CORRESPONDENTS

Chris Adams

VA data belie boast about Montana region's mental treatment

Internal documents that McClatchy obtained show that, far from being a national leader, the Rocky Mountain region is in the bottom half of the nation's 21 regions in the VA's own scorecard of performance, which takes into account whether veterans are getting regular mental-health treatment and how efficiently the region is spending its money and using its resources. | 12/28/07 15:28:00 By - Chris Adams

Suicide shocks Montana into assessing vets' care

All across America, veterans are slipping through the cracks, left to languish by their military units and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The experience in Montana, which by some measures does more than any other state to support America's wars, shows how far the military and the VA have to go. | 12/28/07 15:27:00 By - Chris Adams

Payments vary greatly for new veterans with mental illness

Veterans coming home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with debilitating mental ailments are discovering that their disability payments from the government vary widely depending on where they live, an exclusive McClatchy analysis has found. | 12/20/07 06:00:00 By - Chris Adams

VA must act to curb combat-vet suicides, panel hears

The Department of Veterans Affairs needs to do more to find and treat returning soldiers who're at risk of killing themselves if the country is going to avert a rash of veterans' suicides, lawmakers and witnesses told a congressional hearing Wednesday. | 12/12/07 17:47:00 By - Chris Adams

VA's performance on benefits slips or is unchanged

The Department of Veterans Affairs fell farther behind this year in its attempts to give veterans timely decisions on their disability claims, new records show. The latest numbers are in an annual report the VA prepares for Congress detailing a range of short- and long-term goals for its disability, health and other benefit programs. Overall, the agency either has fallen behind or has made no progress in improving its performance in more than half of what it lists as its key goals. | 11/28/07 06:00:00 By - Chris Adams

VA studies: PTSD care inconsistent

The Department of Veterans Affairs, which touts its special programs to treat post-traumatic stress disorder in returning soldiers, spends little on those programs in some parts of the country, and some of its efforts fail to meet some of the VA's own goals, according to internal reports obtained by McClatchy Newspapers. | 09/16/07 07:00:29 By - Chris Adams

VA may win boost in funding for mental conditions caused by war

Prompted by concerns that the VA can't adequately care for soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as older veterans already in the system, Congress is instructing the VA to push more money toward treatment of mental health and traumatic brain injuries. | 06/19/07 17:00:00 By - Chris Adams

VA overstates record on wait times for appointments, report finds

The Department of Veterans Affairs continues to significantly overstate its success in getting patients to see doctors for timely appointments, undercutting one of its key claims of success, according to a draft report obtained by McClatchy Newspapers. While top VA officials told Congress earlier this year that 95 percent of appointments are scheduled within 30 days of a patients requested date, the true number is about 75 percent, according to the analysis by the departments inspector general. The report hasnt been released and is stamped Draft For Discussion Only. Its in the final stages of preparation and could be revised. | 06/11/07 03:00:00 By - Stella M. Hopkins and Chris Adams

Lawmakers seek increased mental health funding for veterans

Saying theyre very concerned that the Department of Veterans Affairs isnt spending enough on mental health treatment, congressional members of both parties are pushing for more money in next years VA budget. While the budget and appropriations plan for fiscal 2008 is in the works and wont be settled for months, veterans committee members in the House of Representatives and the Senate say more needs to be done to reach out and treat soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. | 06/04/07 03:00:00 By - Chris Adams

VA official seeks to reassure senators

A top official from the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is under fire for exaggerating claims about the quality of its health-care system, assured a Senate committee Wednesday that hell work to correct any inaccuracies or misstatements the VA may have made. In an appearance before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, Dr. Michael Kussman was pressed about last weeks McClatchy Newspapers story reporting persistent exaggerations about the VAs health-care system. Kussman is seeking to be confirmed as the undersecretary for health, overseeing the VAs vast medical system. Hes held the position on an acting basis since last summer. | 05/16/07 03:00:00 By - Chris Adams and David Whitney

VA continues to misrepresent its own secretary's statements

The Department of Veterans Affairs says it needs to be more careful in public comments about the superiority of its health care system, but it insists that it never made a quality-of-care claim that its top leader has made repeatedly. | 05/15/07 03:00:00 By - Chris Adams

A mixed record

Many studies tout the quality of the Department of Veterans Affairs health system based on what researchers call the process of health care; for example, how regularly important tests are performed. The VA does well on those measures. There are fewer studies documenting the outcomes of the agencys health care. That is: Do patients in the VA system do better or live longer? There, the record is mixed. | 05/10/07 03:00:00 By - Chris Adams

VA medical system isn't as big a success as officials have asserted

The Department of Veterans Affairs has habitually exaggerated the record of its medical system, inflating its achievements in ways that make it appear more successful than it is, a McClatchy Newspapers study shows. While the VAs health system has gotten very good marks for a transformation its undertaken over the past decade, the department also has a habit of overselling its progress in ways that assure Congress and others that the agency has enough resources to care for the nations soldiers. | 05/10/07 03:00:00 By - Chris Adams

Report: VA must revise criteria for evaluating stress disorder

The Department of Veterans Affairs must change the way it evaluates former soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder if it hopes to eliminate the wide disparities across the country in how much it compensates those who have the disability, a new report has concluded. Released Tuesday by the highly regarded Institute of Medicine, the report says that the recent surge in cases of PTSD, coupled with ineffective VA rules, suggests that veterans could be getting disability payments that are too high or too low. | 05/08/07 03:00:00 By - Chris Adams

VA criticized several times for faulty contracts

The Department of Veterans Affairs has been criticized by its inspector general several times for faulty contracts that dont protect the interests of the taxpayers, or in some cases, veterans themselves. The agency has generally accepted the inspector generals findings and said it has or will take steps to correct any mistakes. | 03/27/07 03:00:00 By - Chris Adams

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