Va Healthcare Means Test For Co-pays

[spike]

I get questions all the time, how do they figure if I am to pay a co-pay at the VA Hospital. Well check the chart. Find where you live (State and county)...go over to the right (no in household). If your income is above that you pay. In 2008....look for copays to go up from 8 to 15 for script. Questions please ask.

The chart is too large its at least 74 pages.

Actually go to the link. Right click and open in new tab.

http://www.va.gov/healtheligibility/Library/GMTtips.asp

[tssnave]

Bob,

Thanks for the clarification. It never ceases to amaze me that some of the folks on the front lines serving (yes, that's their job description - to serve vets in a customer service capacity) veterans can be so hateful.

Of course, on the other side of the coin, in my father's last years (a WWII vet w/ sc for his back and hearing) I took him to several of his VA appointments. The staff at the hearing clinic was wonderful. They treated him with courtesy and respect and listened to what he had to say. He was amazed that "the girls" (remember, he was in his 80s so all the workers there were younger than his children and most of them were contemporaries of his grandchildren) were so competent (again, female vets, don't get offended, he was from an era when most of the gals who worked during the war stopped working and stayed home with their families when the men came back from the war).

It wasn't just the hearing clinic either. The guy in one clinic (the one where you get the tight socks for heart problems) always called him Chief. Long ago this young man, who'd been a sailor for a short hitch to get his education, had talked to Dad about his service and after that always called Dad Chief. Now, here is a young man, once a sailor, giving respect to an old man, a retired sailor, in a way that meant the world to Dad. When you are old and have a hard time even leaning over much less trying to get your tight socks pulled up with arthritic hands, to have a young "sailor" still treat you with the respect due an NCO, well, I can't begin to tell you what that does to a man's heart. He would always walk out of that clinic a little taller, a little straighter, with a bounce in his step. This may not be a literal fact but it is certainly a "heart" fact and it was because the young man always treated my father with courtesy and respect.

I'll spare you the details (and myself the memories) of the time his VA PCP saved his life because even though he wasn't exhibiting any clinicaly diagnosable symptoms, the VA doc agreed with us kids that Dad was acting strangely and admitted him for "dehydration" (which he told us Dad wasn't but he had to have some reason to admit him and that wouldn't be challeneged and the IV wouldn't hurt him and would get him under observation for 24 hours). Turns out what we saw were the early symptoms of a life threatening situation and if the doc wouldn't have admitted him, Dad would have gone to sleep and never woken up. Dad got another 4 good years of living because that young VA PCP knew my father and was willing to listen to us kids and generate a reason to get him admitted and it saved his life.

My prayer is that every veteran would get the same competent, friendly, respectful, quality health care that my father did. Unfortunately, I don't live in the same area as he did so I can't use the same VA center he did. My VA center is under investigation for killing several vets due to incompetency.

Bob, on behalf of all the adult children who don't live close enough to help their Dads out with the VA health system as often as they'd like to be able to, thanks for taking vets to their appointments. I know there's a lot of waiting involved and for an elderly vet (with a bad back) it can be tough.

OK, not only am I way off the thread here but I am getting choked up so I'll close. Thanks for the info, ingnore the rambling (the anniversary of my Dad's death is coming up and it's still tough - do you ever get over the loss of your father?).

Thanks,

ts

Edited April 23, 2007 by tssnave

[john999]

TSSNAVE

If you are not 50% or over the VA will bill any insurance you have and ask you to pay the co-pay if their is any co-pay. Even if you are 100% the VA will bill your private insurance for NSC things but you have no co-pay. I have Blue Cross and the VA sends them a bill for NSC drugs and services I get at the VA. It is really crap since I now have 8 service connected conditions and how they separate them out from the NSC stuff I don't know.

[sixthscents]

As far as service-connection, I think they just go off some code the doctor enters when they initially establish the prescription.

As far as taking vets to VAMC... well to be honest, its all part of a whole ... right? I mean if I am willing to spend literally hundreds of hours on some claims, then I would be silly not to be willing to spend a few actually ensuring that my veteran had the care they needed....

In the end I agree that the VA - overall, is a very "caring" atmosphere, and the lady (who wasn't) was the exception rather than the rule. I certainly have been completely satisfied with the level of care I have received. I have gotten to know many of the people on a first name basis, since I see them so often either thru my own appointments, or someone else's. They are, by and large, very good people indeed....

Sometimes, I am not well, or I have my own crisis, and thats when the call comes, and then it can be a bit ... bothersome when its the same vet you have talked to for days and days about their claim. Yet that too comes with the territory. Make no mistake while I am helping veterans, I get some help from this as well. I have found a great deal of satisfaction in achieveing even a 10% raise in comp... it doesnt matter, because I am still of USE.. does that make sense? Anyway, while I like to help veterans, by helping them I am in turn also helping myself... I have many many friends I never would have had except for this. I know my neighbors (who are vets) in very decent friendships that I never would have had, except for this. So.. as in most things likeit, the person who is helping does receive a reward and a sense of accomplishment...

A lot of these vets, well, they are almost scared of the VA... and they have no idea where or how to go, so if I take them to their first appointments, and get them used to the system, make sure that things go smoothly... well in the end it works out as being good for all of us doesnt it?

Anyway, its part of who I am now... I was a soldier, and as a soldier I did the same things I do now, just in a different way. It lets me stay, well heck.. ME...

Anyway... thanks and I am glad that your Dad got the care he DESERVED, as well as needed. Oh, and by the way... now I know YOU... because of this... and so many others.....

Bob Smith

[tssnave]

Bob,

You wrote: "because I am still of USE.. does that make sense?"

Yes, unequivocally, yes.

I may not be able to do the things I did when I was a young soldier physically, administratively, mentally, or emotionally but when I CAN do things that are of use physically, administratively, mentally, or emotionally for myself or better still, for someone else, it is very important to my (at times fragile) sense of self so in answer to your question, I say again, yes, unequivocally, yes what you wrote makes sense!

Thanks,

ts