HONESTY AND INTEGRITY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

BY: SAMUEL L. HENNON (a.k.a. The Corpsman),
State Coordinator;
VETERANS VOTING BLOC, THE ILLINOIS CHAPTER


Honesty and integrity should be the rule for any organization, business,
government agency or cultural institution. Civilization is founded on such
principles, and soon erodes into anarchy when these qualities are in
question. Honesty and integrity begin with the individual and are carried into a
group and nurtured. From the bottom up and from the top down the morals
and virtues are instilled in the group members. The same is true of the
opposite virtues. These can sour an organization or institution just as
completely as virtue can sweeten them.

The question is; does anybody care anymore? Have we been reduced to our
common denominator, ethnic tags and group tags on purpose or by design so
that we only care if the un-virtuous single us out as the butt of their
inhumanity. Thus only veterans are concerned about veterans, seniors are
concerned about seniors, Hispanics are concerned for their welfare and other
groups, too numerous to name, concerned for themselves; including , but not
forgetting our senators and our congressmen and our senior bureaucratic
agents of the federal government. Is it reasonable to believe that if there is
a broken link in one chain, that the likelihood of a broken link in another
chain of the same origin is not unexpected or of great surprise?

When we see or hear of a crime we are more likely to shy away from
involvement than to stand our ground with the victim until justice is served? The
approval of a member of a group usually entails the discussion of the
individuals virtues and qualifications for membership in the group. This is
the nature of Congress (specifically the Senate) having approval over Cabinet
appointees and Federal Judges. So why when questions of impropriety are
substantiated are they not investigated and validity determined before
appointment is made? Why when this information resides in the courts and the
public domain is it ignored by the very ones we have entrusted to protect our
interests as a group? The meat of this discussion is possible and
probable impropriety on the part of the Secretary of the Department of Veterans
Affairs and his association, and working reward relationship with QTC
Management, Inc; owner of QTC Medical Services, Inc. QTC was hired by VA to
do Compensation and Pension Exams for disability determinations. QTCs
contract was renewed by Secretary Anthony Principi in April of this year
despite questionable results. Why and how could this be?

I quote verbatim and abridged from the Wall Street Journal, 09/08/99, an
article written by Sheila Muto, concerning a lawsuit filed in the state of
California. The Title of the article is: "Disabled File Suit Seeking Back
Claims" with a dateline of San Francisco. The article reads as follows.

San Francisco -- In a case that some say would bring millions of dollars
to disabled professionals in California, policyholders are suing an insurer
and a disability evaluation-service firm, alleging they improperly denied
benefits. (Now this has been a common complaint of this nation's
veterans concerning the VA, most noticeable during the last few years.)

United policyholders, a non-profit, San Francisco-based advocacy group,
and a Wesley Evans, a disabled general contractor in Murietta, filed suit in
Alameda County Superior Court last month against Provident Life and
Accident Insurance Company, a Chattanooga, Tennessee-based unit of Unum-Provident
Corporation of Portland, Maine; and Bay Brook Medical Services, a division
of QTC Management Inc. of Diamond Bar, California..
(How do you keep track of all these multi-conglomerate corporations?)

The suit alleges, among other things, that Provident violated
California's Unfair Competition Act by making deliberate plans to increase profits
by reducing claim payments, primarily to high end holders of its
disability policies. To help accomplish that, the complaint alleges,
Provident contracted with Bay Brook, which provided referrals to
physicians it believed would back Provident's claims denials.
(You keep track by following the money.)

Provident aggressively marketed the so-called individual disability
policies to doctors, lawyers and small-business owners from1983 to1988, primarily
in California and Florida, easing underwriting criteria and boosting
commissions for brokers and agents. Also, the policies could neither be
cancelled nor their prices raised, and would cover incapacitated
policyholders regardless of whether they could take up another job, according to
company documents.
(What a get rich quick scheme this was, just think of the impact on the
stock share prices and the incomes of all of the senior and middle-management
employees. The policy, itself, sounded to good to be true. No wonder so
many professionals bought them.)

Provident documents indicate that the policies initially generated
handsome premium income, on which Provident earned healthy yields thanks to the
high interest rate of the 1980's. But rates fell in the 1990's.
Meanwhile, Provident realized that it had underestimated claims.
(Do you really believe that Provident felt that their prosperity would
continue into the next millennia? Was this an organized, illegal defrauding
of Americans by a group of rouge managers at Provident to make themselves
rich? Was Provident dirty from the top down?)

The company responded by devising a scheme to improperly deny benefits to
thousands of customers, the plaintiffs allege. Unum-Provident spokeswoman
Catharine Hartnett says the company does not comment on pending litigation,
but adds: "We're committed to adjudicating claims fairly and openly."
Provident has yet to file a response to the suit.
(Lets get our stories straight and our books in order before we do
anything. I'm not going to jail because of your greed! Oh, by the way we
better shred some of these internal memos. I can't get over how much this
sounds like what is happening in the VA today when it comes to compensation
and pension claims for service connected disability.)

Bay Brook General Manager, Robert Gelb (Remember Bay Brook from the
beginning of this paper? Bay Brook is a subsidiary of QTC Management Inc. hired
by VA to do its Compensation and Pension exams. Now this is getting
interesting don't you think?) denies the allegations, adding that the firm
never had a contract with Provident and that only 15 of the 10,000 cases Bay
Brook handled last year came from Provident, which is typical. "Bay
Brook," he says, "did not act in any level of impropriety."

Although Provident marketed the disability policies to professionals,
many, whose claims were terminated, do not have the resources to take legal
action against the insures, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said.
(Veterans are the disabled and veterans generally have no resources to
carry on huge litigations against their insurer, the Department of Veterans
Affairs. Is there a pattern being followed here that seems to be pervasive
in the industry of disability insurance. An industry that the government
would draw from for the expertise of managers to manage government disability
programs such as found in the VA and the Department of Labor.)

According to Provident's Annual Report to the Federal Securities and
Exchange Commission,. it showed that the company took a hit for $423 million
charge in 1993 for the loses from these disability policies. From their own
documents, Provident devised a plan for a 'net termination ratio' to
determine how much in disability claims it had to deny, each year to make up
for the losses.
(When faced with the prospect of under-funding by Congress with
discretionary methods of budgeting, could it be that the VA under Anthony Principi
have done the same thing as Provident did to make up their losses? How do we
find out if there is a quota on disability claims in the VA. There is
always, of course the Freedom of Information Act, but it seems to me that
Congress ought to be able to find out with a Congressional Inquiry. This, if
it exists is and should be part of VA daily accounting. A veteran, by the
name of Terry Higgins made a claim for this information, we now know that
it exists, but the VA would not release the information unless Terry paid
them $1500.00 plus. So much for Freedom of Information, it doesn't matter
if Terry sacrificed part of his young life for that freedom; they still
want him to pay.)

The suit alleges that Provident did several things to meet the targets
established by the ratio. The first was to develop a list of private
physicians who would deny disability claims, even, if . These physician field
adjusters were told to not make any recommendations or suppositions
concerning the policyholders health that could come back to haunt Provident in
court at a later date. They were told to shred sensitive papers and to
establish roundtable discussions to target, terminate and to deny claims.
(Have you ever been told by the VA that your records, vital to your
disability are lost?) I swear that the Secretary established 'TIGER TEAMS'
of BVA Claims Adjusters to cut through the horrendous volume of claims that
had been sitting around for years. The longest that I heard about while I
worked for VA was 22 years.)

Now I have abridged this article and gleaned that which is similar to the
situation that veterans find themselves in today. All of this information
was available to the Congress when QTC was awarded their contract, and
when Anthony Principi's name was put in nomination for approval as Secretary
of Veterans Affairs. Why do I keep hounding the Secretary and QTC? Well,
it seems that the Secretary was CEO of QTC Medical Devices, another
subsidiary of QTC Management, Inc. He was there for 18 months before joining G.
W. Bushes team as Secretary of VA. In his tenure at QTC, he is said to
have quadrupled their contracts with the Department of Veterans Affairs and
just last April awarded them another years contract to do Compensation and
Pension Exams. QTC Medical is the parent company to Bay Brook Medical
involved with Provident Insurance for impropriety and insurance fraud. The case
was settled in favor of the plaintiffs. This whole thing brings to mind
the conviction of the two Department of Veterans Affairs lawyers who stated
before they went to prison for losing documents and destroying documents
from claim folders, "We did it to get bigger bonuses" This was said at
their sentencing. Is this common practice at VA? QTC's business with VA
is suspect, too, when you consider that Anthony Principi, before becoming
the CEO of QTC Medical, was an Undersecretary of Veterans Affairs during the
Administration of 'guess who' G.H. Bush. Small World isn't it.


At this time, I would like to thank all of you, VETERANS, in all the
groups on the internet with supplying the ingredients with which I have written
this piece. I intend on posting it of course. I give you my permission to
send it to your Congressmen and to your Senators. I give you my
permission to share it with the local press in your areas. You must share it with
all other veterans so that the truth of the matter is out in the light of
day for everyone to see. This will serve them notice that we, VETERANS, know
what they are doing, why they are doing it and that they will have to deal
with us at the polls.

ONE VOICE!

Samuel L. Hennon, RN; Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Care
Administration, Retired
VETERANS for UNIFICATION, Research Coordinator and Political Corresponding
Secretary
VETERANS VOTING BLOC, THE ILLINOIS CHAPTER; Illinois State Coordinator
PARALYZED VETERANS OF AMERICA, Inc.; VAUGHAN CHAPTER, Lifetime Member
UNITED STATES NAVY HOSPITAL CORPS (1971)
DISABLED AMRICAN VETERAN AND VETERANS RIGHTS ACTIVIST
a.k.a. THE CORPSMAN
the_corpsman@earthlink.net


THE CORPSMAN... week2late@earthlink.net