VA Mistakenly Tells Vets They Have Fatal Illness 108
An anonymous reader writes "Thanks to a computer glitch and bad diagnosis coding, the VA sent a letter to thousands of veterans telling them they have Lou Gehrig's Disease. Some were right, but many were mistakes. From the article, 'Recently, the VA determined ALS to be a service-connected disability and generated automatic letters to all veterans whose records included the code for the disease. However, since the coding contained both ALS and undiagnosed neurological disorders, some of those letters were erroneous.'"
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Re:it happens, (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but these aren't random letters. These are letters from the government. The VA is basically the government health care system for veterans.
If they sent me a letter, I'd think I'd take it seriously.
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The VA is basically the government health care system for veterans.
Oh veterans, not veterinarians. That's a really unfortunate use of an abbreviation.
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Despite the above being modded funny, I thought it was 'veterinarians' too. Didn't know what 'VA' was either (the only thing that sprung to mind was the postal abbreviation for Virginia. So the headline confused the hell out of me until I read the summary ;)
I don't think they use the word 'vets' as a common abbreviation for retired servicemen outside of North America. At least where I live, we might occasionally refer to them as 'war veterans', but that would never get abbreviated. For me, "vet" = someone t
Re:it happens, (Score:5, Insightful)
If I got a random letter saying I had a fatal neurological condition, I'd be slightly sceptical. Maybe that's just me though.
Except these patients already had "undiagnosed neurological conditions". If you had neurological problems, were seeking a diagnosis, had been evaluated inconclusively before, and received a notice from your hospital that you have ALS, you might be less skeptical and more devastated.
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I don't believe that. CNN's article quotes the letter as saying "According to the records of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), you have a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) ... This letter tells you about VA disability compensation benefits that may be available to you."
That wording implies the letter is an explanation of benefits, not a notification of diagnosis. I'm sure the intended recipients were people who had already received the diganosis in person from their doctor.
The only p
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Point. In my experience, though, generally they like to give out "you're going to die" type news in person. Hell, even the results of a standard blood test require you to go in and pay the standard consultation tax.
Oh, really? This is a government bureaucracy we're talking about.
THIS is what we'd ALL get if Obama and the Dems win their attempt to have a government takeover of health care.
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So you're all up in arms about it, good for you. But instead of offering a solution, or saying something good like "This isn't how we should treat our veterans," you instead decide to lambaste a proposed program that I'll admit is a bit socialist.
Given your attitude I expect you to return any social security payments you receive and decline any medicare coverage. While you're at it, stop driving on my roads and don't call emergency services when you need them.
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Given your attitude I expect you to return any social security payments you receive and decline any medicare coverage.
If that offer includes returning all social security and medicare taxes I've paid, then where do I sign? I'd even be willing to forgo getting interest on it in exchange for the chance to opt-out. I'd prefer to have my money in a retirement plan that doesn't look like Bernard Madoff's business structure.
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As far as i know there is no US government take over of healthcare? A US government run health insurance company, yes. Don't want it? ok.. don't use it.. it's voluntary.
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actually, no it isn't voluntary. Under the currently purposed plans, if you opt out or for lesser coverage, you will be enrolled in a sponsored plan and receive a tax penalty for the costs. That's no where near voluntary.
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If you have no income, they can't charge against your taxes.
If you have an income, you can pay out-of-pocket for private coverage, or you can pay (a lot less) for public coverage.
Sounds like people have choices to me.
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Where is the choice of not spending the money in the first place? Or just getting catastrophic insurance with a high deductible? Do I need to go broke and live like a pauper in order to have that choice? It's pretty sad when I have to ruin my life just to be free to make my own choices.
Anyways, the point wasn't about choices, it was about whether or not it is voluntary. It isn't by any reasonable definition of the word.
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Where is the choice of not spending the money in the first place?
You'd like to include an option to forgo medical care completely?
Because, see, here's the problem: you might choose not to pay for any sort of insurance. But, when you're dying, you'll probably still go to the hospital. You may rack up more medical bills than your house is worth. You may or may not be employed at the time, or have assets sufficient to cover what you owe. Guess who pays, then?
It's like car insurance. If there was some way to prove that you had the means to cover up to, say, $1 million i
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Might does not equal will. You are acting as if the act already happened in which it didn't and isn't likely to.
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Sen. Mitch McConnell wrote me back and said some things you might like.. very close to your concerns.
"... So while both parties recognize that serious reform of our health care system is needed, we must also recognize the importance of getting it right. Americans want reform. The question is what kind of reform. Reform is necessary, but not all so-called reforms are necessarily good. Taking the wrong course would leave millions of Americans worse off by taking away coverage they already have and like."
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I wish everyone in congress would grow a pair of balls, decide to use some critical thinking skills for once, and follow his lead. They are going overboard with is in the current bills, you have senators and administration officials blatantly lying and saying the legislation doesn't do what is written down in it and the worse part about it is that they are getting a free pass.
There is so much that can be done to competently fix the current system that it's pretty much negligent of congress not to address it
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Living in a place that has universal health care, it utterly astonishes me that anyone honestly would prefer no health care, to affordable (but not free) health care. Seriously? You actually want to completely forgo health cover to save a few bucks? I always knew that Americans were very individualistic and liked freedom of choice in things, but that seems like one choice that is not very wise to make. This isn't a troll or intending to flame ... I guess I just do not understand the mindset that leads to th
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The problem is that without the freedom to fail, you do not have the freedom to succeed.
As for me, I have catastrophic insurance that will cover cancer, broken bones and so on. Under the new legislation, this is not enough. If I decide I want to turn my health insurance into a boat payment or a better car payment, I currently have that freedom. With the new legislation, I do not. The problem isn't affordable health care, it's being forced to participate. Right now I have freedoms that will not exist once th
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I much prefer corporate bureaucracy. It's so transparent. This would never happen with private insurance.
This stupendously bad government health care system only has to serve 23,000,000 patients and it managed to screw up 1200 whole notifications. What self respecting corporate entity would tolerate a 0.00521% failure rate. You're much better off with a private system where mistakes never happen and would certainly be widely publicized if they did.
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Oh, really? This is a government bureaucracy we're talking about.
THIS is what we'd ALL get if Obama and the Dems win their attempt to have a government takeover of health care.
Well, everyone who chose the public option. Which, at least to begin with, would mostly be people who have no healthcare at all right now. Healthcare with occasional administrative errors is probably going to save more lives than no care AT ALL.
Besides which, I've had bad lab results and mistaken reports from private healthcare, too. Even large-scale errors. And it's certainly not simply healthcare that has this happen...I've gotten notices from utilities that my service was going to be cut off when I'd
Re:it happens, (Score:4, Informative)
Point. In my experience, though, generally they like to give out "you're going to die" type news in person. Hell, even the results of a standard blood test require you to go in and pay the standard consultation tax.
They don't make money when they see you at some broken-down VA medical center. My dad is a veteran with an arterial blockage. They won't give him the medication for some reason, and they won't operate because "it's not bad enough". They will do anything they can do NOT provide you any care at the VA; sending you a letter informing you that you probably have less than a year to live is just a cost-cutting measure.
The VA is just a more societally acceptable alternative to shooting veterans dead on the white house lawn, it has nothing to do with helping people unless that's the cheapest way to get them out of your hair. The members of the military that they actually care about (commissioned officers) can afford real medical care. If they just built one less bomber and a few less cruise missiles they could afford to ramp up the care to be some of the world's best, as our veterans deserve (at least as much as anyone else!)
If we're really the greatest nation on the planet, we should have the best medical care. To provide especially sub-standard health care to veterans (as we very much do) is a MASSIVE FAILURE to be great. It is, in fact, incredibly small and petty.
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I don't understand. How is offering vets free healthcare IN ADDITION to the healthcare options available to every other American citizen anything at all like "shooting veterans dead on the white house lawn?"
Having another option, even if its not ideal, seems like a good thing to me.
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I don't understand. How is offering vets free healthcare IN ADDITION to the healthcare options available to every other American citizen anything at all like "shooting veterans dead on the white house lawn?"
If they were actually getting the health care, I would agree. Many to most of them are not getting the care they require.
As for shooting veterans dead on the white house lawn, perhaps you should study your history [wikipedia.org]. That incident was about soldiers who came back from WWI and couldn't afford to exist trying to get monies promised them, albeit ahead of schedule, so that they could survive, and being shot dead in a park across from the White House for their troubles. Roosevelt signed them up to work on his new
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You witlessly attempted to avoid answering my question by trying to change the topic. I am not at all impressed. Are you going to attempt to answer my question, or do you concede to my statement that offering free medical service is a good thing the vets should be thankful for?
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How Veterans' Hospitals Became the Best in Health Care [time.com]
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Welcome to universal healthcare. Don't worry, you too will soon be able to get the news of your imminent death via phone, email, or text message.
Also, I hope you like vitamin M (that is, Motrin).
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"Close Enough for Government Work" (Score:3, Funny)
An especially scary phrase when it applies to healthcare, no?
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yeah those high precision jets, accurate missiles, highly trained people, and real time global information are just horrible.
Close enough for government work is almost always closer then private industry when it comes to complex work.
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I didn't know the technicians working for Lockheed and Boeing were civil servants. I stand corrected.
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I didn't know the technicians working for Lockheed and Boeing were civil servants. I stand corrected.
I didn't know that any of our health care proposals involved hiring doctors, lab technicians, and pharmacists all as civil servants, either.
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Let's cut to the chase: I have first hand experience working with Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurers. The first two cannot find their collective asses with both hands; the latter, while expensive, have been efficient. In healthcare, as in life, there are just two things: time and money. You'll get what you need with government-run healthcare if you're prepared to stay on top of the agencies like white on snow, writing the letters, making the phonecalls, hammering away, every day, every month: the g
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Let's cut to the chase: I have first hand experience working with Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurers. The first two cannot find their collective asses with both hands; the latter, while expensive, have been efficient.
You are a privileged individual, then. I have had the following experiences with private insurers:
* Being billed YEARS later for fees that were mistakenly not charged at the point of service, each for a sum of less than $50, but adding up to a couple hundred. They hounded me for MONTHS, with no proof that I owed them the money other than they said so. I finally threatened to sue them for harassment and they gave it up.
* One day I went to fill a prescription. My health insurance policy (not provider) had
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yeah those high precision jets, accurate missiles, highly trained people, and real time global information are just horrible.
Close enough for government work is almost always closer then private industry when it comes to complex work.
Does your praise also included $500 toilet seat lids and $100 hammers? That's a result of government defense purchasing, too. Our newest fighter, the F-35, that was supposed to be "cheap", was designed by committee, and now will cost around $200 million apiece next year. Can't wait to apply that expertise to health care.
Very low accuracy mailing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Government should just mail an official looking letter to everybody:
Dear XY,
You are not suffering from any fatal neurological conditions.
Regards.
This would vastly increase the accuracy of the mailing and would also be better for the general mood.
Re:Very low accuracy mailing... (Score:4, Funny)
You are most likely not suffering from any fatal neurological conditions.
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Telling everybody that they're most probably healthy is not as good... it improves the accuracy of the mail even further without having the same valuable positive effect on the mood.
Why sacrifice the positive effect on mood for that little extra accuracy? You'll probably only send out a fraction of a percent false negatives, when you tell everybody that they don't have a fatal neurological condition!
hate when that happens... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:hate when that happens... (Score:4, Informative)
The way the VA medical system works they'd probably die waiting to find out they were dying. The automated letter system is probably to save costs and time - that they completely hosed it up is no surprise.
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Since the VA system regularly outscores private medical organizations, maybe you should stop spreading your ignorance?
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There's a long discussion of this above. That said, I've got pretty extensive experience dealing with the government and the VA and I'll stick with what I said.
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How Veterans' Hospitals Became the Best in Health Care [time.com]
The VA would like to apologize for any.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Any jobs declined, life and health insurance policies refused and suicides.
Re:The VA would like to apologize for any.. (Score:5, Interesting)
health insurance policies refused
If you're getting a letter from the VA you already have free liftetime health insurance, and in the US it's illegal to decline someone a job on account of their medical condition, insofar as it doesn't interfere with performance, which for someone who doesn't have a disease, it won't.
I'm sure there's some sort of latent point in this about "socialized medicine" or something, but for every one of these letters with the wrong diagnosis, I assure you a private insurer has cancelled the policy on dozens of people for no goddamn reason [time.com]. And those people sometimes commit suicide too.
There are many scary anecdotes about the VA, but they're just that, anecdotes. Customer satisfaction within the VA health system regularly outscores [va.gov] customer satisfaction in the private health insurance/care system.
PS. If you get a letter saying you have an incurable disease, damn the letter. You must hear it from your doctor's own lips, and then only after you have had the outcome of the tests throughly explained to you.
Re:The VA would like to apologize for any.. (Score:5, Informative)
This is good info. but just to point out one thing- not everyone who is in the VA system necessarily has free lifetime care for everything. Many people receive care for lower levels of service connected disability. Many veterans use the VA and other health care systems - including public hospitals, private insurance, etc.
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This is true, and I'm happy to admit that one of the probable reasons people are so satisfied with the VA system is on account of the fact that it's FREEEEEEEE!!! Or rather, the risk of all is borne by all, and you can't be welched out of it in any good-faith circumstance.
Of course, we could all have this arrangement, wether by national insurance or proper private health insurance regulation, if we voted for it.
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Satisfaction surveys are not necessarily the best metric to use in determining quality of care. I think this has been shown in a few studies and many health care providers have tried to move to metrics that more accurately tell if care is actually good or not. I don't bring this up to enter into your argument about socialized medicine but just to try and look at the whole picture.
More importantly, your point about it being free couldn't be more mistaken. For the vets it either cost becoming disab
Re:The VA would like to apologize for any.. (Score:4, Informative)
More importantly, your point about it being free couldn't be more mistaken. For the vets it either cost becoming disabled or a minimum of 20 years of full time service.
This is incorrect. My father spent 4 years in, and due to his income, receives (nearly) free health care. He must requalify every year, fwiw.
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I did not know that. I just hopped over to the VA eligibility page and it's wider than I had believed. Nice to know I may have benefits I didn't know about. I've got insurance through my employer, but who knows what tomorrow holds.
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He must requalify every year, fwiw.
What the hell? Are they checking if he grew back his legs or something? Perhaps the timeline changed and now he hadn't gone to war?
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No, he just needs to prove that he can't afford an alternative, that his continued VA treatment is need based.
And with Medicaid, he'd need to requalify every six months, so that's pretty generous.
Re:The VA would like to apologize for EVERY (Score:5, Informative)
There are presently 3 "single payer" health care systems in the US: The VA, IHS (Indian Health Services), and Medicare.
The VA has a long history of misdiagnosis and hospitals that don't meet the cleanliness standards most McDonalds must keep, the IHS itself admits that it doesn't have the money to do anything put extremely urgent care, barely (as opposed to the full and complete care it is obligated to provide by treaty), and Medicare pays regular health care providers about 65% of the costs of treatment, does so 9-24 months late, and is on schedule to devour the entire federal budget by 2019 (assuming it is not expanded by ObamaCare).
As a Military Servicemember, and the son of a vet who just became eligible for medicare, I want LESS government in Healthcare, and am not surprised in the least by these letters. I'm actually more surprised that they were reported in the media, this time.
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Oh know, the VA does. You sit in a room, 50 bureaucrats come into a room. Once they decide your not over 65 and they can't just put a bullet in your head, they steal your wallet and then then goose step out of the room to go kill Jews.
Well, that's what some people seem to believe.
I wish people would actually read the proposals and discussed specific issues within the proposal.
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This type of thing happens in private companies more often. They aren't under any pressure to lat anyone know and have PR to minimize the damage. Point in fact it's exactly why I will never work in the private medical industry again.
The actually people that study medicare for a living. The actually experts aren't concerned about medicare and dont believe it will eat the federal budget. That's republican Neo Con propaganda. The same propaganda that said it would ahve devoured the budget 20 years ago. Every t
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The actually experts aren't concerned about medicare and dont believe it will eat the federal budget. That's republican Neo Con propaganda. The same propaganda that said it would ahve devoured the budget 20 years ago. Every ten year, they say it will devour the budget in ten years.
The numbers actually come from the GAO (Government Accountability Office), which I wouldn't consider a republican propaganda machine. It's likely they are being conservative (ala similar calculations concerning Social Security), but that doesn't negate the fact that the costs of the medical industry are spiraling out of control.
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You forgot Tricare, which is either single payer or socialized depending on the location.
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But I shouldn't blame them. They are simply following the "guidlines" the politicians produced, to ensure "fairness".
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So, the VA can't afford cleaning staff, IHS can't afford doctors, and Medicare can't afford accounts payable staff?
And somehow, this is going to be solved by spending LESS gov't money on healthcare?
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Actually, there are precisely zero "single payer" health care systems in the US, since the existence of more than one payer in the same jurisdiction means you don't have a singly payer system, and there are, in the US, the three systems you mention, the joint federal/state Medicaid program, and thousands of ther payers, meaning that none of those payers is a "single payer" system.
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How Veterans' Hospitals Became the Best in Health Care [time.com]
I'll not go through the rest of your FUD point-by-point, but I'll just pick on this one:
What do you think your private insurance does? Just pay whatever is asked? Does the phrase "negotiated rate" ring a bell?
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No, don't damn the letter. Immediately call your doctor. Regardless of public or private.
Not amusing (Score:5, Insightful)
ALS is basically a slow and unpleasant death sentence unless you are lucky and can afford proper care. You really don't want to be told you have something that will lock your working brain into your body until you suffocate without a breathing apparatus.
I'm perfectly aware many people can live for ages with ALS, but a significant portion aren't as lucky...
Re:Not amusing (Score:5, Insightful)
It's still horrible, even if you're lucky. There are so many "better" fatal diseases I'd rather have.
And unfortunately there really isn't a lot of public research being done to find a cure. A great deal of medical research is driven by politics and popularity, and ALS just doesn't get the attention it deserves. The cynic in me believes that the lack of research dollars is due to the short average expected lifespan after diagnosis -- those with ALS just aren't around long enough to make enough noise to get the attention needed to boost funding and research interest.
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I had a friend who was diagnosed and dead in less than a year. He went from excellent care to being unable to pick up his kids in a few months. It was one of the most horrible things I've seen a person go through. I think his wife and kids are doing pretty well now, it's been 8 years since he died, but I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
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My dad died w/ ALS - not sure if that was the cause of death or not, he had a long history of high blood pressure and had a heart attack at age 71, which some could view as "normal".
Apparently, there are 2 "flavors" of ALS - dead in a year, or you may have 2-40 years (like Hawking).
Even better (Score:3, Insightful)
It'll be awesome when all of our health care is, by law, just as efficient and personal.
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I doubt it, I mean there's really no comparison between our current health care system, and the government run health care in France, Germany, Canada, Briton, Australia, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Panama, or Israel.
I smell a rat (Score:1)
Re:I smell a rat (Score:4, Informative)
People who serve in the military are twice as likely to get ALS as people with no military service. I don't think anyone knows why but apparently the government is agreeing that they should help out vets who contract it. ALSA [alsa.org] has a pdf with information about it - ALSA military paper [alsa.org].
hmmm (Score:2)
I didn't see a reference to either actual study, and the two studies discussed had seperate methods* and different focues. Drawning two studies to get to a conclusion that only 1 was looking for is weak.
It also doesn't look at the possiblility that ALS is more common then thought, it's just the military personal get regular medical check-ups and treatment.
I am NOT saying the studies are wrong, only that it's not very conclusive.
I do want to say that I would like to see some more good studies done on that. P
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I do want to say that I would like to see some more good studies done on that. Particularly looking at the fact that there is an increase no matter which branch, job, or duration in the military. that's very odd and does smell of a flawed study.
Or a feature of military service that doesn't have to do with how you serve... like the vaccination schedule or elements of the training process. Or heck, the food. Maybe some chemical they use in the living quarters.
There's a lot of things that could explain such a difference. I agree we need more research to determine what they are.
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2 If someones file has the code they should already be diagnosed right.
We're still stuck using ICD9 coding. We were supposed to switch to ICD10 years ago, but it keeps getting delayed, mostly because of the arcane field of medical billing software. ICD9 is a half-assed system, based on decades-old knowledge of disease and injury, that you can't even be sure whether you'll find the disease you want under the part of the body it affects or its taxonomy.
So it doesn't surprise me at all that the ICD9 code for ALS is ambiguous for other neurological diseases.
Awww (Score:4, Insightful)
There I was, looking for a story about veterinarians in Virginia...
Not "vets" but "veterans" (Score:1)
VA Mistakenly Tells Vets They Have Fatal Illness
"Vet" means a veterinary doctor, not a veteran. Stupid title.
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Side note: If we were in a draft era, I would have been 4-F'd off the bat, before you bring up that counter.
Re:Not "vets" but "veterans" (Score:5, Funny)
"Vet" means a veterinary doctor, not a veteran. Stupid title.
Slashdot is an American website, and as such, Vet most certainly does mean Veteran sometimes. When? When it does.
If you don't like the Americanisms, fine. But don't try to correct us. You can't even fucking spell Aluminum [wikipedia.org]. "for so we shall take the liberty of writing the word, in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound." That's right, you convinced the whole world to ignore the original name in favor of creative license! The English language is poisoned with the deliberate, poetickal misspellings of Chaucer and his contemporaries because when the dictionaries were Laid Down From On High by some pompous brits, the works were in fashion, and so every dictionary I open I have to see a bunch of made-up shit.
Complaining about American English on an American website is stupid, and you are a stupid person for doing it. Go suck a calamansis lime.
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Tag: fivenines (Score:2)
Sounds like they hit the magic id '99999' to undiagnosed Time to upgrade to '999999'!
Do tyou know the difference between (Score:4, Insightful)
this and a private medical company?
You find out about the error when a government agency does it.
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this and a private medical company?
You find out about the error when a government agency does it.
Not only that... the letter says "You've been diagnosed with X," whereas the letter from the private insurer says, "Your coverage has been terminated" without mention of the (erroneous) diagnosis.
First Hand Experience (Score:5, Informative)
As a family caretaker of a U.S. Veteran (Vietnam and Iraq Round 1) who passed away from ALS, while under the care of the VA - I have to say that they really busted their butts to make sure he had all the assistance and medical care possible. They even called intermittently with questions about his service history to attempt to find out WHY so many people in his situation developed ALS.
I have to say, for all the problems people have had with the VA they took care of Jim. He had everything from his medications to a IPAP, oxygen, even a hospital bed delivered and set up here at the house.
Given the extremely bizarre nature of the disease, and that no-one clearly understands its causes, they did a damn fine job of trying to figure out what was wrong and making sure he had ample medical care.
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As someone involved with a private health care organization that has regular, extensive contact with the VA, and as someone who's dealt with INS on several different occasions for personal and work-related issues, I'll state the following for all the people arguing for/against public health care:
The standard of service you get from government agencies can vary from horrible to outstanding, depending on the type of people involved in any particular organization. Our local INS office, for example, gets a *lo
Not a troll...I'm an ogre! (Score:2)
Just wait until that number is "millions" under nationalized healthcare.