How Far Is Reasonable To Travel For C&p?

[gwvet90]

Hi all,

How far can you be expected to travel for your C&P exams? If it is too far - what can you do about it?

[john999]

The VA has to pay for your milage. I believe if there is some special needs involved you could get them to pay for that as well. Above all, don't miss the C&P exam even if you have to fly.

[mssoup1]

How far are they expecting you to go and is there not a facility closer that you could have it done at? If I was not satisfied with the arrangements, I would at least call the Patient Advocate at the VAMC and ask them these questions.

Maybe someone else has some other ideas.

mssoup1

[KennyJ]

QTC is in charge of scheduling C&P exams where i live, I think theryare in charge for all C&P exams. Anyway I called the person in charge of my scheduling my exam (her name was on on the order) and I think if you really can't make it they may can resachedule but it would be at a later time and probably much closer. At least you can call and ask them. I kept my original time and place even though I had to go 70 miles for the exam and then somewhere else to take the exams.

[gwvet90]

Hi, they had me schedualled to go nearly 800 miles - for 5 C&P spread out over 2 weeks.

I called them & asked to be moved closed - so now I am going 230 miles away...... It is still far - but they were very nice about reschedualling - but now I hope it doesn't put any points against me - like failing to show up? I called right away - I got the letter & the exams were set for 4 days later. I called to have them changed & I sent a letter explaining like they asked, but I just don't want to get nailed for not going to those.

Does anyone know of any GOOD VAMC's around? With competent Dr's? Anyone have a GOOD experiance with a particular VAMC?

[mssoup1]

GWVET,

I am not sure we know exactly where you live, so it would be hard to respond back knowing if there was anywhere closer to you. Is this the closest VAMC to you? My husband has always been sent to the closest VAMC for all of his C & P's. Not sure why they would want to send you that far away from home, unless they are so backed up at the closer one or this is the closest VAMC to you. My husband had an inadequate C & P exam and the initial response was they may have to send him to another VAMC to have another one done. In the end, they ask us if we would agree to have a physicians assistant do the exam and he could have the exam done again at the local VAMC. We agreed.

In the Southeast part of the U.S., they have a person in charge of 7 of the VAMC's who oversees the C & P operation. I am not sure exactly what her exact responsibilities are, but we ended up speaking to her and she had everything set up for us. During the exam, we didn't get a good feeling that it would be going our way. We at first thought that it probably was due to the fact that this Physician Assistant knew this was a second exam being done due to the first one being incompetent. We later found out that she worked under the doctor who did the initial exam. We thought, not good. In the end, the results were in our favor.

You are kinda vague on your post as to why you are being sent this far away, so it is kinda hard to know and respond back with much information to you. My husband has always had the local VARO send a request to our local VAMC requesting that they set up a C & P exam. We then get a letter from the VAMC telling us when it is being scheduled.

I know your frustrations. When I thought my husband may have to go miles away just for an exam, I really got upset. That was the reason for so many phone calls, trying to find someone who could help us out on this. In our case, it worked out okay.

Hope you can get this straightened out.

mssoup1