The latest from my friend Christina Roof at AMVETS in the ongoing attempt to get service dogs approved in all VA facilities – a letter from Rep Ron Klein of Florida asking Secretary Shinseki to change the regulations to reflect this. (Click on the images for larger, more readable versions.)

Some of you are already aware of this, but individual VA facilities control their own access, and VA has said they cannot order them to allow service dogs because they don’t have regulatory authority to do that. This has resulted in the ultimate irony in some cases – a veteran has his service dog approved by the VA, but is then unable to take the dog into the VA medical facility where he receives care.

As I’ve said before, classic thing where your initial reaction is “This is so dumb, you must be making it up.” and then you realize “No, this is so dumb, you couldn’t make it up.”

Definitely something that is long overdue being corrected.  Stay tuned.

That quote is from this audit report published a few days ago by the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General, a report that confirms what many, including me, have been saying for years.

“Audit of Guide and Service Dog Program”

If you’re not aware of the long history on this subject, see these previous posts, the first of which I wrote 15 months ago after I’d already held off writing it for over a year:

“Why The VA Has Provided No Money for Service Dogs – In Their Own Words”

“Finally, The Real Story About The VA And Service Dogs For Veterans”

You really need to read the whole short 17-page report (and closely to get the whole flavor because there are some key nuances in it), but here’s the highlights (or lowlights):

• VA only started assisting veterans with service dogs in 2008 – 6 years after it was authorized (my jaw STILL gets tight every time I think about this)

• Since FY 2009, VA only provided financial support for 8 – count ‘em, 8 – service dogs as opposed to 230 guide dogs during the same period

• “…knowledge and use of service dogs at VA medical centers was incomplete and inconsistent.”

• VA didn’t give sufficient guidance to medical center staff to ensure consistent decisions on requests for service dogs or make their staff fully aware of the benefits and the application process for them

• “…prior to 2008, VHA’s guidance to VA medical center personnel was to deny requests for service dog benefits. Since 2008, VHA’s guidance has been to use service dogs after considering other options.”

• VA says they haven’t seen a big demand for dogs, but the IG says “the number of veterans who obtained service dogs outside VHA demonstrates a demand exists that VHA needs to address.”

So what’s it all mean?

First, the report doesn’t come right out and say this, but it effectively confirms that there are a lotta people already in the VA system who should’ve been getting benefits paid for their routine service dog expenses and haven’t been. That’s why pretty much everybody in the VA system who has a service dog needs to reapply for that approval – I’ve already written about that here:

“Veterans With Service Dogs Are Now Eligible For VA Benefits, But May Need To Reapply”

Second, VA is on the hook to implement a new program (which includes dogs for those suffering from mental impairments) that was part of legislation passed last year and where VA will be paying for some dogs. The report said they are on track, but there are some important deadlines coming up in the next few weeks.

Third, the report mentioned the increased outreach by VA but said it hadn’t been effective. Interesting that the IG didn’t make a recommendation about increasing or improving that outreach, particularly given that the VA is currently actively working on a program to do just that, but has still not yet completed it.

Fourth, and the biggest one to watch, the draft regulation outlining VA’s service dog policy is in their “normal  2-year  review  process” and is supposed to be final in July 2011.  (2 years is “normal”?? I knew there was a review process, but I had no idea – no wonder we have problems.  That means if you start working on something right now, by default you are already automatically two years behind – unbelievable.)  In addition, and this is key:

“A directive to define policy for the issuance of service dogs to eligible veterans with mobility or hearing impairments; outline the benefits covered by VHA related to obtaining  and  funding  training,  veterinary care, and hardware; and set specific criteria to exercise this authority is also being prepared. This directive will match the regulations and will be issued immediately after the regulations are published.

In the interim, by October 2010 VHA will develop guidance on clinical criteria to determine whether a veteran will benefit from a service dog trained for the aid of the hearing impaired or trained for the aid of persons with spinal cord injury or dysfunction or other chronic impairment that substantially limits mobility to veterans with such injury, dysfunction, or impairment.”

Now, with all that said and for all my moaning about this subject, I’ll still go back to what I’ve said all along.  I don’t think the government is the solution to this problem, and this situation is the perfect example of why, for what should be very obvious reasons. It’s gonna take education (“If You Want More Service Dogs for Veterans, First You Have to Get More Veterans Who Want Service Dogs”) and private effort and money to get it done.

Even with the new legislation this will still be true.  While authorizing an additional 200 dogs and paying $10K towards the cost of each one is nice, first, properly training an additional 200 dogs is a major effort you don’t just snap your fingers and make happen and, second, $10K doesn’t come anywhere near what it costs to properly train each dog and support its placement, a lifelong commitment.

That doesn’t mean I’m not happy to see VA finally get pressed to do what they should’ve been doing all along, though – I am.  Or that the VA shouldn’t step up and fulfill its responsibilities.  But the question, as always with me, is: will this mean that more veterans get more of the best service dogs? (The key word being “best’ – we have plenty of half…”way” “service dogs” already).  The jury’s still out on that one.

Lemme also say something else I’ve said before. I know there are many people working at VA, including some that I know personally, who I have no doubt are “good guys” and are trying to help.  I know it’s gotta be tough to be working at the VA these days, and I wanna thank you for sticking it out and trying to make things better under those conditions.

Let’s hope we’re done with this kinda stuff and can move forward in a lot more positive way from now on.