{"id":11507,"date":"2015-11-04T16:25:07","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T16:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11507"},"modified":"2015-11-04T16:25:07","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T16:25:07","slug":"glad-to-be-enrolled-in-va-health-care-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11507","title":{"rendered":"Glad to be enrolled in VA health care system"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Count me as one red-blooded American military veteran who’s glad to be enrolled in the health care system the federal government provides for us.<\/p>\n

I had another remarkably positive experience this morning in that regard. I thought I’d share it here.<\/p>\n

The medical staff at the Thomas Creek Veterans Medical Center here in Amarillo had asked me to seek an abdominal ultrasound; the purpose is to look for any sign of an aneurysm in my gut.<\/p>\n

So, I signed up with an insurance provider that contracts with the VA and made the appointment at Baptist St. Anthony’s Hospital, one of two acute care hospitals in the city.<\/p>\n

My appointment was set for 9:15 a.m. They told me to report to the front desk at 8:45, get registered and then wait for my turn.<\/p>\n

I got there at 8:35, reported to the front desk. They took my info down, told me to go to a waiting room … and wait.<\/p>\n

I waited all of about six minutes. A young woman came out, asked me for my date of birth and Social Security number and led me back to the lab area.<\/p>\n

I waited there for, oh, maybe 10 minutes. Out came a lab tech named Chris, who took me to the treatment room.<\/p>\n

He asked me to lie down on the table. He left the room and returned about two minutes later. He then ran the ultrasound machine over my abdomen.<\/p>\n

Twelve minutes later? I was done.<\/p>\n

I looked at my watch: 9:20 a.m. That’s five minutes after<\/em> my visit was scheduled to begin.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m not yet sure what the VA had to do with the promptness and efficiency of this visit, but I’ll give the agency some measure of credit. It might be, although I likely cannot prove it, that BSA staffers give VA patients a little higher priority … maybe?<\/p>\n

Whatever. There’s something quite positive to be said for this pre-paid<\/em> health care benefit.<\/p>\n\n

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Count me as one red-blooded American military veteran who’s glad to be enrolled in the health care system the federal government provides for us. I had another remarkably positive experience this morning in that regard. I thought I’d share it here. The medical staff at the Thomas Creek Veterans Medical Center here in Amarillo had … Continue reading Glad to be enrolled in VA health care system<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[767,1356,2086,4794,5077,5094],"class_list":["post-11507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medical-news","tag-bsa-hospital","tag-department-of-veterans-affairs","tag-health-care","tag-thomas-creek-va-medical-center","tag-va","tag-veterans-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11509,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11507\/revisions\/11509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}