VA in the News

If you’re in Virginia and your claim seems to have vanished … well, it may have. The Virginia Department of Veteran Services has found a personal storage locker in the Richmond area where for years a former employee was stashing boxes of veteran claims. It came to light only after the contents of the storage unit were auctioned off. Thankfully, the winning bidder called the sheriff.

Piles of paperwork are still being checked, but it appears that the time period runs from roughly late 2011 through June 2015. The 20 to 30 boxes of documents came from McGuire VA Medical Center and include everything from correspondence to claims. If your information is found in any of these documents, you’ll be contacted at some point. If you have a claim that seems to have vanished, contact veteransassistance@dvs.virginia.gov or call 804-786-0286.

Also in the news, the Phoenix VA now has its seventh director in three years. That’s the center where 35 veterans died while waiting for care because of secret wait lists. The new director comes with a history: She managed another VA facility where 1,800 veterans were in danger of HIV infection due to lack of cleanliness of equipment. As a reward, this director was sent to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ only overseas clinic: the outpatient clinic in Manila, Philippines, where she lived in a condo on the grounds of the U.S. Embassy and most of the medical services were contracted out in the community. But that’s OK, because the facility’s actual mission is to process veterans benefits paperwork.

Now, having apparently pounced swiftly on the previous cleanliness problem, she’s thought to be the ideal person to whip Phoenix into shape. This new director will have her to-do list waiting for her, because the VAOIG just released yet another investigation report on Phoenix that included 14 recommendations.