My VA Experience

As we celebrate Veterans Day this week, I find myself reflecting about how our country takes care of veterans. About two years ago, after two years removed from military service, I shared initial thoughts on the VA system, at least as it applied to navigating the VA disability process during separation and receiving health care. My assessment then was very positive. Two years later, now four years removed and using not only healthcare but VA educational benefits, I feel the same way. I’ve been incredibly impressed with the VA!

Before sharing details, I want to offer a disclaimer that the following is just my personal experience. I know there are several of my Veteran brothers and sisters who may be struggling with the support they receive from the VA. This is just one veteran’s opinion and experiences…for what it’s worth. Hopefully some information in the following may be useful for the newly minted veteran or service member thinking about separation.

First on healthcare. I remain very pleased with the care I receive from my local VA clinic. I’ve established the VA as one of my Primary Care Managers (PCM). My other PCM is through my normal health insurance (TRICARE). The VA and TRICARE are completely okay with this arrangement as long as they do not treat the same issues.

Perhaps the best thing about having two PCMs is that I’ve got it set up where I get “annual” physicals every six months! I receive my physical from the VA in the fall and from my other provider in the Spring.

I believe the routine health care I receive at the VA is top notch. Case in point, when I went in for my annual physical this year, I had just rolled my ankle pretty badly and was wearing a brace. On the same day, my provider ordered X-rays of the appendage. While it was thankfully just a sprain, I’m confident the VA would have done whatever was necessary to treat the injury.  

I also requested a full skin inspection as I’m pretty much covered from head to toe in moles of every shape, color and size. The VA set up a community care appointment with a dermatologist and I had the inspection within a couple of weeks. The VA will set up the referral for annual inspections!

This year I also transferred my dental coverage over to the VA. Many veterans may not know, 100% disabled veterans receive dental in addition to health care. What’s more, the dentist I’ve seen for a couple of years accepts VA “insurance”, so it was just a matter of changing over my insurer!

The Post 9/11 GI Bill is the greatest thing since sliced bread in that for many veterans, the benefit is transferrable to dependents. What a powerful benefit for our veterans! Our oldest son was able to earn acceptance to a great but expensive college. I was a little apprehensive when he started last year; I had fears of GI Bill payments held up in bureaucratic red tape. I developed contingency plans to sell investments to cover tuition if the GI bill didn’t come through.

Bottom line, the VA educational benefits started like clockwork almost two years ago and haven’t missed a beat! There were some confusing forms to complete, but when I called the VA educational benefits section, the representatives were knowledgeable, polite and got us on the right track every time. Furthermore, our son’s college has a great veteran’s affairs staff who helped us sort out things like the Yellow Ribbon program. My only concern with VA educational benefits is trying to stretch them as far as I can for our second child!

I’ve said it once I’ll say it a million times, I am so very proud to live in the United States where we are able to maintain an all-volunteer military (for now) and our government puts an emphasis on taking care of veterans. I know it hasn’t always been this way. I’m still fairly new at being a veteran, but so far have felt the support of my nation. I hope this never changes. Wishing all Veterans, a wonderful day and many thanks from a grateful citizen!

Check out the sustains and improves from my transition from career Soldier back to civilian in my book, Military Retirement: An After-Action Review. FREE eBook download or paperback for purchase on Amazon. If you do read my AAR (or any of my books for that matter), please don’t forget to drop a review on Amazon! Thank you!

The views, opinions and biases expressed in this blog are the authors and do not reflect those of the U.S. Army or Department of Defense.

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