I have just been approved by the VA for 40% hearing disability (30% Bilateral Hearing Loss and 10% Tinnitus). I already have the Oticon Intent 1 purchased after applying to the VA. Does anyone have experience with VA Audiology? If so how would you rate their service and expertise?
I have been a patient of VA audiology for almost three and a half years. I’ve been very satisfied. My normal audiologist formerly worked at a major ENT center in the nearby city, and has been very knowledgeable and caring. The other staff has generally been good, although some were a bit unfamiliar with my hardware. 10/10 would do again.
WH
I have been getting my aids from the VA for 20 years. I am 50% disabled for my hearing. 40%for a severe hearing loss and 10% for tinnitus. I am now wearing INTENT1 aids and absolutely love them.
Hello WH, I have been reading up on some of your strange going’s on from the OBM, (Office Of Budgetary Management) I believe it’s called? Anyway via email, they are offering all staff at the VA, 8 months paid leave to move on, allegedly there are 300K VA staff, and they expect 200K to take up the offer! Surely this will have a massive impact on the service the VA is able to provide for all veterans, including those with hearing loss? Cheers Kev.
I think the email I got was from OPM (Office of Personnel Management) and your assessment of the offer is more or less accurate. There aren’t a lot of guarantees in the offer. You wouldn’t need to return to in-office work. You will retain same pay and benefits until the end of September. There is supposed to be a “reasonable” transition time to transfer responsibilities to remaining personnel. There are many questions. This offer is primarily aimed at those working remotely. Most of the VA folk come to work much of the time. Some, like phone screening nurses, and professionals that don’t need to meet patients in person, can work remotely more of the time. But in my organization we’ve hired people from all across the country without regard to being near a facility. I don’t think the gov’t is going to win right away making them “come into the office.” Those more than 50 miles away will be exempt from having to go back, but I don’t think these problems exist for the VA. Agencies can determine which employees are eligible for the deal. Typically not offered to those in career fields where we’re short, to managers/senior folk, etc. And not all facilities have room. The gov’t has had a series of projects to reduce the space available on bigger facilities by demoing buildings and doing environmental remediation. There was a projection that there was an excess of 20% space. As a result (and this was before covid) space became a scarce commodity. The facility I’m attached to has space for ~4000 seats, with >6000 personnel assigned. Good luck with making them all come back immediately. Some building reconstruction/renovation is on-going and not likely to be done before 2029. Good luck. Anyway, I’m not worried about the VA. There are other agencies where a lot of work from home was done and they’ve been fairly successful working from home. You may lose a bunch of them if their skills are mobile and they can easily get jobs outside government. Some may leave and take jobs working for contractors that sell services to the gov’t. ((We use an unbelievable amount of this. Congress controls the gov’t position numbers carefully, but then gives money besides to go hire whatever more contract employees to fo the work of an organization. We’re upside down in the ratios in many places.
Anyway, all that to say I’m not worried about the VA.
WH
It wasn’t for the VA it was for the unneeded government works that draw a check for setting on their butts doing nothing. Definitely not my VA clinic.
It went to many members of my unit. We work remotely on a group of computer projects. Many software devs. Other specialties to glue it all together… Security, config mgt, etc. I think saying sitting on the butt doing nothing is an exaggeration for the most part, but it is a popular view.
Emails were sent a week ago or so which said “if you received this, respond with YES” as a test to see how the email list worked, and how well it received responses. We now see that as a test run for the offer we’ve been presented. I don’t think there was much discrimination on worker bees. Everyone seems to have gotten the offer. I can’t say about VA. I know the offer doesn’t apply to USPS. A few other exceptions. They definitely want to thin the ranks, though. I have no idea how the mission will proceed if this is widely accepted. I worked a project in 2017 where I had about 35 specialty technical resources working for me, all on one contract. The contract turned over to a new contract with a different company that had significantly under bid what the salaries were for the existing workers. Except for two, they all “took the job” but within 3 months or so they all also left. The company was unable to backfill, and it caused a big problem!
WH
Here in Arkansas we have VA community clinics. The VA pays for it in the way of contracts to the state of Arkansas and it also gives the University of Arkansas Medical Schools a place to educate students and a place to place them to work. It is a great opportunity and option for both the University, the state, the veterans and training for doctors and nurses.
Thank you WH, and for the clarification on OPM A somewhat worrying time for many workers, I think the government might find, if they let too many go, functionality will be heavily impacted, and lots of departments will slow to a crawl… I believe many, will take up the offer, particularly those whom want to move on, or those whom are easily employable elsewhere… Most people here in the UK whom work for the government, do not go there for the money, it’s more to do with the continuity, and reliability of the job, you are highly unlikely to be made redundant, and the pensions are favourable… I assume your pension pot, would be deferred until retirement? Cheers Kev
To be absolutely honest there are actually whole useless government departments that should be gotten rid of. I spent 4 years in the cesspool they call Washington DC and I saw first hand the corruption and waste.
This article explicitly discusses VA employees receiving the Fork email.
WH
There have been a lot of talk over the years of Community Care being used more than VA clinics. In fact that is what we have here in Arkansas. And I still have options to use standard community care and I have a time or two.
When I retire, I will do a direct retirement vs deferred retirement. Deferred retirement loses the Federal Employee Health Benefit. I have VA so it is a secondary thing for me, but we’d have to come up with something for my honey. The FEHB deal is pretty sweet. I went over 20 years with my banked sick time. My calculated anniversary date is in Jul and I have over 8 months banked. Multiplier goes from 1% per year to 1.1% per year when you cross 20. It isn’t for my full pay, it is for my “base” pay, no locality added in. I could have direct retired last year, but I really want to extra 10%, and honestly had planned to work about 3 more years. But they’ve changed my job 3 times in two years. And it is likely to change again if my lead engineer is told to “come in to the office or else” and he retires immediately. He is the sole caretaker for his mom with dementia. He does a great job, I’m not interested in inheriting everything he has besides what I struggle with now. They are evaluating an alternative product to ours, and I kinda hope they take it and cancel ours, although a choice is always nice in the boss’s eyes if they can afford to have a choice.
WH
WH
VA Audiology Clinics have been providing me service for over 25 years. Started at NYC VA then on to Orange VA, CT. Now getting service at Viera, FL Clinic. Have had excellent service and updated hearing aids every 3-5 years. They have provided Starkey and now Phonak HAs. My history is in my profile. Highly suggest using VA Audiology services!
Yeah WH, the new broom will sometimes sweep clean… But, hopefully not to the detriment of the VA veterans? Like all new systems of working, the fear might be, the loss of too many good guys, whom the service is heavily reliant upon! Logic tells you, that you cannot loose that amount of workers, for any service to remain viable, workloads would be heavily impacted, and when you overload workers, they either go sick or they move on… As for pensions, my government pension is modest, but it is topped up by state pension & other benefits, so much so, I earn as much as I did whilst working, so I can’t complain, strangely my wife earns more than she would if she was still working, Elspeth retired on the grounds of ill health after 35 years as a social worker for the deaf, her government pension is index linked, social workers (whom work) didn’t get these increases, so because she no longer pays “National Insurance”, she is financially better off, than when she was when working! This will increase by around a quarter once she qualifies for state pension, so she will be greatly improved financially over the actual workers! IMO, rightly so, if you worked hard all your days, you should reap the benefits! Yeah @cvkemp, we all saw departments within government, whom didn’t give a rats arse about actual work, but that shouldn’t blind us, to what virtue there is, many folks strive for high ideals, to paraphrase some of the words of Max Ehrmann… Cheers Kev
Still got that attitude, eh?
Back to the question. VA uses only the top level of aids. Same as retail places you have 180 days in which to trade them. All accessories are also supplied (tv connectors, mics, etc) as are batteries, filters, etc.
Thanks all, very helpful
I have VA benefits for hearing loss as well, here in Boise, ID. The service I get from the VA is stellar. My only complaint is the amount of time that I get with the audiologist is limited, but they have a lot of veterans to deal with.