On this week’s episode, Acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs Pamela Powers joins to talk about the reforms in the VA over the past three years and how our veterans have fared under the Trump Administration. This episode is especially timely since Veterans Day is right around the corner.  

Ms. Pamela Powers served as the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Chief of Staff when, on April 2, 2020, the President chose her to serve as Acting Deputy Secretary. As Acting Deputy, Ms. Powers serves in broad roles designated by the Secretary, to include leading enterprise modernization of the federal government’s second-largest Cabinet department. Ms. Powers has nearly 30 years of service in the Air Force and the Department of Defense, with experience in executive-level management, policy development, strategic planning and programming, legislation, operations, and communications. Before joining VA, Ms. Powers served as Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

Transcript

Beverly:

And welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg. And on today’s episode, Ms. Pamela Powers, Acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, joins us to talk about the reforms in the VA in the past three years and how our veterans have fared under the Trump administration. This episode is especially timely since Veterans Day is right around the corner. But before we bring her on, a little bit more about Ms. Powers…

But before we bring her on, a little bit more about Ms. Pamela Powers. She served as the Department of Veterans Affairs Chief of Staff, when on April 2nd of this year, the president chose her to serve as acting deputy secretary. And this position she serves in broad roles designated by the secretary to include leading enterprise modernization of the federal government’s second largest cabinet department. Ms. Powers has nearly 30 years of service in the Air Force and the Department of Defense. And before joining the VA, Ms. Powers served as Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. It is a pleasure to have you on She Thinks today.

Pam:

Plus, it’s really great to be here. Thanks for asking.

Beverly:

I was thinking as we start the conversation, one of the things that may be helpful is to have you explain the main function of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Most of us know it was created to help our veterans, but we may not know exactly how the department does give back to our veterans when they’ve given so much to us. So how does the department service our veterans?

Pam:

That’s a great question and one that most Americans probably don’t know the answer to. We are the second largest federal agency with about 400,000 employees and we serve 9 million veterans across the nation. Really, we have four different missions. We provide healthcare, we provide benefits, we provide memorial fairs. And then the fourth mission, which is really little known to Americans, is we serve as the backstop of the American healthcare system, which is normally used in hurricanes and other types of national or natural disasters. But it’s really been used a lot throughout this COVID pandemic, really serving as a backdrop where and when needed, where there are spikes across the nation. So those are the four main missions that we have, but we’re here to serve America’s veterans. We have 170 hospitals across the nation and over 1,200 clinics, and our budget’s about 240 billion. And so a lot going on at VA, as you can imagine.

Beverly:

I had no idea that you helped out with natural disasters, national disasters like COVID, so that seems like you have been extremely busy. And I know the department as a whole stays busy, as you said, the second largest department and you’re servicing and serving so many veterans. And some of the discussion that’s come up in the recent years has been about the healthcare side of things, where it’s veterans who have to wait in line, veterans who are struggling with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries and feel like they’re not getting the care that they need. There have been a lot of reforms under the Trump administration. Can you give us a background as far as scandals in the past and how the department has gone through reforms to try to address those?

Pam:

Most definitely. When the secretary and I arrived here a few years ago, I think this organization was still reeling from the past failures and in timely care and access, and really an attempt to hide some of those failures. The president made it his mission to make veterans a focus and we’ve had the largest budget increases ever, and we’re undergoing the largest transformation really in VA history. And we’ve successfully implemented several major modernization programs over the last few years, and we continue to transform and we’re going to be rolling out some soon as well. Probably the biggest one is the Mission Act that was implemented last year. And that really gave veterans real permanent choice. There was the choice program in the past, but it had a lot of failures. And so this new law added a private urgent care option for all of our veterans and it combined seven different programs and made a permanent choice. And really we’ve made the veterans, the center of their healthcare decisions. More than 2.5 million veterans have been referred to community care since June 2019. So it’s been very successful.

We’re also undergoing a massive transformation to implement a electronic healthcare record working with Department of Defense and our industry partners. We successfully went live with the scheduling solution in Columbus just a few months ago, and we’re about to go live this week, as a matter of fact, with the full suite in Spokane Washington. It’s really going to allow our veterans and our military, from the time they enlist till the time they pass, a complete medical record that carries with them from their military service into VA. So we’re really excited about that.

The president also promised more mental health care professionals, as you mentioned, PTSD and TBI is an issue, and I’d love to talk more about that in detail if you would like. But really on the mental health care professional side, we hired over 8,000 mental health providers over the last three years with a net increase of over 2,200.

And we expanded the mental health telehealth side. Especially during COVID, we had about a 1,900% increase. So our veterans have no wait times for mental health and really they can get a telehealth pretty much anytime they want. So we really, really focused on that.

Another thing the president promised was a White House VA hotline. And since that hotline went into effect a couple years ago, we’ve had more than 500,000 calls and emails. And let me put that in perspective. Every one of those tells us what is wrong with that veteran and how we can help them. And several of them have been referred to the suicide hotline, which has really made a big difference and save lives.

So, we’re listening to our veterans. Our veterans trust in VA has increased to an all-time high of 90%. We do surveys after almost all of our visits. And so our trust ratings continue to go up, and that’s, if you compare it, it was in the 60s in 2016. So a very significant jump in our trust. And overall, I think our veterans are seeing the improvements, they’re happy with the care that they’re getting, but we’re not going to stop until we provide all of our veterans the care that they deserve.

Beverly:

And you talked about so many of them choosing to have private care and having that option to get their health care outside of the VA. Do you find that a lot of veterans do choose to stay with the VA because of the special care that they can receive when it comes to things like mental illness, dealing with PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, et cetera? I’m assuming you’re specialized in those areas to really help them when they need it.

Pam:

Most definitely. We do specialize in TBI and PTSD and mental health. And I really don’t think that you can get the care anywhere else other than VA, but our veterans on average, like VA for other reasons as well. The VA knows the language that they speak. They understand their service. They know what they’ve been going through. They understand some of the things that they’ve had to do in their service. So really they are staying with us. We thought that that was the case when we opened this choice up, we thought that they would stay with us, but time has shown that they really have been…

Now the community care options that we’ve given our veterans are really important in other ways though, because we have a lot of rural veterans around the nation in rural areas like Montana and Kansas and North Dakota, South Dakota, even North Carolina. Those veterans, in some cases, have to drive hundreds of miles to get to the closest VA. Now it makes sense to go to the nearest healthcare facility, that’s close to them. So we’ve given them that option for both mental health and specialty care and primary care. So it’s been a big deal. It’s been really great for our veterans because they’ve been able to find out what works best for them and get the care that meets their needs.

Beverly:

And with the COVID epidemic, so many people are struggling to find work, and I know often it can be hard for our veterans when they come back to not just find work, but to be in a place mentally, to be able to handle a workplace and some have to go through some counseling to get there. Have you found that that’s an extra added challenge these days with unemployment as high as what it is, if that’s an added burden for our veterans right now?

Pam:

Most definitely. We’ve done a lot of outreach during this COVID pandemic because we know that isolation is a big factor and difficult for everybody in the United States. So we’ve reached out to all of our vulnerable veterans, but also done a lot of communications with every one of our veterans, just to make sure that they understand all the resources that are available to them at VA. We paused all of our payments for various things during pandemic for some of the healthcare co-payments in some of the other areas, just to make sure that we’re taking care of our veterans during this period.

But we specialize in TBI and PTSD, and both are really a big deal for our veterans. And on the PTSD side, VA estimates that about 11 to 20% of our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans develop PTSD. And a lot of our OEF, actually all of our OEF and OIF veterans who come into VA for the first time are screened to see for symptoms of PTSD or depression or alcohol misuse, or any signs of military sexual trauma. And if veterans sick are screened positive for any of these conditions, we make sure that they get them the help that they need and treatment is often provided right away in our primary care.

PTSD is treatable. And I want all of our veterans to know that there are multiple effective treatments offered at VA and mental health counseling is central to treatment of PTSD. And really VA also provides help with education, employment, and housing. So for veterans that are struggling, which we know some are, especially during this pandemic, we want them talk to us and reach out and ask what is available to them because they’ve earned these benefits, and so they should get them.

Beverly:

How do you handle working with family? So obviously when somebody is overseas, the family in many ways is overseas as well. Their life isn’t normal when their loved one is a way. How does VA reach out to family members?

Pam:

So those that are deployed fall under the care really of the Department of Defense, and they have a lot of programs. Yellow Ribbon is one of them, that reaches out to those families that have a deployed service member. I actually went through that myself when I was deployed back in 2015 and in half of ’16, where the military, the local military community reached out to my husband and family to make sure that they were okay, but the VA works with families in a lot of different ways. For those that have lost a loved one, we have a lot of support. We provide counseling, we have vet centers across the nation that are separate from our hospitals. And they’re a really good resource for our families, as well as those that just don’t feel like they want to come into VA. And we have some of those Vietnam generation, especially.

And then some of those currently serving that just don’t want to go to their service hospitals to get mental health care because of the stigma or for one reason or another, they’ll come to our vet centers. But those vet centers offer counseling to the families as well, the spouse and the kids, because some of our veterans that are going through struggles, the families are going through those same struggles. So they’re really great resources that our families can find in their local communities as well.

Beverly:

Every war has its own unique challenges. When we think about the war in Afghanistan, it’s America’s longest war as of now. What are some of the unique challenges that veterans and their families face when it comes to our fight in the Middle East?

Pam:

I think the military faces a lot of deployments. The army, some of those folks are deploying 10 times or more. That’s difficult on not only them, but also on their families. So the military has been at war for a very long time, even when the America doesn’t know that we’re at war. Myself in particular, when I was deployed to Kuwait, we were fighting ISIS in Iraq and coming back from that deployment was difficult. It was interesting. I didn’t think I would have a difficult time, but knowing that most of America doesn’t realize we’re still at war and still military service men and women are deployed around the world, away from their families every day, coming back and realizing everybody’s just going on with their life was a challenge and it was a difficult transition back into life as I knew it before.

So, I think all of our families of service members have their own unique challenges. Every family is different and everyone has their own thing that they have to deal with, but I would love all of our families to know… Thank you because they are important to this national defense as well, but those families are there to support their loved ones and we’re there to support all of them. I would just say that I think it’s really important that we all keep in mind that our nation’s warriors, it’s not just them, it’s their entire family that is helping in the defense of this nation.

Beverly:

And we’re approaching Veterans Day, which is on November 11th. And many of us want to know how to thank our veterans. So first on behalf of IWF, I want to thank you for your service. But as we approach this day, for those who don’t want to just let the day go by and do nothing, or just make it about one day, what is the way that civilians can think veterans and do that not just on one day, but on a consistent basis?

Pam:

Most definitely. Last year, the secretary mentioned that he encouraged all Americans to remember why veterans signed up to serve and why our military sign up to serve, which is really to defend all the beautiful ideas in our founding documents. He encouraged everyone to think a veteran that they know. I’m one of those women who have served for 30 years in uniform. I’ve learned that Veterans Day is set aside to honor all of our brave men and women who’ve won this nation. And I learned through my service and watching others that courage is courage and excellence is excellence and sacrifice is sacrifice regardless of gender. And so this year, I’m asking our folks to not only say thank you to our male veterans out there, but I think it’s also important to say thanks to all of our women veterans out there.

The oldest living Marine is Dorothy Cole, and she just turned 107. And she said after she joined, after Pearl Harbor happened, she said she joined because she wanted to do something. And I think a lot of women want to do something to contribute to this nation. And they also deserve our thanks and appreciation for the barriers that I think they’re still breaking today. So that’s what I would say, is to thank all of our service men and women, their families, and I’m doing just a special shout out to our women veterans this year.

Beverly:

Well, we thank you not only for joining us, but again, for your service and for explaining just in more detail, what you’re doing at the Department of Veterans Affairs. I think it’s a testament to your work and the work of the secretary that as you said, the approval of veterans and what they think of the VA and how they’ve been cared for has increased so much in the past few years. So thank you for all you’re doing for your veterans. And again, thank you for joining us today.

Pam:

Well, thank you for having me, Beverly. I really appreciate it.

Beverly:

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