Using the VA claims online

[Army-Navy Guy]

Using the online VA claim process. After one thought they submitted all support documents for a claim, and you push the button saying this is all I have, “please start my claim”, only to find out you came across something important to your claim, can you still submit it for review?

[brokensoldier244th]

Yes, you can continue to submit up until the point when it is in "Rating". 

[john999]

Using the VA for your medical needs helps with online claims.  The VA does not have to go looking for medical records.  I recently filed for an increase for AO conditions.  It was all there at the VA and my claim was decided in a few months.  I don't love the VA but using them for care is a good idea.  I have had good luck with online VA claims so I can't kick.  I have never had to file additional evidence so it is good to see I could do it as discussed in the previous posts.  Filing my original claims by hand, so to speak, was a chore and my evidence was lost again and again.  I finally delivered all evidence by hand to the VARO and got signed receipts for all.  This was a pain in the ass.

[brokensoldier244th]

You can always use both just remember that if you send us. 4142/4142a release to gather private records file you that does not compel your outside provider to cooperate, cooperate timely, not charge for records, etc., and VA is not budgeted an allotment to pay for private records whether they be medical, civil, or criminal (in the case of MST, for example).  In those instances it’s faster that you do whatever it is your private provider or local LE requires to release records to you and then you copy or scan and send to us. 

[Lemuel]

9 hours ago, john999 said:

Using the VA for your medical needs helps with online claims.  The VA does not have to go looking for medical records.  I recently filed for an increase for AO conditions.  It was all there at the VA and my claim was decided in a few months.  I don't love the VA but using them for care is a good idea.  I have had good luck with online VA claims so I can't kick.  I have never had to file additional evidence so it is good to see I could do it as discussed in the previous posts.  Filing my original claims by hand, so to speak, was a chore and my evidence was lost again and again.  I finally delivered all evidence by hand to the VARO and got signed receipts for all.  This was a pain in the ass.

There is another reason to use VA Medical (VAHA) for your medical needs.  It is "socialized medicine" that is not an HMO that makes money by limiting services.  Problem with VAHA now is the delays and physicians quitting to into private practice because of the "political atmosphere" limiting there ability to help veterans.

In fee based medicine, most private providers that are not HMOs like Kaiser, the incentive is counter to your medical needs.  Doing too much as in overprescribing to keep you coming in for that next visit.  Marketing mean making you worry about your health more than necessary to control you pocket for as much as they can get out of it often subconsciously without realizing they are responding to their financial need and not your health needs.

Example:  In 1965 I was working as an orderly part time in a hospital in Waukegan, IL.  One night, during my break, I was in the "canteen" getting something to eat out of the machines when a couple of physicians came in wearing scrubs indicating they just came out of surgery which I quickly surmised from their conversation was a cesarean  birth.  One doctor was saying to the other that he had been to the marina and say a boat that he just had to have on a previous weekend but did not have enough for the down payment.  He then said, would you believe it, on Monday three hysterectomies walked into my office.

That raises the questions, were all of those hysterectomies necessary and were any of them necessary?  I am sure the obstetric surgeon believed they were necessary, but was his judgement clouded by his subconscious financial desire?

We would be much better off with "health contracts" granted in small areas so that we could choose our contractor.  And the contractors were paid bonuses for health on the morbidity reports, especially those coming out of the corner's office and the death certificates.  We had that at the VA before the 2012 Cheyenne and Phoenix VAs screwed it up by falsifying their "service to patient" records in order to benefit the move to "community service" insurance contractors that cost more and do nothing to enhance your health.

Ross Perot was right.  If we take the "fee based" financial processing out of health care, we can provide more and better health care to the Nation.  We could get back up in the top 5 at least, maybe even number one again in the World Health Organization's rankings of nations on health care.  Now we are 38th.  That is 19 places below the 19 industrialized nations putting us well down into the "third world nations" in providing health care to our citizens.

I blame CHAMPVA, the community service contractor for the VA that provides health insurance to spouses and families of veterans, for the death of my wife.  After her fall when she fractured her skull and had bleeding on the brain for which she was started on a prophylaxis medication to prevent status epilepticus in protocol with such injuries, we could not get a neurologist to take her as a patient. 

I realize now it was because CHAMPVA like Kaiser, and now a very different Secure Horizons that used to advertise no premium, no copay, dental, and optometry for Medicare Advantage that is now just like Kaiser, in greed charging extra for all those previous no extra costs and denying specialty services when they can get away with it.  Secure Horizons, the original was able to provide longer healthier lives by eliminating billing processing costs and using the extra money for preventative medicine extending their customer base by extending their client's lives and health.  They made their money in the '80s by not having to provide the more expensive health care by keeping their clients healthy.

The idea of using a professional organization as a means to do that is now common among insurers.  But the insurers are greedy.  They have no heart like all bankers that want to live off others productivity without really providing much service to the others.
 

[john999]

Great post.  I could not agree more with you.  Those Medicare HMO's are really a scam.  That is killing Medicare.  I don't know how much longer VA will remain free for us disabled vets.  I use the VA but I also use private doctors for serious stuff.  Why do private doctors think they are entitled to be millionaires by the time they are 40?