US Veterans Affairs Department 118 Prospect Street, Hartford, VT 05001

"Great support team"

"I find it very disturbing that the White River Junction VA cannot staff the facility adequately, so veterans don't have 2, 3 months or even longer before they get reimbursed for travel expenses incurred for travel to the facility to be seen by a VA doctor either at the White River VA facility, the Burlington Outreach clinic or a community care Doctor. Over the past month i have called a dozen times and left voice messages with the office that the VA phone operators transfer you too but as of this posting I have not yet received a single call back from my voice messages. This is what is called "Exceptional Customer Service." This is not a resent or isolated issue; this is one that has been going on now for approx. two years now and according to the Patient Advocates Office, they have gotten complaints from some veterans that have been waiting six months and longer for travel reimbursement. The excuse that I keep hearing by a multitude of employees at the WRJVA to include phone operators, staff and the Patient Advocates Office is, the WRJVA does not had an individual permanently assigned to the travel section nor is the WRJVA aggressively seeking to hire anyone to perform the duties of reviewing travel vouchers submitted for reimbursement, so this responsibility has been delegated out to individuals outside of the travel office that do not have the adequate knowledge or experience required to perform the duties hence the prolonged delay in processing travel vouchers. If this is in fact true and the WRJVA is not adequately staffed to perform a task such as Travel Reimbursement, then how does the VA expect a Veteran to believe that the facility is adequately staffed with doctors who can perform PROPER diagnoses of medical needs of the veteran, and why has the director of the WRJVA medical facility not got in touch with the head of their Human Resource office and posted a job opening on USA Jobs for the position. If the director of the WRJVA Medical Facility is not aware if the problem, then maybe they are also unaware of what goes on in their facility. Whatever the case maybe, the Veteran should NEVER be the one who pays the price for VA staffing inadequacies. There is a saying that comes to mind that fits this situation perfectly, "Don't Make Your Problems My Problems.""