H Vac Hearing Soon To Begin

[Berta]

at http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/hearing.aspx?NewsID=340

[carlie]

Berta,

I loved Ron Abrahms comparing VBA employees to the I love Lucy show,

where Lucy & Ethel are on the candy factory line - the machine speeds up and Lucy and Ethel start hiding the candy in their pockets and blouses and hats and even start eating the candy.

Well this is what VBA employees are doing to claims and evidence, just to hurry up and get a final end product code. Our works done - BVA can deal with it now.

Ron did not mention it but taking it even further - the the BVA just passes it of to the AMC, any way they can.

carlie

[carlie]

I love this too !

Ms. Moore - VBA employee states to the effect -

There needs to be more training - employees in the mailroom are not qualified to make the

decisions that they are required to inorder to move the mail.

I have been harping on this for at least 10 years.

Ms. Moore - VBA employee states to the effect -

I get paid $75,000.00 per year.

So, I think I'm qualified to make a decision as to wheter or not something

is ready to be destroyed or shredded.

I feel this is donkey crap !

VBA had NO POLICY in regards to what can or can not be destroyed and/or shredded.

During a brief VA employee amnesty time:

Over 16,0000 items were found ready to be destroyed - but by an amnesty

grant these items were retreived.

This is shameful.

carlie

[carlie]

A paperless system would be wonderful - but then we also have to

question again - VBA employees taking home laptops or being able to

access their files from home and the lack of security with this.

Also, what's to say the imaging centers do not get backlogged

and start spoliating themselves.

Hell,

Just released today - the entire skematics of the President's

Marine One Helicopter were found on computer hard drives

in terrorist supportive countries.

carlie

[carlie]

Berta,

I have a letter from DVA to my US Senator Bob Graham.

On one issue in this letter the DVA states,

"On October 30,2001, Ms. XXXXX was asked to complete an authorization for

Release of Information which would allow us to obtain her private medical records,

this development was specifically directed by the Decision Review Officer responsible

for her appeals. Ms. XXXXX refused to assist in the development of her appeal stating

we already had the information and she was not going to send it again.

Not only had I signed several ROI forms for this - BUT my C-file also already

contained the specific private treatment records that the DRO was requesting.

carlie

[broncovet]

Carlie is right..do we need to pay someone $75k/year to "decide" whether or not to shred a Veterans evidence? I dont think so. $10 an hour and here are the rules:

1. You shred evidence you get fired.

2. If you are not sure if it is evidence or not, DONT SHRED IT AND DONT GET FIRED.

3. If there are any doubts refer to rules #1 and #2.

[purple]

I'm not sure a paperless system is the answer. Look at what's happening with medical records? They still can't keep those straight.

And what happens when the system "crashes"?

It takes just as long to read a claim on a screen as on a sheet of paper. So processing times really wouldn't change much.

And much easier to hit that "delete" key as to walk something to the shredder.......