I had been struggling with my mental health for a while and was at a point of desperation, verging on suicidal. I know many of my fellow service members know this feeling. Our experiences in uniform can be ghosts that return to haunt us often, even after the healing we’ve done.
I worked at my local VA hospital as a social worker, so I knew the signs and symptoms of a mental health crisis. I also knew I wouldn’t be comfortable seeking mental healthcare from the staff I worked with every day. So much of therapy is feeling safe and secure, and that wasn’t going to happen in my place of work.
Plus, the wait time for an appointment, even though I was in the building every day, was outrageously long.
Both my preference and the internal wait time qualified me for community care, a program that allows veterans to use their VA benefits with providers outside the VA system. Through President-elect Donald Trump’s landmark VA MISSION Act, millions more veterans like me were empowered with choice over our care.
The program is a literal lifesaver for veterans who need more immediate attention, treatment closer to home, or care that fits our unique needs. Under the VA MISSION Act, veterans were to come first.
But, in carrying out the law, the VA rarely puts veterans first, and it certainly didn’t in my case.
My requests for community care were continually denied, further straining my mental health. I had the benefit of knowing the system, my options, and how to advocate for myself. But even then, the VA bureaucracy won. I was essentially told, “You get your care here, or you don’t get it at all.”
This is what happens when bureaucracy wins: The VA system must stay intact at all costs, even at the cost of veterans’ health.
You might be wondering what many veterans wonder, too. If community care is there for veterans to use, how can VA stand in the way?
Once again, conniving bureaucracy is to blame. Although community care was established through law in the VA MISSION Act, eligibility for the program was decided by regulations. The VA has ignored or twisted the regulations from the get-go.
Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit revealed VA has manipulated how it calculates wait times to keep veterans out of eligibility for community care. The FOIA lawsuit also found the VA actively dissuading veterans from using community care or going as far as to mislead us about our options.
The outgoing VA secretary, Denis McDonough, told Congress he thought the VA would have to change the access standards because too many veterans were using the program.
What I’m hearing from all this information is that my needs, care, and life are less important than my stay at the VA. Veterans using VA are made to feel like problems to be dealt with rather than human beings with unique needs.
Luckily, there is a solution on the table: the Complete the Mission Act. Recently introduced, this bill would build on the success of Trump’s VA MISSION Act by writing community care eligibility standards into law. This means no more picking and choosing from the VA about when to give veterans these choices.
The bill would require the VA to tell veterans when they are eligible for community care, ending the agency’s current practice of keeping them in the dark. The bill also requires accurate wait time measurements and creates a self-scheduling portal so our care is more firmly in our hands and not at the mercy of VA gatekeepers.
What I’m most excited about is the bill’s requirement for a full-choice pilot program for mental health. Veterans would be able to access mental healthcare whenever they need it, regardless of if they meet eligibility standards. This freedom to seek care is desperately needed as veteran suicide continues to take too many of us — at least 17 a day.
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I wish something like that existed when I was contemplating taking my own life. It could have saved me months of struggling without care and thousands out of pocket to see a therapist when the VA wouldn’t help me.
I hope getting the Complete the Mission Act to the president’s desk is at the top of everyone’s priority list, whether it happens in the lame-duck session or in the new Congress.
Jessica Villarreal is a combat veteran of the United States Army, social worker, and strategic director at Concerned Veterans for America.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
