When Andrew Mumford moved to Grovetown from California last year, he had trouble keeping doctors’ appointments, attending mental health sessions and filling prescriptions at Augusta’s Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
He and his wife had no car and their daughter moved to the Washington area after their son-in-law, who is in the Navy, was reassigned.
The 61-year-old Air Force veteran, who served as an aircraft fueling specialist from 1971 to 1973, feared he’d be forgotten until the Augusta VA told him about the Veterans Transportation Service.
The service, which includes two buses, one van and four drivers, provides veterans free rides to and from appointments at facilities both within and outside the VA’s network of clinics and hospitals.
“I said ‘Hallelujah,’ ” Mumford said.
The program and expanding the Disabled American Veterans’ volunteer fleet to 10 vans has helped the Augusta VA gradually eliminate long trips and reduce reimbursement payments by more than 8 percent in the past three fiscal years, according to department records.
In 2012, Augusta VA data shows, veterans were reimbursed $4.8 million for 104,843 trips. Last year, it paid back $4.4 million for 109,861 trips, after repaying veterans $4.5 million for 106,921 trips in 2013.
Travel reimbursement to veterans to VA hospitals have been under scrutiny since a 2007 amendment to the Dignified Treatment of Wounded Warrior Act - introduced by former Rep. John Barrow - placed no limits on the amount of money veterans could recoup annually or distance requirements patients must travel before they could file for repayment for scheduled or unscheduled appointments.It states only that veterans are reimbursed to the closest VA facility that can provide the needed care, treatment or examinations.
As a result, veterans from as far away as the Atlanta area received close to $140 round trip to use the Augusta VA’s therapeutic pool, which is available for only one 12-week session every six months because of high demand. Last year, the hospital paid a veteran $395 round trip to travel from St. Petersburg, Fla., for a urology procedure that only the Augusta VA provides in the federal department’s Southeast region, said William Sterling, the facility’s mobility manager.
After his amendment passed, Barrow said disabled veterans have been “shortchanged” for 30 years by a medical-travel benefit he equated to “repeal by neglect.”
Barrow, who lost his seat to Republican Rick Allen in November, said last week that he wasn’t aware of any concerns that the reimbursement program was being abused by veterans.
“I received positive feedback from all kinds of people all across the district, especially in rural areas, that the program had a significant impact,” Barrow said. “There was no question that it lightened the load we were imposing on some people. To tell someone they could get their free medical care only if they spent a great deal of their time and money was in some ways counterintuitive. The whole purpose was to try and deliver on the promise made to provide free health care.”
The shuttle service can transport wheelchairs and runs 2½ hours past the Disabled American Veterans’ last ride at 2 p.m. for patients who need to come to Augusta, which has the only VA spinal-cord injury unit in the Southeast.
It also transports veterans to the Augusta VA’s community-based outpatient clinics in Athens and Aiken, and its telehealth clinic in Statesboro, each of which can address primary care needs and some specialty procedures.
Mumford said he has ridden on the bus 20 times, with each trip lasting about 20 to 30 minutes. If he received reimbursement, that would equal about $265.
“They are very accommodating,” he said before boarding the bus last week. “They are almost always on time, if not early, and I do not have to wait to get home.”
Mumford hopes the transportation programs can expand, as he said he knows a lot of veterans in need.
“I can’t explain it,” he said when asked about the program’s value. “I have mental and physical issues. If I didn’t have access to this program, I couldn’t see my doctor, therapist or fill my prescriptions. I would fall by the way side.”
Sterling told Mumford that is not an option.
“I am not going to let you fall by the wayside,” he said.
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