Va Sec Puts The Spin

[Berta]

Recent VA News Releases

http://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel

VA Tightens Protections for Veterans Paperwork

Peake: Lapses "Unacceptable," Procedures and Accountability Tightened

WASHINGTON (Oct. 16, 2008) -- Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. James B.

Peake vowed swift action after a handful of documents related to

veterans' applications for financial benefits from the Department of

Veterans Affairs (VA) were found among documents identified for

shredding. The documents, which were not duplicated in government

files, could have affected veterans' eligibility for benefits.

"I insist on the highest possible standards for processing and

safeguarding information in VA's custody," Peake said. "It is

unacceptable that documents important to a veteran's claim for benefits

should be misplaced or destroyed."

Peake said VA's Office of the Inspector General (IG) is investigating

the misplaced documents, and anyone who violated Department policy on

protecting documents will be held accountable.

The documents were discovered by employees of VA's IG office during an

audit at three of VA's 56 regional benefits offices, which process

applications for disability pay, VA pensions, educational assistance,

home loans and similar financial benefits.

IG auditors found a handful of documents waiting to be shredded, which

might have affected the fate of veterans' applications. The documents

were returned to the proper offices for processing.

Retired Rear Adm. Patrick W. Dunne, VA's Under Secretary for Benefits,

immediately directed all of VA's regional offices to suspend all

document shredding while IG and VA officials determine whether the

problem is more widespread. Directors of the regional offices will have

to certify in writing that no original copies of key documents or

records from veterans' cases under consideration are being destroyed.

VA has procedures for determining the disposition of paperwork.

Original copies of discharge papers, marriage certificates and death

certificates are returned to veterans or families when no longer needed.

Duplicate copies of paperwork no longer needed are appropriately

destroyed to protect the privacy of veterans and their families."

A "handful" my butt)

[Wings]

Greetings all:

Lets put this "handful" into perspective. I deal with Federal grants everyday. They audit on a sample. If during your audit 5% of your sample has invalid expenses they take back 5% of the total funding your institution received for that same period.

Now a handfull is hard to quantify, Ricky's, Josephine's or Jbasser's files are probably safe since clearly they could not be one handed (handfull) even by Wilt Chamberlain!

For arguments sake lets say a handfull was 5, if five peoples files hit the shredder bin in detroit every day we would destroy 1,825 files a year or 10.7% of the current total C&P pending (17,037) at Detroit VARO. Lets say Detroit is twice as bad as any other VARO except New York. I think somone mentioned New York was caught doing this in 1987. So that gives us an approximate twenty one year practice.

Claims destroyed per year (1,825*2)+(912*54) = 52,898

Clearly a 21 year practicer 21*52,898 = 1,110,858

Clearly these numbers have some statistical flaws (VA doesn't work 365 a year)!

However, It does demostrate even a handful is serious evidence of the injustice that veterans have been facing for years.

People need to go to jail and someone in the major media should call Peake on the carpet for "a handful", he knows how many veterans were affected and how many pages of documents were in those bins. Disclosing that number does not violate any veterans confidentiality or privacy.

Best regards,

Tyler

PS I have written both senators, and my Representative. I have asked for a meeting with my representative (wont happen).

Great Post! Chilling reality!! ~Wings

[jbasser]

I guess that is their way of reducing the backlog. It also saves postage. why even send a denial letter when it can be gone.

I wonder how many of those poor folks claims were awaiting processing and the Vet passes away.

Tyler, Great post. Keep up the good work.

J

[vmo]

Now that VARO's have put all shredding on hold, this would be a good time to do preventative maintenance on the shredding machines. This would help prevent future break downs of the shredding machines. We wouldn't want the VA to miss any original military medical records or claims. I would hate to see them fall behind in the shredding. This could also give them more time to haggle over some cut and dried presumptive Agent Orange cancer they could possibly cheat some dying vet or widow out of. I used to believe the fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis was an accident...Naaaah! They wouldn't do that, would they??

[Josephine]

This is the most sickening thing I have ever heard of.

How much lower can the VA stoop????

I used to, many years ago, think they were my friend, but it didn't

take me long to find I was in for the fight of my life.

I know now why I had to repeatedly turn papers in and turn them

in again.

I sent my Personnel Records three times to the AMC and when they

received word from the ST. Louis Archives, they were lost, they were

ready to accept that answer.

Boy, did I let them know real fast, I had the originals

of the three copies that I had sent them myself, mailed to me

from the Archives.

I had to jump through hurdles to keep my records in my claims file.

I have triple copies of everything in my file, just to be safe.

Always,

Betty

[Tbird]

here's a link to the news stories on this, it just pmo - like it's not hard enough already, these chuckleheads can't even do some quality assurance :P

http://news.google.com/news?ie=UTF-8&o...hreds+documents