At a House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Rep. Tom Barrett (R-MI) made suggestions to increase mental health awareness and treatment options for veterans.
00:00Thank you for that. I think you're right. I think it speaks to a thing when I, prior to coming to Congress, I was in the state legislature in Michigan, and we would always model our outreach, and instead of asking, are you a veteran? Because you're right, people will self-select out of that definition.
00:15You ask, did you ever serve in the military? And then you kind of can explore that from there. But it's hard to hold a resource fair and advertise it as, did you ever serve in the military fair? So it's a little bit harder to package.
00:31But I think it is part of that, going where people are instead of expecting them to come to us. I think there's a lot of, part of this is an inertia thing, like you get started, you begin unpacking some of this, and then you work through the process and maybe obtain the benefits that you've kind of had on the back burner.
00:49Life comes at you, you're transitioning to civilian life, things are difficult, it's like being in a batting cage, and you're figuring out how to get stood up again, and then you think you'll worry about it later, and then life comes in, and you have a lot of other priorities.
01:02Even for our Vietnam generation coming home, they were treated so poorly when they came back, that many of them just kind of packed it away, and then life took over, and then they moved to a different phase of life, and those things they had tried to pack away become to kind of percolate back out.
01:19And I really hope, and I think we are making the strident effort of making up the lost ground that we had with that generation, because they truly did suffer unnecessarily, and I think they, I will say, I'm grateful that that generation made sure that our generation was welcomed back respectfully and with the dignity that all veterans deserve.
01:44And I think that each of our Vietnam veterans are owed a great deal of appreciation for that.
01:51Mr. Kirchner, I wanted to ask you a question.
01:55Since your really tragic experience with that provider, have you found, or have you gone back into any community care services?
02:04What has your experience been like more recently, and can you give us any insight into how that may or may not have improved, and where you think those improvements ought to go?
02:14Mr. Kirchner, first of all, first of all, community care, excellent, excellent.
02:19Every time they call about the appointment, like you said, we'll get back with you 24, 48 hours.
02:27It's within 10 minutes they're calling.
02:30You know, they're bringing their A game.
02:32Where I see that could be a benefit for the veterans and the VA is if I'm going to an audiology appointment, I want my records to be reviewed by an audiologist, not a heart doctor or a person that's had the training.
02:53I don't believe the people that are doing these exams are the right people doing the exams.
03:00I think that's where the –
03:02You're talking for the compensation and pension?
03:03Correct.
03:04Okay.
03:04Not the community care ongoing medical –
03:06No, the community care, they're doing everything to get you there.
03:08Sure.
03:08Sure.
03:09You know, that's where community care is on top of their game.
03:12I think that's where it's falling apart is whenever community care is done, that's where it's falling off the board.
03:18We'll take that back because I'm not sure, sitting here, what the qualifications for those delegated outsourced compensation and benefit exams, what a requirement is for that person to be.
03:33I'm sure they have to be a medical doctor, but I'm not sure in which specialty or what that would involve.
03:38So we'll take that back for consideration for some questions to VA about that.
03:43So I appreciate your insight there.
03:46And Dr. Zomchak, one thing – I know you've talked about outreach with mental health and that being important, and I think that is a continuing effort we have to keep working toward.
03:55One population that we found some success in Michigan was actually reaching out to spouses of veterans as well, because oftentimes they are observing the behavioral challenges that veterans may have in a more, you know, intimate setting back home that they're not displaying out in public at their job,
04:13or they're, you know, taking that hardship back home with them, and I think that outreach to the spouses of saying, hey, here are some benefits that may be available to your loved one,
04:23may be that soft encouragement that they need to, you know, make the decision to come in to receive the help that they, you know, should have and certainly have earned.
04:32And I don't know if that's anything you've explored at all, or if it's worthy of your consideration or not.
04:38Yes, that's a great point.
04:40We know the connectivity with our veterans is often with family members, often children, could be a neighbor.
04:47I think as I hear this discussion about outreach and connectivity with our veterans, of course, we have telehealth coordinators,
04:58we have people to talk and to train and to teach our veterans and family members, but I really think that a multifaceted approach is what's needed.
05:09There can be some of these standardized approaches that we're doing, but what I've seen in my network is I have very rural and very urban centers,
05:18and even some of the hospitals that are very urban have very rural CBOCs.
05:23And so having a group, each of the facilities does, I think, a great job of even with town hall meetings in reaching out and opening up our connections.
05:35Sometimes it's in person, sometimes it's with Facebook, but whenever possible, we certainly invite spouses and family members to be involved in the care,
05:45so long as it's, you know, it's okay from a health information standpoint.
05:50Do you know of any way that we've kind of tried to do the direct outreach to the spouses or near close family members of veterans,
05:58you know, with resources from the VA to encourage them to try and encourage their veteran loved one to explore their benefits?
06:09I'd have to take that back, and I'd be happy to follow up with you about any specific program or initiative about that.
06:16I think mostly what we do is it's all-encompassing, so all of the outreach that we do, we do not turn down if someone is asking about their father or mother or sibling.
06:27Yeah, I just think it might be a useful inroad with veterans.
06:32It turns out I have a wife, and she thinks I'm rather stubborn, so maybe I'm the only one, I don't know, but thank you.
06:40Appreciate it.
06:41And Ranking Member Buzinski, go ahead.
06:43Sure.
06:43I just want to thank you for joining us today.
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