The VA Rule That Punishes Veterans for Getting Better? | Don't LIE!

Part 2 of 3

DECLASSIFIED: THE VA MEDICATION TRAP

SITREP: THE MEDICAL READINESS TRAP
How many times have you lied to a doctor and said "I'm fine" just to stay off profile?

In this session of the SCIIF, we are exposing how military "toughness" is actively weaponized against you. We sit down with Nurse Sabrina, Patricia, and Bee to discuss the dangerous culture of hiding injuries, the fallout of "gaming the system" to stay deployable, and why temporary pain for your unit translates to permanent, uncompensated pain for you and your family.
Whether you are a Missileer, Aircrew, Security Forces, or a spouse watching your partner physically break down, you need to understand the true cost of  32 medical readiness . If it isn't documented, it never happened. Build your Civilian Armor and protect your future   veterans benefits .

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

All right, how many of you guys out there have uh lied to a doctor? And what I mean by that is said, I'm fine when you weren't. You were trained to be tough. We're military active duty reserves, all that stuff like that. We trained to be tough, but at the same time, that same toughness is being weaponized against us. So when policies like the VA policy that we were talking about get written, they rely on us to suffer in silence. Let me flip that question to the medical professionals here. Ladies, has a service member stretch the truth or even lie to you, saying that they were fine, but they just couldn't sell it to you, whether if it was intuition or it was just plain obvious.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

So I can definitely say I'm I'm a nurse, done primary care inpatient, and you see them all. You see people who come and they're trying to game the system, and you see people who come in and they're really, truly, you know, like like we've all been talking about, they want to make sure that they're meeting certain metrics. They want to make sure that they're, you know, staying green on their profiles, they want to make sure that they're available for all of the TDYs and the deployments and everything. And so they don't tell you everything that's going on. That's really truly that's a problem because if you're like chief and you're running with knee pain and back pain and you don't tell me that, then I don't have any way to help you with that. If we don't have those conversations, then it never gets addressed. And then you make it through your career and you're you're out on the other end and you're not as broken as you need it to be. I think there's a misconception with medical, and this goes for mental health stuff too. If I tell medical this, if I tell medical that, I'm gonna get downed, I'm gonna get whatever it is for security forces, you lose that arming status temporarily. And yeah, that's a temporary pain for your unit, but the long-term pain for your unit when you break unexpectedly because we didn't have a plan in place because your medical team wasn't aware of the extent of of what you're experiencing. Together we can create a plan. Together, we can make a medical plan that keeps you as whole as possible and still meets the mission requirements. But that's that's a two-way conversation, and we got to have that together. Rely on my patience, having open, honest discussion with me about what's going on and how they're feeling. Because, yeah, we might have to put you on a profile, but it would be a lot better to do a 30-day profile where you know you get better and you have better long-term outcomes than for you to just kind of ignore it, ignore it, ignore it, and you're suffering with something for months, and that ends up turning into a three-month, six-month because now you have to have surgery. Because now we have, you know, other things going on where we have to try different medications and things have just devolved to this point where it's not as easily managed. So, yeah, that's definitely a a problem. On both ends of that spectrum, it it definitely becomes an issue. And I think we sacrifice a lot of long-term benefits for those short-term gains. That's definitely a problem.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Occasionally we'll encounter service members who say they're okay, but sometimes the situation just doesn't align itself. So sometimes from experience, we have intuition, and sometimes it's more obvious, like you can uh like their behavior, their performance, or their body language contradicting what they're saying. But as an administrator, it's not about deception, I guess, as much as it is military culture. Many members like worry about admitting a problem that it could affect their duties, deployment status, or their career progression. So they try to present themselves as they're okay as Chief said, but they're not. And so we don't automatically assume that someone is lying, but we try to ask the right questions, observe those patterns. And I know personally I try to create a space where the member feels safe, being honest, and still protecting their privacy so they can come forth with whatever the issue is.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

Yeah, I know personally, uh, me being a prior air crew and prior missile year as well, we have these high-level expectations. Like Chief said before, we have higher health expectations in order to be able to perform our duties and check it out. It has operational impact. If this person goes down, then this person has to pick up the slack. And it creates a very bad culture. Like that is literally a result of this kind of thing where the medical professionals are trying to say, if you're honest and you're trying to say, hey, I'm not doing good, but I don't want to be down because Jones is gonna have to take over from me and then they're gonna be upset, and then it's gonna cause this ripple effect. That is like it is viral in the missile culture for sure. It is viral, it is a problem. I don't do missiles anymore, but I can definitely let LaRay talk to that, or at least uh let Chief talk to the air crew mentality about why would people say I'm fine, I'm not fine. But it ends up costing that individual's health, that family has to suffer, everybody has to suffer ultimately at the end of the day, because you're not telling the truth, because you know, you're trying to stay operationally relevant, you're trying to get to that promotion, those short-term gains and everything else like that. I want to make sure that our viewers who are missileers or air crew who are cops, we hear you, man. We know that's a thing, man. We know that that's a culture in which we've gotta stop. Like we've got to say, hey, man, if you are down, you need to say the words. The Air Force will move on, the Marines will move on, we will figure it out. Man, we've been here for 250 years. We will figure it out. Dude, we we got it. Even when you retire, you know when your retirement date, that date is for you. The next day, we back to Air Force. So, so what are we doing here? So I just want to make sure that I acknowledge those specialty career fields that are like, man, they they really do have those conversations in the operational Air Force where it's like, man, you better not go down. Because if you go down, I gotta go, you know what I mean? And it makes people feel bad for you know having health uh you know declines. It's it's but I'm glad that you brought that up because there are people who they try to game the system, but there's people who are like, nah, nothing's nothing's wrong with me, but they wince in when you touch them, or you know what I mean, things like that, and there's something really wrong with them. So I just felt like I wanted to address that.

SPEAKER_04 6:13

Um I'll tell you this. Uh speaking from an air crew perspective, you already know that if you meet a certain threshold, you have certain options on the table, such as 9-alpha, which will strip you of your AFSC and then basically retrain into a whole different career field. I mean, the the stigma associated with not being medically ready and available and worldwide qualify is you know, it's difficult because I understand both sides, because I set both seats, right? Set the seat as a no kidding, I'm on the line, I'm flying, I'm doing, I'm doing the JOB, and then I set the line as a management personnel, as a senior enlisted leader and an operation superintendent overseeing like where's my numbers, what do I need to make the mission happen? It depends on your perspective. Because as my perspective goes, I see some people, I'm not gonna talk specifically names, but we had this one person, this female, she uh she was on a profile, she got pregnant, she had postphartum, all this other stuff. I'm very cognizant of the different things that go on with that because number one, I have all I have all daughters and just one son. I got five daughters and one son. So you already know I'm keenly aware of female issues, and then on top of that, I grew up with three sisters and my mom. And I was raised by my mom. So you already know I'm not coming out the door with some, you know, hey, men are, you know, nah. My mom would slap slap me in the face, slap the black off me. Okay. All right, so I'm coming in there like, okay, I'm very understanding, but it turns out that when we had these different conversations with her medical provider, she was like circumventing a system, like, all right, I'm not gonna talk to you, I'm going to my off-based provider. And we're like, yo, well, how are we supposed to get a read on where you're at? Because if you can't perform your duties, which you haven't performed for the last year and a half, what are we supposed to do? Because you are a placeholder for the numbers of us completing our mission. You know, in DERS, we have readiness numbers that we report. We can't just fudge those numbers. It's no kidding, like what we got. Because when the time comes to raise the flag, like right now in Iran and we're doing stuff, we can't be talking about, well, you said you can do this, but you really can't. So she was playing this round-robbing game, like, oh yeah, I'm good, I'm not good. And she would talk to me and be like, Chief, I appreciate you. You're the best, you know, you're the only person that actually listened to me, but then turn around and then lie to the commander and do some other stuff. It was like, bro, like, what am I supposed to do in this situation? I don't want to hurt you by stripping you of everything and making you retrain into a non-operational AFSC or something like that. But also, you're not being truthful with me. So there's personal accountability with that. That's basically what I'm getting at. You have to be honest with yourself. Like, dude, I can no longer do the job. Let me know. Yes, there are some things that you're going to lose, but that is, it is what it is. Like, yeah, you'll lose flight pay, but hopefully you can get another job where you might be exposed to special duty assignment pay. I mean, I don't know. I can't say for certain, but in this job, it calls for certain requirements and stipulations that you have to meet. And if you don't, there's a problem. Just like me, back in the day, I'm like, all right, well, I have a choice. Go to the doc or just self-medicate, go go to the uh go to Walgreens, get a Z PAC, get some other stuff, I'll be alright. I I'll I'm ready. Are you good? I'm good. Bro, you sound terrible. I'm ready. And there's a certain uh association with kind of like this uh quote unquote, I'm manning up, I'm being, you know, a man's man and I'm doing what I need to do. But dude, at a certain point, you know, with experience and wisdom, you kind of understand, like, hey, you know, that might not be the smartest thing I need to do right now. So for everybody, it's different. I'm not going to make the decision for you. You live your own life, I live my own life. I serve in my own capacity, you serve in your own capacity. But it's better when you're on with the knowledge knowing, like, okay, all right, I need to make a rational decision based off of my future and what's you know coming forward.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Absolutely. And and then speaking from a missile air perspective, right? So we're talking about PRP, so personal reliability program. And which I I totally understand and grasp the purpose of the program when it's there because of the sensitivity of our AFSC and the weapons that we are responsible for, right? So going back to that operational impact, but there is often a stigma attached to a person who is constantly down on PRP. So people are often scared, right, to acknowledge the fact that they need help, they need to seek assistance, or they have to try a new medication to see if that will relieve whatever symptoms they're experiencing because of whatever condition or illness that they have. Um so yes, so we talked about right, when we talk about the importance of our jobs and being knowledgeable and being capable, well, that capable and that being strong also talks about being reliable from that PRP stance. And so I think it just makes it hard sometimes, um, especially when with that program, day one, you're being looked at. You're being, I would even go for as far as to say you are you are being profiled, right? To make sure that you are reliable and that you are capable of doing the job. And because of that, I think we often do suffer in silence. Maybe it's not just a simple cough, it could be something serious, but we're not gonna find out because we don't want to go down on therapy, we don't want to constantly seek a meta professional. And Chief and Sabrina, I know you all talked about having those open lines of communication, and I know this is gonna probably open up a whole can of worms, but do you think that maybe it's not always the the trust on the individual, but maybe their ability to trust a medical professional on the other side that is on things?

SPEAKER_04 13:01

I mean, it's so difficult to answer that with like a one, like uh, yes, she can trust, versus no, I can't trust. Because you run into people like Sabrina and Patricia, trust. I will let you know what's going on. So it depends on who the person is. And you have to have, I'm not gonna say intuition, I'm gonna say have a mentor, have a coach, have somebody that has more experience than you to kind of guide you. Too many times with young people, what they try to do is learn it through TikTok, learn it through YouTube, learn it through, you know, whatever mechanism they have out there when you have people like old heads like me, old heads like Hike, that can kind of give you the ends and tell you, like, let me hear your entire situation.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

So again, I know I kind of opened up a can of of worms, but I want to make sure that we're clear to our listeners that we're not telling you to outsmart the system. We're trying to encourage you and provide you the right information so that you can tell your truth, you can get what you need documented, so that you can receive the treatment that you need and deserve. So you and your work center should not be shaming yourself because you are seeking medical help. That medical help is owed to you, right? And just like uh hype said before, and I think maybe also Sabrina, is that this is the body that you have, right? This is the body that you have to live in. Um, and so with that, we recognize that only 1% of this country serves, right? And even fewer deploy, even fewer come home with wounds that you cannot see, right? That handicap space at the local grocery store, they may walk out the truck completely fine, maybe in a two-door uh BMW.

SPEAKER_04 14:51

But look, look, look, look, that'd be the thing, bro. I've been at the gym at Randolph. Let me tell you, I've been at the gym, and bros be getting out of the handicapped spot. They look good, man. They look good, bruh. The shoulders out, they ripped up. I've been like, bro, where's your handicap? I find myself falling into the same trap. People fall into the trap. Just because you ain't limping and in a wheelchair don't mean you ain't handicapped. I mean, mentally, we you know, we crazy. We got some screws loose. From top to top, right? How are you crazy? Look at them. Look at the glasses. How you crazy, bro? Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Sorry, not have these glasses.

SPEAKER_04 15:34

Crazy. I know. I know.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Hey, I got I got PRK. Get on that game. All right, so, but like I was saying, even if you were come home with those wounds that you can't see. So the government and the American people can rest easy because we are on watch, right? Absolutely, right now, with everything going on. 247-365 owe you the benefit of the doubt. So next time, next time, Chief, when you see that person pulling up in a handicapped spot, remember, you owe them the benefit of the doubt. So if there is a question about your rating, the tie should go to the veteran, right? Not the budget office. And attempting to hold up.

SPEAKER_04 16:14

You said the the tiebreaker should go to the veteran and all that, all that BS. If you so bold and bad, you go up to the person that's pulling up to the handicapped spot. And why don't you go ask them? Hey, sir, hey ma'am, why are you parking in this spot? You look good in the book. You look good in the mug. You don't look handicapped, not one bit. Your legs look good, your shoulders look good, everything. Go to the gym. Hey, you going to the gym? You looking good. Why? Go ahead and ask him. You mad? You mad. Ask him. Go, go do that. Go do that. Let's see how that works out for you. Okay. Um, you know, I know you hate politics. I know we all hate politics because everyone has a different angle on it. Like liberal, conservative, middle of the road. It changes with person to person. And I'm not advocating either way. The one thing that I do advocate for is just basic truths and that we can easily see and know and verify. But politics is who decides what happens to you. Understand that. You cannot go through life with your head in the sand thinking that politics will not affect you. I don't like this policy. What are you gonna do about it? Be action-oriented. Stop being a bystander. So if you don't show up in a medical politics arena, someone else will make your decisions for you. We have advocacy groups such as Air Force Sergeants Association, there's a big plug for that. AFA. We have people out there that are no kidding, advocating for on our behalf. They're advocating for us to maintain our benefits and keep us whole. But you gotta get involved in some kind of way. How many times have we told you all about taking command and driving your bus? If someone else is making the decisions for you, you might not like the results. And that happens all the time, every day, all the time. The reasons the rule die, because groups like the VFW, the MOAA, and you scream. 18,000 comments prove that we are always watching and there's victory. You can claim it.

SPEAKER_03 18:27

You guys all have the right to be upset that this policy even came up into the surface. So in part three, we're gonna talk about what we can do as airmen, soldiers, sailors, marines, guardians, so that we can make sure our files are good to go medically. A couple of clicks will be able to help you can figure out how to make sure your stuff is straight. So when it's time for you to claim the victory, whether it's four years or 40 years, you will have an airtight file, and then you can get the props that you have fully deserved and you fully earn. So we will see you guys on part three, and we will move it from there.