Brian talks to Todd Sledge at the Cincinnati VA

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, welcome back to the fifty five CAREC Morning Show
and a very happy new year to you, Todd Sledge
from the Cincinntiva and everyone at the VA who's helping
out my veteran friends in the audience. Good to have
you back on this year, Todd.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, Brian, happy new year to you as well, and
glad to be back on here at twenty twenty five.
And make sure that we're getting all the information out
through our veterans that are needed. As we are, we're
constantly changing, seems like over the last twelve to eighteen months.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
That is for certain constant changes and hopefully all for
the better for the American veterans that you serve. And
I trust that you guys had the snowplows and the
shovels out around your VA facilities for this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, we're I've been working hard this morning to get
make sure we get information out. We just we just
had a report about everything where all of our sites
are open and operational, hospitals, got operations going on, and yeah,
they're diligently working to get things clean. And actually we
had kudos to our veterans, they're diligent. We had folks

(01:05):
that were scheduled for surgeries today and they were there.
It's six thirty in the morning, So that's great.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
That's great, happy that it.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, we got our staff in there. We made some
turned our auditorium into a respite location for our staff
to stay over night, to have food and all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Oh no kidding. Yeah, Joe Dreger had to run a
hotel room last night so he could make it to
work this morning. And I drove in into a quarter
to three this morning, and he made the right decision.
The roads were absolutely horrific as I was coming in
at least the route I took, so and he had
moving away from the snow issues. Let's talk about the
five benefits that every veteran should be aware of and

(01:43):
ask about what are these five essential VA benefits?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, Brian, So you know, I'm always trying to find
creative ways to motivate veterans to take a look at
all of their available benefits and resources to them. And
really what I've come down to is there's five accent
uh benefits that veterans should be aware of and acquiring of.
And typically what I find is is this is that

(02:09):
amongst these five veterans take full advantage of using the
home their their home loan to buy a home. That's
a benefit. Oh, you take advantage of the take advantage
of the GI bill to get educational vocational opportunities in
that regard. But then when it comes to healthcare, when
it comes to filing a claim, a compensation claim for

(02:31):
whatever conditions, ailments, mental health, combination of physical and burial benefits.
These three boxes, they they just sometimes go unchecked. And
these are these are in my opinion, every these other
three boxes. The healthcare, the possible compensation and benefits that
are not only for the veteran but also for their

(02:51):
family as well. And then the burial benefits. These are
things that just go on that all veterans should be
inquiring about at least see where do I get, what
do I get, how do I use them? And then
particularly for those veterans that are, you know, fifty years
of age or younger, don't wait till later on, you know,
get enrolled, have access to the care that you need

(03:14):
when you need it, because you never know when your
circumstances change. And what we've seen more and more is
our veterans that are in their mid to mid seventies
to late seventies even eighties, never needed VA healthcare for
other reasons life changes. We're the only healthcare option that
they have. They could have been using those for a
very long time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
My, Is it correct to say that the senior veterans
and that you know, these age groups over sixty five,
they're not eligible for Medicare and because they get VA benefits.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yes, there there that is. It's well, they can still
have Medicare. They can still they can still have Medicare.
The VA just won't build Medicare as part of their
billing process as they do it. They won't. It's it's
like a you know, a federal double dipping in that process.
But they can still have Medicare and use VA, they
just don't build it.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Oh okay, I see. Well, in terms of the healthcare
the there's a lot of little extra perks, and we've
talked about these a lot over the years, todd Sledge.
A lot of extra perks that you know, kind of
fly under the radar for some folks, like you know,
when you're in employment aids, like you pointed out, you know,
don't wait till you know when veterans under fifty, you

(04:26):
should go ahead and enroll, because you know, there's all
these little perks out there, like hearing aids, for example,
you can get those paid for compliments of the VA
and not have to dip into your pocket under your
health insurance plan, right, I mean that's just one illustration
of it.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, The three main ones that I focus on all
the time, Brian, and thanks for pointing that out is
hearing aids, eyeglasses, and then any type of prosthetics. You know,
you know, things can Prosthetics can range from a foot
a boot that goes on your foot to crutches, two
different kinds of things. These are very costly areas of

(05:01):
things that you know, veterans shouldn't be spending a lot
of money on. I've ran into numerous veterans who have
spent thousands and thousands of dollars on eyeglasses and prescriptions
and hearing aids when we can make these things available
to them at either no cost or a very minimum
cost to the private sector. And that's the other benefit.
You know, there's many myths and misconceptions out there that

(05:24):
you know, veterans cannot have private health insurance and use
the VA. You can it's a huge benefit to have
our mental health services. There's no restriction on the number
of times you can have sessions or receive treatment, whether
that's inpatient or outpatient. And then of course you know
the pharmacy. You know our prescription rates for certain medications

(05:47):
that may be very, very costly to veterans in the
private sector, we can help them save some money in that.
So there's there's a lot of ancillary benefits. You know.
One of the things I think other too, Brian, is
that some veterans feel like, well, if I start using
the VA, I need to turn all of my healthcare
over to VA. That's not the case. The big thing
to remember, these are benefits. We're not an insurance based

(06:09):
healthcare provider. These are benefits to veterans.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
All right, let's pause. We'll bring Todd Sledge from the
SINCINNTIVA back and a few more questions for you about
these benefits. I know you have some additional information to
pass along, so we'll pause for a moment and be
right back. Stick around Tough Care CD Talk Station. You know,
I love the American veterans. Thank God for each and
every one of you in your service to our country.
And Todd's sledge from the SINCINNIVA helping out veterans every
single day making sure they understand that they have they

(06:34):
have VA benefits available to them, regularly reminding the veterans
out there with the DD two fourteen honorable Discharge to
sign up for those benefits and take advantage of them.
And Todd, I've gotten in trouble many times before by
saying come on, as it was part of your salary.
You know, there's a lot of Obviously financially, it's going
to take the edge off of so many things you mentioned,
the hearing aids, the eyeglasses, the prosthetics, prescriptions, all of

(06:58):
those are available to you there, just you don't need
to break it down specifically, and I'm gonna put you
on the spot, Tide, but there are some financial cutoffs,
like for wealthy veterans out there that they don't necessarily
get the benefits, because I always want to clear the
record up on that because I've said that so many times.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, Brian, you know, the way legislatively that the VA
set up is that veterans do have to go through
an eligibility process to be enrolled in VA healthcare, and
there is a if veterans don't have a service compensation benefit,
a non service connected pension benefit, or there's other criteria

(07:40):
that is very specific to waiving any other exemptions. There
is a over the income threshold four veterans that would
not make them eligible for VA Healthcare. And so what's
important about that? And I'm glad you bring that up.
This is where we want veterans to be able to
be filing for any type of service connected related compensation

(08:04):
opportunities that are available to them. And when I said
about us changing so much in the last twelve to
eighteen months, this is where the Packed Act really came in.
The toxic exposure requirements of things. I've seen veterans who
were not eligible before for VA Healthcare become eligible because
of the long list of different toxins in those presultive

(08:27):
editions that were not recognized previously. Is now made veterans
become eligible. And then on top of that, veterans that
are service connected at a lower level, let's say they
were maybe initially service connected for ten or twenty percent
related to their service, the Packed Act has significantly increased

(08:48):
some of those percentages for veterans. One of the many
examples that I've seen as veterans went from a lower
percentage to a higher percentage above seventy percent. And what
that then does is now provides long term care at
no costs for life. And then the veterans also receive
educational benefits for their children or for example, like eighty

(09:10):
percent of in state tuition is covered.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
So again reasons to you know, just get to the
right experts, the right offices, and just you know, look
at everything that's available to you.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Well, I'm glad you said that last part. Get the
right experts, the right resources, because that really is what
veteran service organizations are for, like the Claremont County Veteran Services,
I have them all the time. They can help you
navigate these filings and these challenges that the veterans might
be confused by and pursuing, you know, their available coverage
or benefits.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
Rather. Yeah, that's absolutely true, you know. For you know,
the part that I represent all the time in working
with you, we're on the healthcare side of things, and
you know, primarily specifically to the healthcare eligibility. Right, you
want to contact our main office at five one three
four seven, five six four nine, But many of those

(10:01):
other benefits that I mentioned, looking at service connection possibilities,
looking at non service connection possibilities, the educational benefits, the
burial benefits. You know here, particularly Hamilton County, Claremont County,
and Butler County are the offices that we work with.

(10:21):
They do phenomenal jobs. They've got great officers. I know
a lot of times, you know, veterans and families come
to those offices looking for immediate assistance, which again, if
you're looking at claim stuff, that stuff's going to take
a while. But those offices do so many other things.
They offer financial assistance for those veterans to live in
those counties, plus transportation services. So there's so many different

(10:45):
things that are available, you know, to veterans that take
advantage of that. You know, we want to continue to
make them.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Aware of, right, And that's why I bring them up,
because they do that. You're right, they do a fantastic,
fantastic job for the veterans. All right, So for all
age group veterans, and how does a veteran get enrolled
in VA Healthcare and then also remain actively enrolled? Is
there additional steps you need to remain active once you
have been enrolled yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
So the where to start is is what I said before,
is to start with our eligibility office. You call five one, three, four, seven, five, six, four,
nine to nine. Those are directile lines to our eligibility staff.
There is an online application that veterans can do and
they find off the national websites. I don't encourage them
to do that just because I'm going to be transparent.

(11:33):
It's a bureaucratic system a line of that, and I've
rather I'm still old school, Brian. I want to pick
up the phone and I want to talk to someone
on the other end and be able to ask the
questions that I want. So that's the eligibility route for that.
And then once we get you enrolled, we really do
want to see you if you're fully healthy and you
don't really need services, but we do want to see

(11:55):
you every year and to maintain your real active treatment
plans all the prevention model based healthcare system. We really
want to see you every two years, you know, so
it will forecast that out. One of the complaints that
we get a lot of times from our veterans is all,
my goodness, do you remind me of all my appointments?

(12:15):
I get a letter, I get a postcard, I get
a text message, I get a phone call. So there's
multiple ways that we do want to see you. But
that's that's how you stay and remain active with us well.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
And it's all in your own best interest in terms
of maintaining health and you can get in front of
a problem. It's a lot less costly for the American
taxpayer to deal with and it's a lot better for
you to get ahead of health problem. So you earned it.
En Roll five one, three four seven, five sixty four
ninety nine. That's that's the number. You call to talk
with Todd or one of the crew over at the

(12:46):
cincinna Va and get yourself enrolled in the benefits that
you earned. Thank you all for your service to our
country and Todd keep up the great work at the
cincinnie Va. I know you're doing your best to help
my veteran friends in the audience.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, absolutely, Brian. We appreciate each year collaboration in partnership,
and last year I just want to mention them. In
twenty twenty four, we saw the highest number of veterans
we've ever saw in one year, So veterans were reaching
out to us and taking advantage of things they've worked before.
So we're very happy about that.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Well, to the extent I played any part in that role.
It makes me just as proud as I can be
to be in a position to spread the words. So
keep up the great work. I know you and I
talked throughout the year about these important benefits. So getting
rolled five one, three, four, seven, five sixty four ninety nine.
Happy New Year, Todd Sledge, you and everybody at the
Cincinnati VA. Keep up the great work.