From: "Secor, Kevin" <Kevin.Secor@va.gov>
Subject: Patient Care Group Scam
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:50:34 +0000 I
have received many reports that Veterans are being
contacted by "Patient Care Group" representing
that they are helping administer VA prescriptions
and stating that the pharmacy billing procedures
have changed and they are therefore requesting
Veteran credit card numbers for prescription payments
in advance of filling their prescriptions. This
is false. VA does not call Veterans asking to
disclose personal financial information over the
phone. VA has not changed its processes for dispensing
prescription medicines.
Kevin
Kevin Secor
Veterans Service Organizations Liaison
Office of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Washington, DC
202-273-4836 |
In an effort to be fair and
balanced with respect to the Department of Veteran's
Affairs, the following story from the Washington Post
of Monday, August 22, 2005, is printed herewith in excerpt,
in conjunction with the article on V.A. vs PTSD.
REVAMPED VETERANS' HEALTH CARE NOW A MODEL
by Gilbert M. Gaul
Washington Post Staff Writer
__________________________________________________________________
For years, the Department of Veterans Affairs'
sprawling health care system was criticized by veterans
groups and government investigators as a dangerous backwater
of medicine. Report after report portrayed it as suffocating
from top-heavy bureaucracy, dirty and unsafe hospitals,
and little or no accountability. Thousands of eligible
patients opted to get their care elsewhere.
But in the past decade, largely unnoticed by the public,
the system has undergone a dramatic transformation and
now is considered by some to be a model.
Researchers laud the VA for its use of electronic medical
records, its focus on preventive care and its outstanding
results. The system out performs Medicare and most private
health plans on many quality measures, including diabetes
care, managing high blood pressure and caring for heart
attack patients. Demand at veterans clinics and hospitals
is soaring--so much so that Congress last month appropriated
$1.5 billion in emergency funds to cover a budget shortfall
that the department did not anticipate.
Some experts point to the VA makeover as a lesson in
how the nation's troubled health care system might be
able to heal itself.
"If you take a five or six-year perspective,
I think what the Veterans Health Administration has
done is stunning," said Donald M. Berwick,
president and chief executive of the Institute for Healthcare
Improvement. "It's especially impressive because
this is a massive system that works in a fishbowl, is
under tremendous scrutiny and has constrained resources."
Since 1995, the VA says, the number of patients it is
treating has doubled, to about 5.2 million. At the same
time, the department reports that it has trimmed its
staff by about 12,000 people, opened hundreds of outpatient
clinics and shifted its focus to primary care, while
cutting costs per patient by about half.
"If we've proved anything...in the last 10
years, it is that quality is less expensive,"
said Jonathan B. Perlin, the acting undersecretary for
health.The VA's new medicine is on display at the bedside.
One recent morning in Room 148 on the third floor of
the Baltimore VA Medical Center, nurse Diane Bailey
prepared to give Francis Xavier Lee, 79, a World War
II veteran, medication for asthma. In most hospitals,
Bailey would rifle through charts attempting to decipher
a physician's scrawled instructions. At Lee's bedside,
she logged on to a laptop computer containing the patient's
medical history and a list of medication he was scheduled
to receive.Bailey scanned Lee's bar-code bracelet to
ensure his identity, then typed in the time and dose
of each medication. If she were to hit the wrong key
or enter the wrong information, the computer program
would signal her to correct the mistake...The VA's metamorphosis
began in the early 1990's, when it was under attack
and worried about its future. Officials turned to Kenneth
W. Kizer. A physician and former Naval Reserve Officer,
Kizer had earned kudos for helping restructure health
services for the state of California."Everyone
said, 'You're a fool,'" he recalled. "'There
isn't an agency in the government as sclerotic as the
VA. Why go in and waste time?'"But Kizer was
looking for a new challenge. Over the next five years,
he and aides reorganized the VA's unwieldy network of
172-plus hospitals and 132 nursing homes into 22 self-contained
systems responsible for providing all patient care.
The VA also shifted some specialists to its new outpatient
clinics.At the same time, the department invested heavily
in computers and software. They link distant clinics
to urban teaching facilities and allow VA physicians
to access patient records wherever they happen to be.These
days, computers are used to measure everything at VA
sites with an aim toward improving care...By contrast,
private physicians in Medicare's sprawling fee-for-service
system receive little feedback from the huge federal
insurance programs and lag behind VA doctors on numerous
quality indicators, according to half a dozen recent
studies by VA and academic researchers.Medicare officials
point out that the VA has the advantage of being an
integrated delivery system--that is, a health plan in
which most of the doctors are salaried employees and
all care is coordinated and tracked. In Medicare, physicians
work for themselves and patients are free to pick and
choose their services. Still, Perlin pointed out, "we
were an integrated delivery system before, and no one
said we had an advantage."Veterans organizations
applaud the VA makeover, saying surveys show that most
of their members are satisfied with the medical care
they get. At the same time, they worry that tight budgets
are forcing some veterans to wait months for an appointment."The
quality of care has improved greatly and we are grateful
for that," said Peter S. Gaytan, director
of veterans affairs for the American Legion. "But
the timeliness of care is suffering. We have vets waiting
in line because the funding is inadequate to meet the
need."Unlike Medicare, the VA is expected
to work within a budget. Recently, Congress criticized
the department's leaders for underestimating the demand
for services in light of the fighting in Afghanistan
and Iraq. At June hearings, VA officials said the model
they used to develop the 2005 budget relied on three-year
old data.In June, the Bush administration told Congress
that the VA would need more money this year, and revised
its request for fiscal 2006, boosting the department's
health budget by $2 billion. Still, much of the increased
demand for service predates Afghanistan and Iraq, and
appears to coincide with the department's new reputation
for quality.A large part of that shift is the result
of the investment in computers. The 75,000 physicians
who are full- time, salaried doctors or affiliated with
the Veterans Health Administration have access to a
detailed electronic record or every patient. It includes
every visit, prescription, surgery and test a patient
receives. Doctors can call up prior visits, enter blood
pressures and blood sugar levels, access the latest
research, and tap into treatment guidelines--all with
the click of a mouse.If a patient moves--say, from Baltimore
to San Francisco--her record follows. If a physician
in the VA's Pocomoke City, MD., outpatient clinic wants
to check how his patient is faring after surgery in
Baltimore, he can read the notes on-line. In the past,
only one doctor could access a chart at a time. Now
anyone can, at any time...Perlin estimated that it costs
the VA about $78 per patient per year to operate the
electronic health record. "Roughly the equivalent
of not repeating one blood test," he said.Later
this year, the VA plans to allow patients to access
their electronic medical records over the internet through
its My HealtheVet. "The patient is
often the forgotten partner in health care," Perlin
said. Sharing the records "recognizes a person
has interests in how his care is managed."The
target for the rollout: Veterans Day in November.
Articles and Information on Veterans
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