients, including the VA medical center in Huntington, West Virginia, which is named after U.S. Marine Corps and WWII Veteran Hershel “Woody” Williams. After his military service, Williams served at VA as a Veterans Service Representative.
Expanding the Medal of Honor program
The VA MOH team is building on the initial pilot’s success and is well on the way to expanding the MOH program. Based on feedback from MOH recipients, their family members and caregivers, CMOHS and VA employees, VA’s National Social Work Program is expanding the MOH program to 39 additional sites.
Did you know?
- 3,536 Medals of Honor have been awarded across military branches.
- There are 65 living MOH recipients.
- 15% receive VA care exclusively.
- 10% receive Department of Defense care primarily.
- Approximately 50% use a hybrid VA-DoD care model.
Medal Of Honor Program pilot sites
- VISN 1: VA Connecticut Health Care System, West Haven, CT
- VISN 7: Central Alabama Health Care System, Montgomery, AL
- VISN 12: Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center, Milwaukee, WI
- VISN 15: VA Eastern Kansas Health Care System, Leavenworth and Topeka, KS
- VISN 16: Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston, TX
- VISN 22: VA San Diego Health Care System, San Diego, CA
- VISN 22: Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center – VA Phoenix Health Care System, Phoenix, AZ
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Only the VA would characterize the most unentitled as entitled. The VA and the Veterans Experience Office are using Congressional Medal of Honor recipients as a public relationship event. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Most veterans would want the best for others…not themselves.
bureaucrats Must be very proud of themselves – great press for them and the administration. Not much for the rest of you men and women that have made scrafice without receiving such notoriety
God bless all of you!
At least someone is getting the care all Veterans deserve. Genuinely they deserve humane treatment and not thr subpar treatment and experience that likely plays a part in the suicides of veterans in parking lots of the VA.
I understand that these are exceptional people. They have given so much to this country. Shouldn’t the goal of the VA to treat EVERY veteran as well as them? Should that not be the standard of care for all? I appreciate all that the VA has done for me. Average veterans are falling through the cracks every day.
Relatively speaking, more resources are dedicated to the 65 MOH recipients than the rest of the rest of the Silver and Bronze Star recipients. No knock on those 65 veterans, but those are the “optics” from where I’m looking. I can only venture to guess how many thousands, if not millions of dollars are being spent on this program.
I think you’re on the right track with “optics” . The VA does a pretty bad job overall for caring for veterans. Would look even worse if the MOH recipients had the same poor behavior. The fallout from that would be pretty bad.
I don’t know who my PACT team is. I ask but never get an answer. This is important because I continue to ask what my healthcare plan actually is with he VA. I’m healthcare team generally has no idea what’s going on with me. I’m 100% rated. This is great for MOH however this attention needs to be more broadly concerning. Gulf veterans are age 60-45, you are failing our healthcare needs. Don’t wait until our health worsen. Gulf war illness is progressive and the conditions are ever evolving.
holy cow. way to rain on the vas parade here, commenters.
i think theyre doing a great job, and im proud they are reaching out to medal of honor recipients.
they reach out to me every few months since i spent some time in a va halfway house after a stint of drug addiction and homelessness. they call me to let me know i can come back if needed, that they havent ticked me off of their list just because i moved out, and to wish me a happy life.
the va has taken exceptional care of me, and i want these outstanding soldiers to receive some of the same.
My friends Robert E O’Malley and Sammy L Davis are Medal of Honor recipients hopefully they are 100% disabled with theVA.
I donate to the Medal of Honor Society
These heroes should get paid what politicians receive.notice I did not use word earn? The MOH men earned their medals and are national treasures.i was a member of Lt.colonel Joe Jackson’s squadron in Vietnam. He had guts to do what he did.
Excellent idea streamlining NEEDED services to OUR, Best of the Best, Medal of Honor Awardees; well deserved respect, thank-you for your incredible service and (his)story of your extra ordinary deed. Many do not know or realize that there is another closely related award with most of the same prerequisite as Medal of Honor minus service against enemy.
In non-combat situations, honorees receive The Soldier’s Medal, or Navy, Marine, Air Force, Coast Guard Medal if their action rises to same danger of risking your own life, saving others. Former Secretary of State and chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Colin Powell was a recipient. Though NOT due to duty in combat, this Award for Valor deserves OUR same respect.
That’s still not enough. They should have free state and local taxes, and free medical care.