Once again a lower level medical employee challenged my diagnosis! I understand the perceived need of some who over step their assigned pay grade to prove they are "somebody" in the bureaucratic heavy VA system. My concern in the activity relates not only to myself but every Vet that uses the VA to care for their service connected conditions. In the employees' endeavor to "prove" their biased actions they never acknowledge the fact that a diagnoses is completed by Doctors with hopefully years of training and more years of OJT. Obviously there is more to this short note on a recent VA med visit which ended abruptly when I suggested the diagnose was confirmed in 2013 and made service connected by VA Docs in a board decision. In short instead of taking care of the Vet the employee wanted to disprove something of which they could never have Intel about but were willing to throw in their 2 cents and waste the scheduled yearly appointment time. I was polite and simply said that the conditions concerned information of a National Security/Emergency Operation aka Top Secret Assignment and I did not believe they had the clearance or need to know of the event. That person quickly left the exam room, and hopefully just to do their pay scale task and not ask silly questions of the Vets they are employed to take care of.
That clinic will be part of a larger health care system or a VA medical center. They will have a Patient Advocate who reports directly to the Director of that HCS. Complain and let them know you might be surprised. BTW I asked which one because in my job I have interacted with or been in close to half of the VA facilities and have a good idea about which are on top of things and which are not. Culture varies greatly from one to another.
A couple of things I need to do here. The employee never gave their name so that must be learned. Two, why the sudden disappearance of the employee? I doubt this is a first and since this is a small operation I will have to report it to a main clinc 40miles away. No biggie since I need to go there to take a VA Letter to the benefits section to prove my percentage, at the small clinic, as the Doc said I was listed at a different percent than is shown on my VA Letter. As usual there is a disconnect between the VA Award section and the VA Med section! No surprise there. So a few months wait and a reason to be at the large clinic and not just there to complain. Then again some years back at the the larger clinic I went head to head with a Specialists Doc as to a White Paper I had inserted into my documents "statement in support of a claim" to prove my case. In this and something I have never seen before a Doc inserted their reasoning as to why the White Paper and my opinions were wrong! This concerned an Agent Orange condition not yet on the approved list of diseases, but what better reason did I need knowing a change was coming and after all I was always denied a filing for Agent Orange anyway. Yup I and the author were soon vindicated shortly after and the "bad" letter is still in my file of documents. It will be nice to actually see the VA admit they were wrong but of course they will never admit such a thing. More later as things develop.
Years ago I had an Accounting Professor in college that complained about the trouble of dealing with the IRS and the State Dept. of Revenue....the inability to deal with the same government employee concerning a tax problem. The original employee that you were dealing with has quit, been transferred, been promoted, is on vacation, is on sick leave, is taking a personal day, is in a training session, etc.. You can never get the same person twice! You will have to start all over again with someone new and hope that they will still be there in a day or two! Or just give up and stop trying to fight the system...I gathered that he was well known to the folks at the IRS and State Dept. of Revenue as someone that didn't give up! He would keep calling, filing extensions and appeals, etc. until he got his way! He was my Father's CPA for many years.
Agree. Buy your printer ink in quantity and your paper by the ream. Flood them with paper, they hate that and will feed you crap until you have enough to get a lawyer involved. They hate that, too. (Don't ask how I know, but I got the IRS off my ass that way.) Phones are no win dealing with gov't twits.