PLEASE Email Secretary Bob About Lack Of Hospital Data
An analysis now shows Veterans Affairs is “egregiously” blocking access to hospital data mandated under the Hospital Share initiative.
The Sunlight Foundation conducted a government transparency assessment of VA and ripped the agency for being horrifically not transparent.
HOSPITAL DATA TRANSPARENCY?
About the disgraceful cover-up within VA, Sunlight Foundation stated:
“The absence of a new open government plan from the Department of Veterans Affairs over the past six years is not only an egregious flouting of President Barack Obama’s 2009 Open Government Directive, but a failure in governance that calls into question whether such plans accurately reflect the priorities and mission of agencies.”
The Sunlight Foundation also stated:
“On that count, we call on Congress, the VA and the Department of Health and Human services to restore hospital performance data. A blank website at hospitalcompare.va.gov is a national embarrassment. Of the 733 datasets from the VA on Data.gov, the five related to healthcare date back to 2009. That’s not good enough.”
Normally, the Sunlight Foundation is generally moderate in tone, but apparently the gross dysfunction and obfuscation of data about health care.
You should email Secretary McDonald to ask him to abide by the Obama Administration’s transparency mandate to back up agency assertions that the wait list scandal was cleaned up.
[email protected] (his public email that usually gets answered by ghost writers)
I will be in Washington DC soon for an event discussing veterans appeals. You should ask Secretary Bob to meet with me about your concerns.
Tell Bob, “Hey Buddy, it is time you put up or shut up about health care reforms. You cannot assert you fixed the wait list problems while refusing to back up your assertions with real data.”
Done…If I get a reply I’ll post ti here…
The data set on patient satisfaction says….”This dataset represents patient satisfaction based on survey data broken out by inpatient/outpatient and stratified ethnicity.”
But all it does is divide them in two groups, inpatients and outpatients and divides them into TWO ethnicities, white and African American.
What a joke!
We have Veterans in our group who I am sure were used as guinea pigs for some of the Sofosbuvir trials and when they asked their doctor for copies of those visits they all said that the info was “scanned” and the pages were blank.
I’ll email him.
I wrote to Bob McDonald about how the VA falsely accused me of disruptive behavior and admit they had no proof
And the letter to senator Bennett’s office telling him. That due to the disruptive reporting. My official medical record’s were never coded for disruptive behavior. Nor did they ever Red flag my official medical record’s for disruptive behavior
Even with this evidence Bob McDonald’s assistant only known as Stephanie did nothing except tell me more lies. !
Stephanie. Told me twice that the employee making the allegations of me being disruptive, NO longer work’s for the VA
The employee is still working and I was punished for 5 five year’s. So Ben if I wrote to Bob to speak with you about me and other veteran’s being falsely accused of disruptive behavior. It will fall on death ears
So. I give you permission to speak in my behalf and for all other veterans whom have been falsely accused.
Disgruntled employees. Can and are lieing everyday to veterans and government officials. And the government officials seem not to care or say they can’t do anything to assist the veterans that have been falsely accused. !
So. Senator’s seem to be a high payed clerk and can not fight for veterans or say they can’t.
Way to go Bob McDonald and senator Bennett for letting the VA to punish veterans at will and no evidence required. !
Since when is hearsay Evidence. Hell anyone can tell a lie and you two are letting them.
22 veterans committing suicide every day is not enough I guess.
Notice the ghost writer reply:
This message is to address not only a disenrollment from VA services, but an intentional data breach regarding the use of a disruptive behavioral committee to falsify my medical record with false characterizations on or about 6/6/ 2014.
This cause much harm to me by not having medical resources regarding my dental health that I am entitled to have evaluated or other military related issues including false statements that were never investigated by medical professionals.
My sole intention is to file injunctivre relief in federal court for VA to not have any possession regarding any personal data about me in any systems of records.
Thank you.
.
Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy S7.
——– Original message ——–
From: SECVA Inquiry
Date: 9/29/16 8:16 AM (GMT-05:00)
To: “‘[email protected]'”
Subject: FW: [EXTERNAL] Disenrollment VA Services
Mr. Peterson,
The Secretary has received your email dated September 28, 2016. He has forwarded your inquiry to VA leadership for review and direct feedback to you. Thank you for your communication.
Office of the Secretary
Department of Veterans Affairs
810 Vermont Ave NW
Washington DC 20420
—–Original Message—–
From: Terrance Peterson [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2016 9:52 PM
To: McDonald, Bob; VA OIG FOIA-PA
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Disenrollment VA Services
This message serves as a third notice to your office in regards my intent to disenroll in VA services. VA continues to use my data and personally identifying data to continually send notices that I owe a debt to the VA, and maintain data about me. This information is completely false in which I have not received services at VA, well over 2 years. In accordance with the Code of Federal Regulations at 38 part 17 I no longer wish to be enrolled in VA care, nor does VA represent me in any capacity. The VA is not authorized to release or store data about me in any system of records. This notice has a 6 month resolution period in accordance with the Federal Tort Claims Act to cease this practice. Said claims of violations of the Administrative Procedures Act will be brought forward as required by law. My electronic signature in this e-mail constitutes my intent to withdraw from VA healthcare.
Terrance Peterson P1153
Ben, I have sent you R. Mc’s reply. Perhaps you can tell me what you think.
Well, I received reply from R.Mc. He doesn’t know where I am getting my information. He says it’s screwy, and their info goes out every two weeks.
At VA town hall meetings and other similar events, when the floor is yielded to attending Vets, it doesn’t matter when or where, the result is always the same. Vets have many reasons to complain about their treatment and they do and always with similar issues. The gap between Washington leadership, or even within the VAMC locally and the front line with PCP’s is so great, no one knows what is going on below in the trenches with the Vets and PCP’s
The OIG has been doing fairly well at shaking management’s tree for theft, mismanagement, incompetence, etc. at VAMC’s they are pissing on the fire since one of the biggest problem is the lack of accountability supported by a model of working toward betterment instead of accountability and the effect on patients. The VA will NEVER get better at anything without accountability. The lack of accountability makes it easy to ignore Vets and not even care about their issues and has lead to the ultimate tragedy and disgrace of causing death among the Vets they are supposed to be treating.
Conventional wisdom here is: It is not what the VA does that will harm you. It is what they don’t do that will kill you.
Kudo’s to the dedicated VA staff members who do remain professional and conscientious. It must be difficult to work in such an adversarial and prickly healthcare system having so many systemic issues that are counter intuitive for a patient expecting more professionalism from a healthcare provider.
The VA has a lot to hide. In the end, I wonder who really cares.
Everett,
I think your perspective is pretty close. There are some really good employees at the VA but the AFGE is a force government wide that make it really hard to fire federal employees. I have never worked for the VA but I did work for 4 other agencies over a significant career and I will tell you I had a guy who came to work, got his coffee, and walked around bothering others all day. He was given specific assignments by his supervisor everyday and he did none of them. We advised him that we planned to terminate him and he replied you have to do what you have to do, It took 13 months. Why you ask? Because Congress has passed so many laws to protect federal workers that they can file complaint after complaint against the supervisor and all of those have to be litigated before the dismissal can proceed. Whistleblower, age discrimination, grievance, labor relations complaints etc. After those are mitigated the supervisor has to offer a 90 day performance appraisal plan and then a 90 day performance improvement plan:
A PIP is governed by Chapter 43 of the United States Code, which requires federal agencies to provide employees with an opportunity to improve prior to taking performance-based actions, 5 U.S.C. § 4302; 5 C.F.R. § 432.104. The federal statutes, regulations, and case law dealing with the PIP process emphasize the importance of providing an employee with a meaningful opportunity to improve, as a PIP is meant to assist employees in achieving performance goals. “The agency shall afford the employee a reasonable opportunity to demonstrate acceptable performance . . . As part of the employee’s opportunity . . . the agency shall offer assistance to the employee in improving unacceptable performance.” 5 C.F.R. § 432.104 (emphasis added)
Also, Doctor’s are paid at best about $350k for the best specialists. That same specialist makes $500-$750k in the private sector.
Many veterans argue about everything at the clinic – I smile, ask them about their day and I get pretty good care. I wish we’d focus our distrust into finding solutions instead of just throwing another log on the fire.
Go ahead and call me a troll or whatever as my approach obviously is working better than most of yours based upon what I read.
Maddog,
I also agree with Everett.
One question, Why is it all, or a majority, of those good to great VA employees are afraid to speak up when they see something egregious happening to vets? Why is it VHA and VBA employees can get away with saying, quote: “A (Congressperson)can’t do anything to me!”, unquote! Since when do these asswipes believe they are above the law?
Could it be, as many on here have speculated, they are afraid to speak up, because they will lose their jobs? Or, is it because they have no backbone?
It doesn’t takes a ‘special person’ to know what is right or wrong! All it takes is someone of ‘moral character’!
Our whole damn country is falling apart. Corruption abounds. Until someone gets the AFGE, and those of immoral characters out of the way, nothing will change!
Of course, their time might be close to ending soon!
@Maddog- Well, legal or not, a “PIP” does not resuscitate Veterans killed by VA employees, does it? How about the VA employee/Medical Assistant down at the Louisiana VAMC that killed a 70+ year old Veteran via blunt force trauma in his freaking hospital bed…and the VA employee was allowed time off with pay to “recover” and even though the State Coroner stated it was due to the VA employee, the VA refused to do anything, made excuse and allowed him to return to freaking work? Last I heard the State of LA was pressing charges against the VA medical assistant…while he continues to work around Veterans? How the hell is a “PIP” the correct and moral form of accountability? Really? That’s but -1- example of plethora of examples.
It’s great that you happen to receive excellent service at the VA but does that mean the vast number of Vets not receiving excellent care or even are still waiting for it or dying from waiting are somehow invalid…since YOU have no issues? A smile to a VA employee may very well grant you exposure to their crocodile teeth and tears.
I smell rotten cabbage patch dolls. Halloween is in the Fall air so might as well have zombie baby trolls from the VHA. (great idea for a song)
So a couple of things – first a conversation can’t be had here because if you make a positive comment you have to put up with crap. My point that you completely miss is that there are over 275,000 VA employees – most are not do nothings or indifferent. Out of 275000 I’m sure there are a thousand + that are worthless. A Congressman can’t do anything to an employee in fact they can’t do anything about any federal employee or Agency unless they get 218 Congressman, 60 Senators and the President to agree or they get 290 of their colleagues and 67 Senators to override a President’s veto. And the politicians will look at you all concerned and tell you’ll they’ll take up your cause but unless you can provide a million dollars or deliver 20,000 votes plus – they’d rather spend their time with someone who can provide those things. So bitch and moan as much as you like but you won’t change a thing unless we all come together as a single voice collectively. Finally, the betting odds tonight are 81.6 that Clinton wins v. 17.1 for Trump – the odds makers aren’t wrong very often so the big change you’re hoping for will probably be at least 4 years away.
What a fucking piss ant troll you are maddog. Go troll your DAV site. You fucking Piss ant.
Seymour – your comment, as usual, is so helpful to actually reforming the VA – what a joy you must be in person! Love and problem solving just emanate!
As far as anyone who works at the VA. All of them have known of problems for years. That includes the fact that the VA is Lying and Veterans are dying.
As far as I am concerned there are no good employees working at the VA. They are all trash that supports a system that is actively Crippling, Maiming, Torturing and Murdering Veterans on a daily basis.
No One who could work in such a system is a good employee. They are only trash who will do anything for money. That includes all VA employees period.
Seymour, do you actually use any VA facilities or services?
Please answer are you gave me the email address for Secretary of Veterans Robert McDonald…are you sure.
Red turtle hit it correctly. All the investigations in the world are absolutely useless if there’s an afge. The VA OIG, IG, or any other investigative organization, can only investigate. With the VA, that’s where it ends. They are wasting time and taxpayers money. VA has no accountability. They lie, kill, and whatever the hell they want. There has been no accountability since I can remember, and I can remember way back. Hell, clerks in the VA have affected my medical history and future more than Dr’s, and much more than any advocate. I will throw out my concern to useless R.McDonald’s., space station. But, until the afge gets out of the way, there will never be accountability. I’m tired of fighting the VA. He’ll, In most cases, I haven’t been able to get past the clerks. I just learned the last application I filed two years ago hasn’t been received….again. I’m sick of it.
Conflicting laws. The “privacy act” and “transparency”. Everyone wants to see everyone else’s documents but no one wants their own exposed.
And the VA used the “privacy” doctrine to not give my attorney the most relevant documents and the documents were no way nearly as private as some that were given after my FOIA request. So, yes the VA uses the two doctrines to the advantage of the military industrial complex. Keeping VA disability compensation down means more money for the lobbyist’s clients.
Let’s address disabled veteran loss of right to work for the federal government through discriminatory VA bosshandlers, despite war time, severe illnesses and injuries. OR perhaps discuss lack of 21st century protections for the family in thus situation? The US fails to pass laws. We know already. The final word on this is severe lack of worker protections in the US, and even for a protected class of 9/11 warriors. VA bosshandlers need to be put on the carpet and VA needs to ace half its crap, and add on some 21st century crap. They suck so bad. All they have is a big piggy bank. Anyone can make shit work with a big piggy bank.
Sent the email and got this response:
McDonald, Bob Today at 10:37 AM
To
‘LC’
Message body:
“The data is published every two weeks in VAs website. Thanks. Bob”
So, every 14 days X 22 Veteran Suicides a Day= 308 lives worth of blank page data, compiled, filed, & documented for the public’s eye, just in time for the next batch of 308 Veteran Suicides, Bob? Those blank web pages also take-up so much server space and I think the VA needs to build a specific server for all their blank web pages on the moon. 🙂
One word on the Veteran’s crisis Line……..I had severe problems at the Pensacola Va in 2015. A social worker (Sharon Berry, a maggot) made up false police reports about me, convened one of those secret “behavioral committees” based on the false police reports, placed the info in my med record and accessed my records ( illegally) 15x for my x husband’s use. DISGUSTING>BEN, where are you? It took MONTHS of going to Congressman Jeff Miller’s Office to get the flag out of my record and to have the VA acknowledge that SHARON BERRY committed 15! HIPAA violations against me.
Ben Krausse….I have sent you numerous messages, have called your offfice…….I am one of the only female vets who has dared to get care in Pensacola. I am a Naval Aviator. Miller is still getting an “appropriate letter” for me which names the VA police personnel involved, the supervisor of the social worker, and the privacy officer.
Only God knows where this fake medical info is floating around….For being an 0-4, I must have been REALLY screwed up (according to the record). My record falsely states I have kidney disease, liver disease, bipolar mania, psychosis….and who knows what else. The record makes it look as if I am going to literally die tomorrow.
Anyone care to comment?
“[Of the 733 datasets from the VA on Data.gov, the five related to healthcare date back to 2009. That’s not good enough.]”
Subtract -5- from 733 you get 728 reports from VA Spin Machine touting the VA’s own manufactured mantra that the VA is world class best at anything and everything it does…in the world. Including the shredding and hiding of Veteran records. Spared no expense. However, since the VA places MORE emphasis, time and money on Spin Machine Reports rather than Veteran Healthcare, it stands to reason that the VA does not place THAT much effort in actual Veteran Healthcare, but rather, SPIN. The nauseating SPIN of a zero gravity training machine operating at terminal velocity…that’s the VA we have grown to loathe, not love.
“[VA officials said they do not monitor or test the timeliness and performance of the VCL text message system and instead rely solely on the VCL’s text messaging provider for these functions. VA officials told GAO that the provider had not reported any issues with the system, but the provider told GAO that routine testing of the VCL system is not conducted. Without routinely testing its text messaging system or ensuring that its provider does so, VA cannot identify limitations to this service.]”
^
The VA has simply redefined the word ‘transparency’ to actually reflect their diligent “opacity”, hence only the -5- reports showing any relation to “healthcare”. Transparency to the VA is only meant to be as deep as a one-way observation mirror. I will go as far as wagering that the VA’s contracted services with VCL does not even include proper text messaging, which means another ca$h-grab from Congress to again, not do the right thing. Wait for it…….
The VA obviously firmly believes it’s above the laws of the USA. Accountability, as reported by the VA is never real accountability when the VA is continued to be allowed to police and monitor itself.
The AFGE will not allow this data. You can pass laws, regulations, or feces and to VA its all the same – it gets flushed.
Has anyone checked he toilets yet at VA? If the wait times are prevelant throughout the system there may be some real log jams,built up in the latrines there. Wait times for turds in the bowl that need flushed can take months I here. VA cares about their little turds and while the potty hanits of VA employees is less than stellare, the staff is working hard to improve wait times for the little goobers in the toilets.
Obama vows to end the wait times by eliminating the mooching turds clogging up the bowls. He said it justbstinks to have to wait that long to get flushed but pointed out that VA ranks aming the top in the world for servicing shit. AP actually reported they are top surving UP shit and not servicing shit but the distinction is erroneous. Very old shit liquifies and no lomger meets the VA definition of “crap”, according to Helen Wait, facility complaint official at VA. If any vet has a problem with the shit at VA, they can go to Helen Wait, according to top VA officials.
Meanwhile, official reports indicate that all toilets are sparkling clean and ready for the eager rumps of our honored veterans. OIG reports indicated that VA needs to improve historical accuracy content contained in their reports, and VA concurrs that the OIG reports make damn fine tissue in the VA water closets. Maintenance reports widespread flooding from the latrines which have been erroneously mislabelled as operating at peak efficiency by facility managers.
Robots cleaning the floors at VA using face recognition to avoid humans have not been programmed to avoid turds floating in the hallways and has been smearing the fecal material up and down the hallways for 7 months. RAND analysis indicated that the fecal material is shit although dating of the crap indicates several pre-Obama bowel movements are also involved so allegations that this is partisan crap are obviously misleading.
For now, VA has implemented potty safe procedures. Toilet plungers are now to be sanitized in the surgical autoclave for safety, but should NOT be sanitized in the autoclave until after the kitchen staff is done with the dishes. AFGE contract forbids VA serving up shit to AFGE members.
The VA cesspool indeed requires a massive enema. Repeat. Rinse, and spelunk again, flush. Repeat until all rats are gone. Persistent VA “floaters” in the cesspool should be dealt with massive depth charges and then tons of bleach and daylight. The performance bonuses require elimination because they are the rat bastard’s floatation devices on the V.A. Titanic.
I had a GREAT elimination this morning. Kaplunk. Then I voted where the elimination should go by using a machine that leaves no hanging chads. As usual though, voting really stinks but what choice is there?
At least chads don’t make it through like corn. I wonder if an OIG report kernal makes it through?
OIG reports are nothing but the bare corncob, for easy insertion. No kernels of truth allowed near their groove tubes!