FORT WORTH -- Seven months after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs opened a gleaming outpatient clinic in Fort Worth, the VA has relocated an important program from Dallas to the new facility.
The move of the North Texas region's compensation and pension program marks perhaps the first time that the VA has transferred a major service to Fort Worth from Dallas.Fort Worth had for years existed in the shadow of the Dallas hospital, prompting a good deal of grumbling from veterans in Tarrant, Parker, Hood, Johnson and other counties.The reason for the change, VA officials said, was that Fort Worth's new 240,000-square-foot clinic offered the best chance to eliminate the backlog of veterans needing compensation claim exams for problems such as back injuries, hearing loss, mental health issues and Agent Orange-related diseases."I'm hopeful that we can get to our goal by the end of this fiscal year, which is September," said Dr. Kevin May, an internist and chief of the compensation and pension program. "We're already making inroads at improving our timeliness, and that's without adding the additional staff yet."Although the "comp and pen" program is largely mysterious outside the confines of the VA, it is where veterans must go to file claims for compensation for a service-connected problem.The physicians don't determine how much a veteran receives, but that decision isn't made before they render their opinions.Lack of spaceThe program for the entire 40-county North Texas region has always been in Dallas, on the first floor of the massive VA complex east of Interstate 35E.But lack of space in Dallas, combined with a 30 percent spike in claims over the last 18 months, was worsening the length of time for appointments, May said.He is now receiving orders to examine 1,100 to 1,400 veterans a month, the vast majority from Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam.The average length of time to see a patient and send the information to the benefits experts was 45 days, well above the goal of less than 30 days.Knowing that the VA had an expansive clinic in Fort Worth, officials examined where the veterans were coming from in the region.They found that only 2 percentage points more were coming from the Dallas side than the Fort Worth side, said Teresa Whitley-Baker, operations administrator of the Fort Worth clinic."It ended up pretty close to a wash," Whitley-Baker said. "I wasn't surprised since I have worked here. But when I saw those numbers, it validated our decision to move the program here."Relocation welcomedIt will likely be about three more weeks before the program is completely settled in Fort Worth. When it is, the number of exam rooms available to physicians will double from 11 to 22. The clinic is hiring additional medical staff, May said.The VA will maintain a "small contingency" of staff for Dallas-area veterans who cannot travel to Fort Worth, May and Whitley-Baker said.The relocation was welcomed by Don Gorski, a retired Air Force senior master sergeant who lives in Azle. He recently received a phone call telling him he could go to Fort Worth for his compensation appointment instead of Dallas."Thank God I didn't have to drive to Dallas," Gorski said. "It's never easy to get to. It takes a long time, and the Dallas facility is so huge, you're never sure where you're supposed to go."Chris Vaughn, 817-390-7547Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
