Vet to Vet Tennessee

WASHINGTON –  In observance of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) awareness month, the Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD invites the public to participate in its “Take the Step” campaign.

“Every day of the year, we should focus on assisting those who have served our Nation,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki.  “In June, during PTSD awareness month, we take special care to help Veterans with PTSD.  va is a leader in providing state-of-the-art, high-quality mental health care that improves and saves Veterans’ lives.  PTSD treatment can help and there is hope for recovery for Veterans who need mental health services.”

Throughout the summer, VA will hold mental health summits at each of its 152 medical centers across the nation to establish and enhance positive working relationships with their community partners. The summits will help encourage community engagement in order to better address and understand the broad mental health care needs of veterans and their families.

Click here to review the entire News Release.

Joint Effort Aimed at Promoting Use of Fully Developed Claims

WASHINGTON  – Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Disabled American Veterans (DAV), and The American Legion announced a new partnership to help reduce the compensation claims backlog for Veterans. The effort—the Fully Developed Claims (FDC) Community of Practice—is a key part of VA’s overall transformation plan to end the backlog in 2015 and process claims within 125 days at 98% accuracy. VA can process FDCs in half the time it takes for a traditionally filed claim.   Click here to review the FDC Plan

WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs announced today it is implementing an initiative to expedite compensation claims decisions for Veterans who have waited one year or longer. Effective today, VA claims raters will make provisional decisions on the oldest claims in inventory, which will allow Veterans to begin collecting compensation benefits more quickly, if eligible. Veterans will be able to submit additional evidence for consideration a full year after the provisional rating, before VA issues a final decision.

“Too many Veterans wait too long for a decision, and this has never been acceptable,” said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. “That is why we are implementing an aggressive plan to eliminate the backlog in 2015.  This initiative is the right thing to do now for Veterans who have waited the longest.”

Provisional decisions will be based on all evidence provided to date by the Veteran or obtained on their behalf by VA.  If a VA medical examination is needed to decide the claim, it will be ordered and expedited.

To read the entire VA News Release please click here.

The mission of the American Heroes program at Outdoors Without Limits (OWL) is to provide a way for wounded and disabled U.S. Veterans, Veteran’s families to transition from the military into civilian life. We understand the obstacles that they face and we strongly believe that assisting them with their transition through their love of the outdoors is beneficial. The goal of the American Heroes program at OWL is to keep all wounded/disabled Veterans active by taking them on hunting and fishing trips and other outdoor activities across North America. Veterans and veteran’s families go through so much in protecting our freedoms, many giving the ultimate sacrifice and we feel it is our duty to show our gratitude for what they have done for our country. Outdoors Without Limits is dedicated to our Veterans and EMS and their families both past and present.