An Important Story At Vawatchdogtoday

[Berta]

"Test Results in Veterans Medical Facilities " by Jim Strickland

http://www.vawatchdogtoday.org/

In Part:

“I'm fortunate to have frequent communications with Rich Cohen, Executive Director of NOVA. The National Organization of Veterans Advocates is a premier entity that serves to educate and inform attorneys and agents who represent veterans. I'm not an attorney and I don't have any legal background and the opportunity for me to vent frustrations as well as ask my questions about all things legal is invaluable to my efforts.

Rich offered this to me recently; "Jim...VHA can't get it right". He attached the report from the VA-OIG, "Management of Test Results in Veterans Health Administration Facilities". Rich points out that, "The report documents the failure of VHA to notify patients of test results and shows that in 48% of observed institutions (10/21); 'Policies did not describe a process for monitoring the effectiveness of communicating critical results to patients.'"

In simpler terms, doctors at almost half of VA medical facilities studied didn't have a good policy telling them when and how to inform patients of test results.”

I emailed Jim that he must have ESP because yesterday I got a VACO response (nothing to do with my claims) regarding an accountabilty matter I have been pursuing for many years and might finally be coming to a head.

It involves a comment I made at the Federal Register and the NPDB mandate.

And the article he posted reflects the points my comment contained. (I think they took it off the Fed Reg site)

A veteran could easily assume that if the VA doesn't contact them about a test result-everything was OK.

But the reality is a test result could be critical and need immediate attention.

I get test results in the mail from my doc sometimes but usually it is the first thing she addresses when I have next appointment.I don't know why the VA is lacking in this important area of patient communication.

[Pete53]

Yep unless you get updated copies of your medical records you may never learn that you need to be pro active. The VA simply operates by catastrophe not by clinical testing and evaluation.

[71M10]

I have an appt with my provider on Monday. Had my labs drawn last Friday, looked at them on my healthy vet today, and am formulating a list of questions.

Even though the Doctors apparently arn't communicating the information at least some of the records are becoming available with out making a specific request for it!

I guess one of the fascinating/frusturating parts of VA care is that they do have some truly nice things they have implemented but they can't quite ever get the whole picture in place before the paint dries and they start making a mess!!

Best regards,

[Pete53]

Thanks I just found my lab work dating back to May of 1991. It is not an easy read but you can get a lot of info.

[john999]

How do you copy just your most recent lab result from myhealtyvet? I have years of medical records but it looks like when you copy you get everything.

[boomer2]

This happened to me recently. I had some lab work done at the VAMC and when I saw the VA doc she told me everything was normal. I got a copy of the blood tests and took it to my cardio doc and he said that I was borderline diabetic, he said that my A1C test was 6.2 and that 6.4 was diabetic.

[broncovet]

John..

You can print most things by going to the document you want, right click, then select "Print".

If that does not work try cut and paste. You can use the "print screen" button also. The "print screen" button does not cause your computer to "print" but rather copies what is on the screen to "the clipboard".

Once it has been copied to the clipboard, either with the use of "print screen" or by selecting what you want then hit "Ctrl and C" at the same time, then you can open up a document, such as a new "word" document, and hit "Ctrl and V" at the same time. Ctrl V is the "paste" command. It will copy whatever is on your "clipboard" and "paste" it on the desired document.

Edited September 10, 2011 by broncovet