Another VA Medical related question to those in the know....

Obviously, its not my fault that it took the VA nearly 4 years to approve my claim.  I was dx. in 8/2008, but in the end, due to when I filed, the VA approved me back to 12/2009.

To my way of thinking, that means they were responsible for my medical care back to that date.  If so, will I be entitled to any reimbursements for all the prostate cancer related medical expenses back to that date?  If so, what kind of paper work do I need to produce?

We are talking a lot of expenses, that in theory, they should have been paying.  This would have included all of my SRT, my bladder by-pass surgery (that alone, with hospital was over 90k), 2 other related day operations, all of my expensive meds, all my monthly Ostomy supplies, etc.  The total would be staggering.

Is there any facts behind my logic?  Since they were suppose to be providing  this medical care, despite the long delay of their choosing, am I entitled to anything?

Have any of you vets been faced with the same situation, and if yes, how did you handle it, and what was the outcome?

David in SC

My guess is that they would not pay for anything insurance already paid for. Don't know how you would go about making a claim or file suit.

It would be up to insurance companies who had paid costs to go after those. And they would evaluate it on the basis of what they might recover. Understanding that what is billed and what is actually paid in the insurance company - provider relationship, it might not be worth the effort for them.

If you were eventually reimbursed for out of pocket costs that you had deducted from taxes as medical expenses, you might be held responsible to file amended tax returns for those years as well. I have seen that happen with a co-worker.

It seems to me that it would be a morass of paperwork and unintended consequences.

How much has your treatment cost you out-of-pocket? How much money is the VA giving you in retroactive payments?

I'd at least submit the receipts for their allowable medical procedures/supplies that you paid out of pocket.

There are many boots-on-the-ground combat veterans in dire need of care. You've had your care during those 4 years while many of them have been waiting because of limited resources. Why not just let this one pass?

81guy,

thanks for the links. didn't know about any of them, will check them out. on one link that I found randomly today on a google search, had all kinds of questions and answers on this very subject, so it's obvious to me, that its a common question.

I believe one of our long standing members, after receiving his approval fairly fast, had mentioned this aspect to me several years ago, but cant' honestly remember what I was told. Perhaps he will see this thread and refresh my memory.

David

onthefence, I don't know why you have some axe to grind, but its not going to happen to me.

and for you information, I was not on a ship, I was on a land based aviation squadron, and we did missions in the south china sea, mykong delta area, and all along south viet-nam, and we deployed to cam rah bay in south viet nam. once again, what's your real issue here?

won't be replying further to you, but just wanted you to have your facts correct. the va, assumes, that anyone that was "boots on the ground", not just army, but includes navy, air force, marines, coast guard, was at risk. their criteria, not mine. do you question every other viet nam vet here at HW PC? So far, I seem to be your target, why?

david

Onthefence,

I'm speaking up here on behalf of the Navy in Vietnam and also on behalf of David, based on what I know of his medical history and his service as a U.S. sailor.

Just because someone was Navy does NOT mean they were on a ship or were not boots on the ground in Vietnam. There are more than 2,500 dead sailors listed on The Wall in Washington. In my own case, I can attest I spent all of my 4 years in the Navy after boot camp, "A" school, and SERE training on "sea duty" even though I was never on a ship (not counting coastal swift boats or harbor craft). I and many thousands of other sailors were boots on the ground in RVN -- in my case Saigon, Cam Ranh Bay, and ultimately Danang for a year doing coastal surveillance as part of a small detached outfit on an RVN navy base. After Nam I spent another 2 years on sea duty which consisted of being in a Navy patrol squadron whose P3s were too big to land on any ship. This is the kind of squadron David was in and whose planes were detached to RVN to do coastal patrol based out of Cam Ranh Bay. My Coastal Surveillance Center worked with these patrol planes all the time along with our Swift Boats and the Coast Guards WPBs as our "eyes and ears" along the sector of coast we monitored.

As for the many other kinds of sailors, I have a high school buddy who was a Navy Hospital Corpsman who spent a year in Nam with the SeaBees and was subject to frequent rocket attacks. And lets not forget the crew of PCF (Swift Boat) 19 --based out of Danang -- that went down just south of the DMZ while I was on watch at the other end of the radio. Five crewmen died that night, one survived without serious injury, and one (the lieutenant who was the boat's commander) survived with permanent damage to his lower spine and legs.

I left 'Nam in December 68. A month later swift boats were pulled off the coast and sent up the rivers. And lets not forget all the "Docs" the Navy corpsman who was with every Marine platoon. And lets not forget the SEALS whose "nasty boats" tied up just up the harbor from our swift boats. And for that matter lets not forget the Coast Guard whose WPBs were based at Danang and elsewhere along the coast and would run a patrol barrier a mile or two seaward of our Navy swift boats for a week or so at a time before returning to harbor to re-supply.

Sorry to rant, but at any given time more than half of the Navy is doing its job somewhere other than on blue water.

Jim

We all did what we had to do. And many of us lost friends in the course of doing our jobs. FWIW I did the same patrol as PCF 19 on a different night on a different boat and we all came home just fine. I see you came home too. Boat 19 was in the wrong place at the wrong time (just south of the DMZ a mile offshore). Stuff happens.

Jim, I want to thank you personally, for your good account of my, and many other navy viet-nam vets. Our brother, Sonny, was also Navy Viet-Nam, believed he was on the Swift Boats, the small river craft.

And it was interesting, while P-3 were and are land based, for whatever reason, the Navy back then counted it as "sea duty" for us guys. We got regular pay, flight pay, and when in actual hostile areas, combat pay.

Also here in Greenville, SC, Lockheed has a huge facility, that still upgrades and services all the Navy's existing fleet of P-3 Orions. I still get to see my lovely planes flying overhead on a regular basis, keeping my fond memories alive.

The only time I was on a ship, was close to the time I was getting out, I was on DEG-6 Julius A. Furerer (what a name for a US ship, lol. It was a guided missile destroyer escort, later reclassed DEG 6, and long has been scrapped. She was in Boston at the time, and in dry dock, and the ship didn't have a drop of water anywhere near it, lol. However, the Captain like to pretend we were on the high seas, with the skyline of downtown Boston in plain view.

Of all we Viet-Nam vets, the brotherhood extends to the Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, and yes, the U.S. Coast Guard, and to be completely fair, should include the U.S. Merchant Marine. While each branch of the service would rag the other, we were all together, fighting for the same thing. I still feel this way 40 plus years later.

Thanks again, Jim, for clarifying this point.

David

Purgatory On the fence's was the only one I felt to be provocative leaning to hostile. The rest was merely everyones opinion, but like you I read between the lines on various posts, sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly{present tense} and on this thread, I honestly feel the posters were neutral to you tho most did think it would be a negative in a cost/benefit analysis. I understand On the F.ences frustration, he just took it out on you and not the bureaucratic application of the law. That application affects every govt. program in existence,from Hoverounds to catheters, to VA medicare, welfare, you name it, and IMO, always will, regardless of what administration is in power. Watch the movie "Brazil" sometime do see what Bureuracracies can do to a country. You have every right to pursue the rights that men and women have died for. And win you pursue those rights and regain them, no one need question you, especially the very men and women who survived the battles that protected thos rights and indeed have the same rights. Individual freedom. We are all aware of discrimination against various groups , minorities and so forth. Guess which minority is the smallest and persecuted the most! The solitary free thinking individual. I thank all uniformed veterans in the military and equally all the unknown veterans { in the battle of life}, working in all types of occupations who stand up to the status quo, operative word STATUS, group think, and anything else, that stifles the individuals right to to be themselves. Of course there are boundaries to every right and when living within a Polis {greek for city/community}, these boundaries need to be respected. Actually self-evident rights need to be respected wherever you abide, even { generically}, if within yourself. Thats my Hyde Park statement for the day.

logoslidat said...
Watch the movie "Brazil" sometime do see what Bureuracracies can do to a country.

Just an aside, and not really relevant to the substance of this thread; but I know the movie "Brazil" and also know one of its cast members -- the woman who played the character with the odd dental retainer metal hoop around her face. Life is full of small absurdities. Some of them have to do with movies; some with chat boards; some with wars--over whatever.

My best to all,

Jim