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Valley VA doctors optimistic about new health care program

Daily Item - 9/2/2018

Sept. 02--LEWISBURG -- Two of the Valley's Veterans Health Administration-approved medical providers agree that the VA Choice program is problematic, at best, and are hopeful a new program can close the gaps in veterans health care.

The VA Choice program allowed veterans to use their local doctors if they lived more than 40 miles from a VA hospital. But appointments had to be made through a third-party company, Health Net Federal Services. The additonal layer of bureaucracy was the problem, said Dr. Ronald Companion, of Shamokin Dam.

Companion has treated veterans since 2009, but admitted he is getting rid of his VA Choice patients. The program ends Sept. 30.

"Veterans Choice has been the law the last three years and at times it has been a problem for the vets getting their medications," Companion said. "Under the new VA Mission program we are hopeful that it will be an advantage to veterans because they won't have to spend a lot of time asking for this, asking for that, going on the internet. VA Choice was a problem."

Acupuncturist Trey Casimir, of Lewisburg, also an approved medical provider, had problems as well with Health Net.

Casimir said he was contacted by the VA five years ago asking if he was interested in providing acupuncture to interested veterans locally. It went very well, he said, initially.

"I treated half a dozen people over the course of two or three years," he said. "It's a big bureaucracy and the wheels move slowly but the people gave me accurate information. I submitted my claims. I got paid.

"Things tended to move a little bit slowly when I was dealing directly with the VA, but compared to private insurance, certainly things happened in a timely manner. I'd get an authorization within a few days or a week of getting the phone call, I could get the vet in right away. When I submitted my claims I'd be paid the amount that was agreed upon within a reasonable amount of time. I was thrilled to be associated with the VA and also to provide services to our veterans."

Then along came Health Net in 2016, which had a contract with the VA to manage the Veterans Choice program.

"I had trouble being paid," he said. Veterans would have their appointments made by Health Net, and sometimes they weren't informed of the date.

It took months and many phone calls, many not returned, to get through to Health Net.

"It took me going to my Congressman, Tom Marino, to get back on the Health Net radar, and eventually this summer all my past invoices were paid," Casimir said.

Now he's back in business and, like Companion, hopes the new program will be more efficient. But as of this week, few details are known about VA Mission.

"We just found out about it ourselves," Casimir said.

The armed forces are at the cutting edge of things that will help veterans, Casimir noted, and they have been utilizing acupuncture for more than a dozen years.

They have also been training medics in battlefield acupuncture, which is using very simple points in the ear to keep a person calm if they are injured. And they found that it is as effective as giving them morphine, with fewer complications afterward.

Persons who have more severe injuries turn to expert practitioners like Casimir.

"I would love to be an in-house provider and go to Wilkes Barre or one of the other centers and work there," he said. "Instead they have used me as needed for veterans who live in the area."

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