It sounded like potentially good news for veterans and their families at the time, but I'm wondering if it ever really happened. Human guides were proposed to lead wounded veterans through the maze of healthcare. On November 1, 2007, the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report published a news item called "DOD, VA Team To Provide Care Coordinators for Servicemembers, Veterans." These "Federal Recovery Coordinators," as they were termed, were established "to help veterans with health care and recovery."
According to the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense would establish “federal recovery coordinators” responsible for helping guide wounded servicemembers and veterans through their health care and recovery. Apparently this was an idea introduced by the Dole-Shalala Commission, although it also could be a common sensical approach conceived of by any overburdened friend or family member of an injured veteran. The concept was that ideally these coordinators would not just aid their clients in navigating the healthcare options available to them, but also produce better coordination between the two departments, Defense and Veterans Affairs. Strangely enough, the goal to have ten coordinators trained and ready to go by January, 2008 -- a mere two months later -- and in place at the largest veterans healthcare installations.
It's mid-2008, and I don't know about you, but I've not heard another thing about this. Do they exist? Was the plan scrapped because it was too ambitious or otherwise untenable? Are they out there, but keeping a very low profile? Inquiring minds want to know...
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This is what the Kaiser Report said at the time:
The departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs on Wednesday signed an agreement to establish "federal recovery coordinators" who will be responsible for guiding wounded servicemembers and veterans through their medical care and recovery, the Washington Post reports. The recovery coordinator position was a key element of a presidential commission's recommendations to help improve health care services for military members and veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (Vogel, Washington Post, 11/1).
The coordinators will be responsible for overseeing care coordination between the two departments' health care systems, and they will assist family members as well (AP/Contra Costa Times, 10/31). The first 10 coordinators, who will be provided by VA and trained by January 2008, will be assigned to large military health care facilities. Michael Dominguez, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, in a statement said, "This agreement will help ensure our nation's wounded warriors and their families receive the care they need and deserve at the right time, right place and by the right person across the continuum from recovery through to their reintegration into their communities" (Washington Post, 11/1).
All we want to know is, then what happened?
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Editor's note: for all the non-literature majors in the crowd, the title comes from Dante's Divine Comedy, and is supposed to be what the poet imagined was written over the gates of hell.
