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VA expanding advertising to reach veterans

Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake has cleared the way for VA to purchase advertising in media outlets to get the word out to veterans about their eligibility for benefits.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said he is pleased that beginning this fall, VA will resume using public service announcements and advertising.

“These announcements will provide another means to reach the entire veterans population,” Akaka said at during a hearing Wednesday.

Akaka said he is concerned that despite VA’s best efforts to reach out to National Guard and Reserve veterans, “it seems clear that some are still unaware of all that VA has to offer and how to access those services and those benefits.”

He noted that a recent VA Inspector General report found that in 2006, the Veterans Benefits Administration failed to send benefits information packages to over 36,000 reservists because VA employees mistakenly though these reservists were ineligible for the benefits.

“One would have thought that after years of war, this process would be perfected,” Akaka said.

VA is working more closely with Defense Department officials to ensure that veterans receive information about their VA benefits and how to access those benefits as they return to their communities, said retired Army Maj. Gen. Marianne Mathewson-Chapman, National Guard and Reserve coordinator in the Office of Outreach to Guard and Reserve Families in the Veterans Health Administration.

The latest example is a standardized enrollment process being tested at 12 Army demobilization sites in a pilot program. Since the test began May 28, VA has contacted more than 2,000 separating Army Guard and Reserve members at these sites, offering them the opportunity to enroll in VA health care, she said. More than 80 percent have done so.

VA expanded the program to four Navy sites in July and expects to add Marine sites in August and Air Force Reserve sites later in the fall, she said.