Mountain State Times

Washington, DC – On June 14, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, questioned Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officials and healthcare experts on how the VA classifies rural Veterans and how rural Veterans access substance use disorder treatment.

On determining rural Veteran classifications:

“According to the U.S. Census, West Virginia is the third most rural state in America. We don’t have one city or town with a population over 50,000. We’re a state of towns, about 1.8 million people. With that being said, how do you all determine what a rural Veteran is?” Senator Manchin questioned.

On access to substance use disorder treatment services for rural Veterans:

“We have mobile clinics – is the VA able to use them to treat for substance use disorder?” Senator Manchin questioned. “If someone is far away from a center and they need services that they can’t get to on a frequent basis because of transportation issues, is the mobile service available to them?”

The witnesses were Dr. Erica Scavella, Assistant Under Secretary for Health for Clinical Services, Veterans Health Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs; Dr. Tamara Campbell, Executive Director, Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention; Dr. Bradley V. Watts, Director, Veterans Health Resource Center, Office of Rural Health; Dr. Julie Kroviak, Principal Deputy Assistant Inspector General, Office of Healthcare Inspections, Office of Inspector General, Department of Veterans Affairs; Dr. Jonathan Cantor, Policy Researcher, The RAND Corporation; Naomi Mathis, Associate National Legislative Director, Disabled American Veterans; and Chelsey Simoni, Co-Founder/Executive Director, HunterSeven Foundation.

A timeline of Senator Manchin’s work to combat the drug epidemic is available here.

A video of Senator Manchin’s questioning of the witnesses can be found here.

Original source can be found here.