There was a HUGE difference from when I first applied a few years after my first tour and had issues (around 2010) versus when I recently applied. The first time was a whole stack of paper only. Electronic wasn’t allowed. Must be in person to submit. If anything wasn’t filled out correctly they wouldn’t tell you, you just had to wait a month and get a letter telling you what page to resubmit. Then the appointments to evaluate you were scheduled with zero input from you. And occasionally they would do ghost bookings to boost numbers. Those are bookings where they would book it the day or two before, only give mail notice, and when you get it it was for an appointment that had now passed, and they make you rebook it with the strike against you for noshowing. It was a nightmare. Then the clinicians defaulted to just assuming you were there for money and if there was a shadow of doubt it was denied.
Then, if you did finally get a rating, good luck getting any treatment. I had a prescription of sertrilene, aka zoloft, literally the world’s most prescribed pill, it ran out after I moved back from Chicago to Houston. But because records were only regional at the time and I was in a new region, I had to re-register for Healthcare. And even though I had the bottle with me, I could not use the pharmacy without a new prescription. So I had to go through the ER, as a triage level 0. I was in there at 11 am and waited ALL DAY until the standard ER closing time and they shifted to life threatening only (about 6 pm), and was not seen. Told to come back the next day. Was in there by 10, seen around 3 or 4. And the doc who saw me was shocked about the whole thing when i explained it to him.
With all that, it has come a long way and was so much easier when I did a pact act claim. It was all online, simplified, they worked with me, contracted out the appointments, it was great. World of change over the last 10+ years.
There was a HUGE difference from when I first applied a few years after my first tour and had issues (around 2010) versus when I recently applied. The first time was a whole stack of paper only. Electronic wasn’t allowed. Must be in person to submit. If anything wasn’t filled out correctly they wouldn’t tell you, you just had to wait a month and get a letter telling you what page to resubmit. Then the appointments to evaluate you were scheduled with zero input from you. And occasionally they would do ghost bookings to boost numbers. Those are bookings where they would book it the day or two before, only give mail notice, and when you get it it was for an appointment that had now passed, and they make you rebook it with the strike against you for noshowing. It was a nightmare. Then the clinicians defaulted to just assuming you were there for money and if there was a shadow of doubt it was denied.
Then, if you did finally get a rating, good luck getting any treatment. I had a prescription of sertrilene, aka zoloft, literally the world’s most prescribed pill, it ran out after I moved back from Chicago to Houston. But because records were only regional at the time and I was in a new region, I had to re-register for Healthcare. And even though I had the bottle with me, I could not use the pharmacy without a new prescription. So I had to go through the ER, as a triage level 0. I was in there at 11 am and waited ALL DAY until the standard ER closing time and they shifted to life threatening only (about 6 pm), and was not seen. Told to come back the next day. Was in there by 10, seen around 3 or 4. And the doc who saw me was shocked about the whole thing when i explained it to him.
With all that, it has come a long way and was so much easier when I did a pact act claim. It was all online, simplified, they worked with me, contracted out the appointments, it was great. World of change over the last 10+ years.