[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5288-5289]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                CONSTITUENT CASES AT THE PHILADELPHIA VA

  (Mr. COSTELLO of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. COSTELLO of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, as a Veterans' Affairs 
Committee member, tomorrow we will have a hearing on the abuses at the 
Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Regional Office. We are going to hear a 
lot about the volume of mismanagement, and I want to talk about one 
individual constituent just to highlight that we are talking about 
individual lives, individual veterans, who have sacrificed and who have 
not been treated fairly by the VA regional office.
  My constituent has had to file numerous claims for service-connected 
disabilities. His initial claim was filed in the mid-1990s, and he has 
gone through five appeals. He has provided additional evidence per the 
VA's request and has followed their wishes in responding in a timely 
manner. However, per a court order by the Veterans' Appeals to handle 
my constituent's case in an expeditious manner, the Philadelphia VA 
failed to respond until well after 6 months.
  The Philadelphia VA failed to provide the Lebanon VA medical doctor's 
copies of his records for his C&P exams, further holding up his claims. 
On two occasions, once for an asbestos claim and another for his 
hearing loss claim, he was seen by a doctor who had to rely on his 
explanation of diagnosis instead of on his actual file.
  Many times, the VA has miscalculated his disability ratings, and due 
to the VA's lack of timeliness, his claims have been subjected to 
denials because

[[Page 5289]]

of errors made by the Philadelphia VA's intake units concerning the 
misplacement of documentation, medical records, and ignoring requests 
by the Court and Veterans' Appeals Boards. It is time for 
accountability.

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