Research - Rehabilitation - Re-Employment

Sgt. Shaft 02/03/2003

Dear Sgt. Shaft,
We wish to express our serious concern about the current VERA (Veterans Equitable Resource Allocation) system, as it relates to the funding of the Blind Rehabilitation services. Since the inception of the VERA system and the resultant decentralization of the VA Blind Rehabilitation Service (BRS) at VA Headquarters, we have seen serious erosion of the administrative and logistical support of the core values intrinsic to the treatment of blinded veterans.

The Department of Veterans Affairs operates 10 regional Blind Rehabilitation Centers (BRC) that are located at VA medical facilities throughout the United States including Puerto Rico. As regional programs, each BRC serves veterans from multiple Health Care systems and many of the BRC serve multiple VA medical regions. While each BRC's mission is to serve a broad geographical area, administratively, they are hosted by the local VA Medical Center. The result of this structure is that each BRC is acutely affected by the host station's budget often with negative results. 

The current VERA system has led to an unintended disastrous collision course between the VISN, local VA Medical Center's managements and the BRC programs. VERA was put in place to ensure that programs and services provided were adequately funded. This was done without careful oversight, thereby resulting in the inadequate funding and staffing of the BRC’s. The Blind Rehabilitation programs do not benefit from the VERA funding funding mechanism, since the center Directors are being pressured to limit the length of the program and to see more veterans with limited staff. Why ? A primary factor in the distribution of money is the number of veterans in the program, not the quality of services to the blinded vet. The many dedicated Chiefs and BRC staff members have been working under tremendously stressful circumstances. The BRC programs became the golden goose that laid the golden egg which VISN management then used to fund other non blind rehabilitation programs. The BRS should not be used as a milk cow to fund other programs.

Our hope is that Dr. Roswell, the VA Undersecretary for Health, will review our concerns regarding the plight of VA’s Blind rehabilitation program. 

Steve M.
Korean War blinded vet

Dear Steve,
I have forwarded your concerns to Dr. Roswell and the following is his response:

Dear Sgt. Shaft,
Thank you for the letter and recommendations concerning funding and staffing of our Blind Rehabilitation Centers. These centers epitomize our commitment to the special needs of America's veterans and are at the very heart of our core mission. VA's funding processes must assure the adequacy of staffing at each of these centers, but more importantly must encourage needed outreach to assure that all veterans who may benefit from the care available at these centers have access to needed care and services. While centralized funding may achieve the first goal, it does not provide management incentives to assure the second goal. For this reason, I believe the VERA model must be adjusted to provide an incentive to increase workload through the BRCs. With the introduction of the new VERA 10 model, this can be achieved by adjusting the capitated payment rate to assure that all costs are fully covered by the VERA reimbursement to the VISN and host medical center. I have asked a group of our senior program officials to review the recommendations contained in the letter and provide further suggestions to my office. When this process is complete, I will provide a more detailed response.

Robert H. Roswell, M.D.
Under Secretary for Health
Department of Veterans Affairs

Shaft Kudos
The old Sarge salutes Guy McMichael upon his retirement, effective February 8, from federal service. Guy is VA's Chief Judge and Chairman of VA's Board of Contract Appeals. A veteran of the U.S. Army, he has been a longtime friend of his fellow veterans and a very special buddy of the Sarge. His 31-year career has been consistently marked by quality service to America's veterans. 

McMichael served as General Counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs from 1971 to 1977. During Guy's tenure, over 40 major precedent setting veterans measures were enacted concerning veterans' education, employment, health care, disability compensation, pension, insurance and housing.

Guy H. McMichael III began his VA career in 1977 as the General Counsel. In that capacity, until 1981, he directed one of the largest legal departments in the federal government with a staff of 600. He served as principal advisor to VA Administrator Max Cleland for policy and management, headed congressional liaison for VA and was the primary agency liaison to the White House and OMB. He was the principal author of the Presidential Review Memorandum on Vietnam Veterans.

In 1981 Judge McMichael was appointed by Secretary Edward Derwinski as an Administrative Judge on the VA Board of Contract Appeals. In 1994, he was appointed the Department’s Dispute Resolution Specialist pursuant to the Alternate Dispute Resolution Act; He was appointed Chairman and Chief Administrative Judge on the VA Board of Contract Appeals on February 11, 1990.

In the past three years Judge McMichael has additionally held several key leadership positions in "hotspots" within VA - earning him the fond nickname of "VA's Fireman." In September 2001, Judge McMichael was appointed by President Bush to be Acting Under Secretary for Benefits. , He started immediate reorganization of Veterans Benefits Administration and implementation of the VA Claims Processing Taskforce (on which he served as a key member prior to his appointment).

Thank you for a leadership job well done, Guy. You take my thanks, affection and respect with you.

Send letters to Sgt. Shaft, c/o John Fales, P.O. Box 65900, Washington, D.C. 20035-5900; fax to 301-622-3330; call 202-462-4430 or email sgtshaft@bavf.org.

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