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Many Vietnam Vets Don’t Know They Now Qualify for Agent Orange Benefits

Expanded list of diseases linked to the herbicide means more veterans and their survivors qualify

By David Frank – November 2, 2018

Many Vietnam veterans and their survivors may be missing out on substantial payments they are entitled to receive as a result of exposure to Agent Orange, veterans’ advocates say.

Though most veterans are aware of the toxic nature of Agent Orange, an herbicide used to clear foliage in Vietnam, not everyone has kept track as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has expanded a list of diseases that make it easier to qualify for benefits. Until the 1990s, the government recognized only one ailment – a skin condition called chloracne – as being linked to Agent Orange. But over the years, the VA list of medical conditions associated with Agent Orange has grown to more than a dozen, including some that are much more prevalent.

“There are still thousands of vets who don’t realize their disease is on the list,” says Bart Stichman, executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program (NVLSP), a nonprofit that helps veterans, survivors and active duty personnel pursue service-related benefits.

The diseases now on the VA’s Agent Orange list are ischemic heart disease, lung and trachea cancers, prostate cancer, multiple myeloma, Hodgkin’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Parkinson’s Disease, type 2 diabetes, peripheral neuropathy, AL amyloidosis, chronic B-cell leukemia, chloracne, early-onset peripheral neuropathy, porphyria cutanea tarda, and soft tissue sarcomas.

Several other diseases — bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, hypertension and Parkinson’s-like symptoms — have been under consideration to be added to the list.

Once a disease is put on the list, it is easier to get disability compensation for it because the VA presumes the disease is a result of exposure to Agent Orange for veterans who served in Vietnamor its inland waterways between 1962 and 1975. The same applies to veterans who served in or near the Korean demilitarized zone between 1968 and 1971. These veterans don’t need to prove that they were exposed to Agent Orange to qualify for benefits related to ailments on the list.

For veterans who qualify for disability payments and survivors who qualify for death payments, the benefits can mean tens of thousands of dollars a year in income.

The problem, veterans advocates say, is that veterans don’t necessarily make the connection between a disease they have had for years and the expanded Agent Orange list. For example, a veteran diagnosed decades ago with type 2 diabetes may not have noticed when the government later added the condition to its list of ailments linked to Agent Orange, says Linda Schwartz, special advisor on health to the Vietnam Veterans of America. If a veteran is seeing a civilian doctor who isn’t well-versed in veterans’ issues, she says, the doctor wouldn’t necessarily associate the diagnosis with Agent Orange.

When veterans don’t think to apply for disability benefits based on conditions added to the VA’s Agent Orange list in recent years, they can miss out on sizable payments. David DePodesta, a 69-year-old veteran who lost sight in his right eye due to enemy shrapnel while serving with the Marines in Vietnam in 1969, was fortunate that he did pay attention to the list as it grew. DePodesta says that for many years his eye injury qualified him for a disability rating of 30 percent and a monthly payment of under $400. After the VA in 2010  added ischemic heart disease to its list of ailments linked to Agent Orange, DePodesta — who had open heart surgery in 1988 and again in 2010 — saw his disability rating jump to 100 percent and his monthly payment jump to more than $3,100. He also received a large lump sum payment compensating him retroactively to his first diagnosis with ischemic heart disease.

DePodesta, a retired mortgage banker who works occasionally as a substitute teacher and serves as a prison chaplain, says the monthly benefits together with the retroactive payment made a “pretty big change in my lifestyle.”

“Getting extra compensation certainly helps. We’re not wealthy,’’ he says. “We get by with Social Security and the compensation and substitute teaching.’’

When veterans don’t realize that they are eligible for disability benefits based on ailments added to the VA’s Agent Orange list, their survivors also miss out on monthly payments under a program called Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC), which provides lifetime tax-free income to survivors of veterans who had service-related disabilities or diseases.

Stichman at NVLSP estimates that tens of thousands of survivors are unaware they are eligible for benefits because their spouses had diseases that the VA linked to Agent Orange only after their death. Survivor benefits can be higher depending on their situation, including whether they need a caregiver to assist them with everyday activities like bathing and dressing.

Like veterans, survivors also can sometimes get retroactive payments in addition to qualifying for monthly death benefits. Stichman says his organization helped an Alabama widow persuade the VA to pay her $247,508 in retroactive benefits. The woman’s husband, a Vietnam veteran, had died of cardiac ischemia in 1983, but the VA had rejected a request for a death pension that she filed in 1985. Because the VA decades later added ischemic heart disease to its list of Agent Orange-related diseases, the widow was able to make the case that she should have been getting benefits all those years.

Even if veterans suffer from an ailment not on the VA list, they should consider applying for disability benefits if they believe it is the result of Agent Orange exposure. The VA says it encourages veterans in such cases to gather medical and scientific evidence that their ailment was caused by Agent Orange and submit it to see if it qualifies them for a service-connected disability benefit.

“If a direct link is made to Agent Orange exposure in a particular case, then service connection could still be granted,’’ says Beth Murphy, VA Compensation Service Director.

Veterans service groups say it can be worth trying to bring such claims even though they can be difficult.

“This type of case requires a lot of medical evidence and is harder to prove but not impossible,’’ says Felicia Mullaney, deputy director of Veterans Benefits, Vietnam Veterans of America.

Because disability claims can be complicated, Linda Schwartz at VVA says it’s vital for veterans and survivors to use an accredited veteran service officer when filing such claims.

“They can’t do this by themselves,” says Schwartz.

The VA suggests that veterans can get help from this list of government-accredited Veterans and Military Service Organizations. Veterans and survivors also can learn more about eligibility for benefits.

One way for veterans to get started if they’ve never explored a link between their medical ailments and Agent Orange is to see if they qualify for a free Agent Orange exam.

Link to the article:
https://www.aarp.org/home-family/voices/veterans/info-2018/vietnam-korea-agent-orange-benefits.html

View spraying missions in Vietnam by date and location

http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-091204-agentorange-map-htmlstory.html

VA Veteran Community Care Program ► Proposed Rules Published

On 22 FEB the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced the publication of a proposed regulation in the Federal Register for the new Veterans community care program, including access standards. The proposed regulation would establish new rules for the Veterans community care program required by section 101 of the VA Maintaining Internal Systems and Strengthening Integrated Outside Networks Act (MISSION Act) of 2018. Last month, VA Secretary Robert Wilkie announced its proposed access standards for community care and urgent care provisions that will take effect in June and guide when Veterans can seek care to meet their needs under the MISSION Act – be it with VA or with community providers.

Under the MISSION Act, signed by President Trump in June 2018, there are six different eligibility criteria for community care:

• Services unavailable
• Residence in a State without a full-service VA medical facility
• 40-mile legacy/grandfathered from the Choice program
• Access standards
• Best medical interest
• Needing care from a VA medical service line that VA determines is not providing care that complies with VA’s standards for quality

ACCESS STANDARDS

VA is proposing new access standards, effective when the final regulations publish (expected in June 2019), to ensure Veterans have greater choice in receiving care. Eligibility criteria and final standards as follows were based on VA’s analysis of all of the best practices both in government and in the private sector and tailored to the needs of our Veteran patients:

• Access standards will be based on average drive time and appointment wait times.
• For primary care, mental health, and non-institutional extended care services, VA is proposing a 30-minute average drive time standard.
• For specialty care, VA is proposing a 60-minute average drive time standard.
• VA is proposing appointment wait-time standards of 20 days for primary care, mental health care, and non-institutional extended care services, and 28 days for specialty care from the date of request with certain exceptions.

Eligible Veterans who cannot access care within those standards would be able to choose between eligible community providers and care at a VA medical facility. VA Secretary Robert Wilkie said, “Our medical services must meet our Veterans’ needs and reinforce the trust that forms the basis for every interaction with VA. Our new access standards are a vital part of this effort. b“Most Americans can already choose the health care providers that they trust, and President Trump promised that Veterans would be able to do the same. With VA’s new access standards, the future of the VA health care system will lie in the hands of Veterans – exactly where it should be.”

Secretary Wilkie’s full statement from Jan. 28 is available here. . The proposed regulation (RIN 2900-AQ46) is currently available online at https://federalregister.gov/d/2019-03030. The proposed regulation was published in the Federal Register tomorrow on 22 FEB and VA encourages the public to provide input on the proposed regulation by March 25, 2019, during the public comment period. For instructions on how to submit a comment, visit the Federal Register website at www.regulations.gov and search for RIN 2900-AQ46. [Source: VA News Release | February 22, 2019 ++]

VA Privatization Update 16 ► We Are Not Privatizing Says VHA’s Executive In Charge

Talk of the possible privatization of the Department of Veterans Affairs is a hot topic in the veterans community. But as far as Dr. Richard Stone – VA’s Executive in Charge of the Veterans Health Administration – is concerned, the department’s recent efforts are counter to any efforts at privatizing the health-care system. Stone said that although VA is working to provide veterans with more care choices, “We are not moving money to dissemble our health-care system. We are not privatizing,” Stone told The American Legion’s Veterans Affairs & Rehabilitation Commission on 25 FEB during the organization’s Washington Conference. “We believe the future of the VA health-care system should be in the hands of veterans, and you should decide what we have.

“The accusation that we are privatizing – if I was privatizing, why would we be spending over $10 billion to put
into electronic medical records? Why would we be hiring more than 11,000 more employees than we had a year ago at this time? Why would we be working so hard to ensure your trust? If this is a model of privatization, we’re doing a pretty bad job of it. We think the future of this health-care system is strong, and is a model for all of American health care for access in most places.”

Stone said that VA also has focused on quality of care and restoring trust among its patients. “What you deserve in a health-care system as veterans is a health-care system that is reliable in the way it operates,” he said. “We have, therefore, just last week begun to roll out in the first 18 hospitals what we call our ‘Movement to Zero Harm.’ Humans make mistakes. Humans make errors. But they shouldn’t cause harm to patients. What we’re moving toward is a system in which we can really move to zero harm.” On the subject of veterans using the Choice program to seek health care outside VA, Stone said the numbers are both low and telling. “Anybody more than 40 miles away (from a VA facility), you could go out into the community,” he said. “Nine out of 10 (veterans) did not go out. Of the 1 in 10 who went out, 90 percent of those … went out for one visit and then came back to us.”

VA Under Secretary for Benefits Dr. Paul Lawrence discussed VA’s new programs made possible by the current version of the GI Bill, the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act:

• The Veteran Employment Through Technology Education Courses (VET TEC), which is designed to give
  veterans an edge in the high-tech job market, and
• Additional benefits for STEM education, including up to nine extra months of benefits (not to exceed
  $30,000) for veterans who meet the criteria.

“The GI Bills continue to become a wonderful program,” Lawrence said. “This works, and tens of millions of people have taken advantage of it.” On the subject of legislation that would provide disability benefits to those Blue Water Navy veterans who claim to have suffered toxic exposure to Agent Orange during their service in the Vietnam War, Lawrence said a divide remains. In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in favor of Alfred Procopio Jr., who served aboard USS Intrepid during the war. Procopio, 73, suffers from diabetes and prostate cancer, both of which are linked to Agent Orange exposure. “VA’s in the process of reviewing this decision and figuring out the response. That’s all I can really say,” Lawrence said. “The science isn’t there, from our position. I know we disagree on that, and that’s unfortunate. But one day, whatever happens, we won’t disagree, and we’ll be on the same side. When that happens, it will be our intention to execute whatever that results in as efficiently and as effectively as we can for veterans.”

Lawrence was also questioned about the current policy that requires veterans who receive both military retired pay and VA disability compensation simultaneously to waive part of their service retired pay. VA&R Commission Chairman Ralph Bozella called the practice “terribly unfair.” Lawrence agreed. “I understand that this is a legislative issue, and I certainly never want to give advice to congressional oversight people,” he said. “Having said that, I am an economist, and I do think about money things all the time. I’ll make the following observation: pension is deferred compensation. Payments for disability are the payments your country committed for the economic impairment you suffered under your time in the military. Those are two different things. That would be my statement.” [Source: The American Legion | Steven B. Brooks | February 25, 2019 ++]