x
Breaking News
More () »

Unqualified doctors performed brain injury exams at Mpls VA Medical Center

Unqualified medical personal conducted examinations – and denied benefits - for traumatic brain injuries.
Veteran's Administration new rules covering who can conduct a TBI examination.

INNEAPOLIS - The Veterans Administration has been using unqualified medical personnel to do examinations – and deny benefits - for traumatic brain injuries (TBI) at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, according to documents obtained during a KARE 11 News investigation.

Instead of being examined by a specialist, records reveal at least one case in which a veteran was denied TBI benefits based on an examination by a nurse practitioner.

KARE 11 has learned that letters are going out to hundreds of area veterans informing them they are entitled to new examinations. Those exams ultimately could give some veterans benefits which had been improperly denied.

According to VA documents obtained by KARE 11, the Minneapolis VA used unqualified staffers "from 2010 through 2014" to conduct initial TBI examinations for Compensation and Pension (C&P) benefits in violation of Department of Veterans Affairs policy.

"So that means hundreds of veterans didn't get a fair shot to get competent medical opinions about their condition," said Ben Krause, a Twin Cities based attorney specializing in veteran's issues.

Butch Hamersma, 67, of Spring Valley, Minnesota, is one of the veterans who's been called back for a new evaluation. The Minnesota farmer agreed to share his medical files with KARE 11.

Records show the Vietnam veteran was seriously injured – his skull shattered – in an explosion near Chu Lai in November, 1968.

"Run over a land mine," he recalled. "Three days later I woke up in Japan."

Hamersma's military records detail the price his body paid for his service. He was evacuated to a field hospital in Vietnam with multiple fractures and a tracheotomy tube to keep him breathing. From there records show he was airlifted to a hospital in Tokyo. Then he was returned to the United States for reconstructive surgery.

"Skull fractures and fractured mandible," Hamersma told KARE 11's A. J. Lagoe. "Took all my bottom teeth, busted my jaw in two places."

"I don't remember hearing nothing. Nothing. Lights they were gone," he said about the explosion.

"You said the lights went out and the next thing you know you're in Japan?" Lagoe asked.

"Yup, getting off the plane," Hamersma explained, "because I was trying to tear the bandages off my head and they tied my arms down."

Pointing to the right side of his face he said, "This was just like a crushed egg."

Call it farmer humor, but Hamersma jokes there are still pieces of his head fertilizing Vietnam.

"Never went back to get 'em," he said. "And I don't plan on it either."

Back then, Hamersma was not diagnosed with what we now call a Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI.

For years, though, he says he's suffered unexplained chronic headaches. So, in 2012, after losing private insurance, he applied for benefits at the Minneapolis VA.

Records show the VA's Compensation and Pension review gave him disability ratings of 10% for a series of service connected injuries including his broken jaw, ringing ears, and facial scars.

"This one here is a pretty good one," Hamersma said, pointing to a large scar still crossing under his jaw.

Even so, he didn't receive any benefits for traumatic brain injury. That decision came in spite of records documenting his severe head injuries.

After his February, 2012, evaluation his VA examiner wrote: "There is no diagnosis of TBI/concussion or TBI residual/post concussion syndrome."

Not one to complain, Hamersma continued with life on the farm.

Until recently.

Out of the blue, he says he received a notice saying he should have a new TBI exam – more than three years after his original evaluation.

KARE 11's investigation has uncovered evidence that Hamersma is just one of hundreds of area veterans whose initial TBI exams were conducted by medical personnel who, according to the VA's own policies, weren't qualified to do them.

In the years since Vietnam, medical experts have learned much more about the often invisible -- but debilitating impact – of brain injuries.

So, Veterans Administration rules now state that highly trained doctors in only four specialties – including neurosurgeons and neurologists – can do the initial examination to diagnose whether a veteran suffers from a TBI.

So what type of specialist conducted Butch Hamersa's initial TBI exam?

"It was a nurse practitioner," he recalls.

That's right. Hamersma's VA records confirm that his TBI exam was done by Brenda Roche. She's listed as a nurse practitioner – not a neurologist.

VA documents obtained by KARE 11 show that Hamersma, the Vietnam veteran, is just one example of military service members being denied benefits after TBI exams done by unqualified medical personnel.

KARE 11 began asking about the qualifications of people doing TBI exams back in April, filing a series of Freedom of Information Act requests.

We wanted to ask why were unqualified medical personnel being used to make critical decisions about benefits owed to veterans?

We reached out to the people currently in charge, including Patrick Kelly, Director of the Minneapolis VA Health Care System; Kim Graves, Director of the Veterans Benefits Administration's St. Paul Regional Office; Dr. Gary Wilhelm, Interim Director of Compensation and Pension at the Minneapolis VA.

All declined to be interviewed.

Shortly after KARE 11 began investigating, however, the VA notified Congressman Tim Walz (D-MN) about the TBI problem and promised to schedule "all affected Veterans for new C&P examinations with qualified health care providers."

In a letter, Benefits Director Kim Graves told Rep. Walz: "The St. Paul VA Regional Office (RO) and the Minneapolis VAMC are working collaboratively to address those cases where a clinician other than a physiatrist, psychiatrist, neurosurgeon, or neurologist performed initial C&P examination for TBI."

How many veterans were denied TBI benefits based on exams done by unqualified doctors or nurses?

In a letter to the VA, Rep. Walz states he'd been told that "over 300 veteran-patients received initial examinations by doctors not authorized to perform TBI examinations".

"They're screwing a group of veterans that have brain injuries and I find that repugnant," says attorney Ben Krause, a disabled veteran who suffered a traumatic brain injury.

Rep. Walz, a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, has asked the VA to expedite new TBI exams and to pay benefits retroactively to veterans who were wrongly denied.

But with the VA already facing a massive claims backlog, veterans like Butch Hamersma are left to wonder why the VA didn't just do the right thing the first time?

"That's government," he said, throwing his hands in the air.

Before You Leave, Check This Out