Officials Outline Veterans’ Options

More than 65 veterans are waiting for an answer to their petition to allow Re-Entry Associates to continue treating them for mental health.

But the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has moved forward with expanding services at its six Community-Based Outpatient Clinics as part of a nationwide goal to improve the overall quality of care, said Ann Brown, director of the Martinsburg Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

The clinics offer primary care, specialized care and medication management all under one umbrella.

At the Cumberland clinic, there will be a full-time psychiatrist and one social worker for mental health treatment. They have access to an additional psychiatrist through teleconferencing. All the staff is certified to treat posttraumatic stress disorder and patients can be referred to Martinsburg for in-patient care for PTSD, Brown said during a recent phone interview with the Times-News.

     “For years, the Department of Veterans Affairs, with the support of government and veteran service organizations, has been pushing for additional funding to expand our services in all areas,” Brown said. “In the past couple of months, we have received additional funding to expand all of our programs, including mental health in rural areas.”

The expansion means the VAMC is able to handle all veterans’ health care needs in-house, eliminating the need to contract out services.

“We were looking to move from a fee-basis arrangement to a contract with Re-Entry Associates so we could tighten up licensing requirements and the care provided,” Brown said. “During this time we found that Re-Entry could not fulfill the contracting requirements. Then we got the additional funding, which allowed us to provide all services in-house.”

Prior to moving toward a contract in the summer of 2008, Brown said the VAMC was not responsible for licensing issues with fee-basis facilities such as Re-Entry. She said that was the state’s responsibility.

However, the state wasn’t assessing Re-Entry.

“We have researched our records, and also checked with the Mental Hygiene Administration. This site/provider is not a part of the mental health system (it does not receive funds through the state) and is therefore not certified by our office or the Mental Hygiene Administration,” Wendy Kronmiller, director of the Maryland Office of Health Care Quality, wrote in an e-mail to the Times-News.

Brown said the VAMC has held multiple meetings with congressional staff, members of the Maryland Vietnam Veterans Association and Maryland Veterans of Foreign Wars Association.

Lisa Wright, press secretary for Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, said the congressman has been following the issue closely.

“The Maryland and West Virginia delegation has had several meetings and conference calls with the VAMC of Martinsburg, Veterans Integrated Service Network 5, Vet Counseling Centers, Vietnam Veterans Association, Veterans of Foreign Wars Association and Re-Entry,” Wright said. “So there’s been an ongoing exchange of information leading up to a letter to the (VA) Secretary Eric Shinseki, and also after the letter. However, we have not yet received a formal reply.”

Wright’s Feb. 24 letter included the petition from the 65-plus veterans who want to remain at Re-Entry.

“The congressman has received inquiries from veterans on behalf of their individual cases and he has been aware of issues with respect to ensuring better mental health care and ongoing treatment for veterans, and Re-Entry is a subset of that concern, which has come up,” Wright said.

“First and foremost for the congressman is customer service for constituents; the government should be their servant,” she said. “He works to provide the best possible customer service he can, but the end result may not be satisfactory to constituents.

“Congressman Bartlett has no authority to make the decision,” Wright said. “It is solely within the authority of the VA to decide the acceptable portals, the acceptable providers, of care.”

Re-Entry Associates is still able to help new veterans for one year through a contract with the Vet Centers program, part of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“The Vet Centers provide readjustment counseling services and contract out for Vet Center clients,” said Terry Luper, regional manager of the readjustment counseling service for the Mid-Atlantic Region. “The program is set up as a short-term intensive counseling program. However, eligibility is limited to veterans and their families who have served in a combat theater.”

Luper said they are able to have a contract with Re-Entry because the requirements are different.

“The people providing the care for our veterans in our program need to have a current state license,” he said. “We did discover the only person at Cumberland that didn’t meet that requirement was Ms. (Peggy) Melotti, but I’ve met with her and we’ve talked and basically she transferred the few clients she was seeing to licensed providers. So they meet our requirements now.”

Luper said that staff from the Vet Center and from its regional office go to Re-Entry once a year for a quality assurance site visit.

“We have a very open working relationship with the Vet Center and VSOs (vet service organizations),” said Dan Reeser, social work executive at Martinsburg VA Medical Center. “We are working to find what is most appropriate for veterans and provide them with the best option of services available.”

Bruce Whitaker, Region 3 director of the Vietnam Veterans of America, said he attended the February public meeting where clientele of Re-Entry voiced concerns about the transition.

“They are a rather upset group of individuals,” Whitaker said, “and it seems that no one has sat down, one on one, and listened to the affected veterans in the matter. I am making an effort to get that done now, though I don’t know how successful I’ll be.”

Whitaker is working to contact senators for a public meeting where the veterans would be able to voice their concerns directly to elected officials.

Re-Entry issued a statement saying, “Re-Entry Associates Inc., located at 426 N. Centre St. in Cumberland, remains open and is continuing to perform under their contract with the VA for readjustment counseling services. All Re-Entry counselors have appropriate licenses and credentials and have extensive experience working in the field of PTSD, war-related trauma.”

Contact Tess Hill at [email protected].