CINCINNATI — The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is sending out an all-call for hundreds of thousands of veterans who aren’t enrolled in health care coverage.
Within Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana alone, there are approximately 58,260 veterans who served in Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan aren't registered. Numbers from the VA show there are 29,200 veterans in Ohio, 14,260 in Kentucky and 14,800 in Indiana.
“We have had our highest number of new enrollees since 2014,” said Ellen Graf, Chief of Patient Business Services at the Cincinnati VA Medical Center.
The introduction of the PACT Act has led to more presumptive conditions giving automatic coverage to veterans stationed or deployed in certain locations.
“We've come up with the need to reach out to our veterans who have these conditions, to say you need to come in and get taken care of,” Graf said.
Due to the increase in veterans coming through their doors, they’ve doubled their eligibility staff to handle the workload. Graf said they’ve also streamlined the process to make it easier for everyone.
“What we're doing now is we're collaborating really closely with primary care, so when you come in and you're enrolled, you will leave with your first primary care appointment, and you will also leave with a toxic exposure screening,” she said.
Watch our interview with Graf below:
Graf explained the toxic screening is a short 5- to 10-minute interview about deployment locations and potential exposures to toxic environments.
“We're going to be looking at you going, oh, you were in this area under these conditions and we are going to presume that you're the medical condition that you're linking to is because of that, and because of that, we are going to be providing you your medical treatment,” Graf said.
She said they’ve completed nearly 32,000 toxic exposure screenings.
The enrollment process is as simple as walking to the enrollment window and sitting down with an eligibility representative. There’s no appointment needed, and you can help speed up the process by bringing your DD-214 paperwork, but if you don’t have it they can look up the information, which may take a little extra time.
Graf said even if you are not presenting any health effects from your time in service, it’s important to get enrolled in their health care system.
“I think that's important because we're continuously doing research about any type of medical conditions. I mean, the PACT Act right now is really important because we're talking about environmental exposures and toxic exposures while you were serving. And from that research, we have come up with presumptive conditions,” Graf said. “We've come up with the need to reach out to our veterans who have these conditions, to say you need to come in and get taken care of, and we will take care of that free of charge.”
The Cincinnati VA is also working on more outreach to local companies that employ a lot of veterans. For example, they do regular outreach at GE in Evandale.
"We go out monthly, and the mobile unit is there for any any information or any questions that they have about enrollment, or, again, toxic exposure," Graf said.
She encourages other companies to reach out to arrange to have the VA mobile unit come by for veteran outreach.
You can read more about VA health care eligibility and read through some of the myths of VA health care on the Cincinnati VA Medical Center website.
If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.
