Veteran wants VA to pay for medical bills
GREENSBORO — William Izzard says he never made it past the admissions clerk at the VA Medical Center in Salisbury. She told him he’d been “kicked out” of the system.
So, in February 2008 , the veteran of two tours in Vietnam went to Moses Cone Hospital to find out why he was feeling so sick.
It turns out he’d had a heart attack. He spent four days in the ICU and ended up with a $25,000 bill. He has been paying about $25 a month, but Moses Cone won a lawsuit against him in March for the remainder. He owes thousands more to specialists.
Now Izzard, 63 , wants to know why he was turned away from the VA Medical Center at all. He believes the VA should pay for his medical costs.
Greensboro attorney Craig Kabatchnick agrees.
“No doubt, they blew the call,” said Kabatchnick, who heads the Veterans Law Program at N.C. Central University . “They should have at least done a triage of him. ... Instead, they just said, 'You’re not in our system,’ which is impossible if he’d been previously treated there.”
Izzard wasn’t eligible for benefits at the time even though he had been treated there before, said Lexia Frasher, chief over health administration service, during a review Thursday of Izzard’s records.
Over the years, the laws regarding VA benefits have changed, she said. Izzard was eligible for services when first honorably discharged from the Army in 1973. But in 1996 , Congress required veterans to enroll for services and has put income caps on eligibility except in cases of service-connected disabilities.
When Izzard went to the VA hospital in February 2008, he did not qualify for benefits because he made too much money and did not have a service-connected disability. He had applied for disability benefits for a back and shoulder injury and post-traumatic stress disorder but was denied, records show.
“It is complex anytime you deal with the government,” Frasher said.
Kabatchnick said the VA still shouldn’t have turned Izzard away because it was an emergency situation. Izzard complained of symptoms of a heart attack. The VA should have examined him to make sure he wasn’t in a life-threatening situation as any other hospital would have done, Kabatchnick said.
“I don’t know too many folks that go to a hospital and get turned away,” said Izzard, who is confused and frustrated by the VA health care process.
He served two tours in Vietnam as an Army mechanic and a truck driver. One of those tours was in Da Nang, a southern port city that housed a U.S. air base.
“We used to run convoys,” he said. “It was real interesting.”
In the 1980s , he went to the Salisbury VA for an alcohol-addiction treatment program. Back then, just being a veteran qualified him for services, he said.
He has gone back a few times over the years but mostly has made use of his work-related health-care plans, Izzard said.
But in February last year, Izzard had just been reemployed as a truck driver so his medical insurance hadn’t kicked in yet.
“That’s why I went to he VA,” he said, “to keep from having a big bill.”
Doctors didn’t tell him when he had his heart attack. Izzard had complained of chest pains at least twice that week to his wife.
By the time he got to Moses Cone, doctors told him his main artery was 95 percent blocked and he had high levels of cholesterol, blood pressure and sugar. He also learned that he was diabetic.
“I didn’t know what was wrong with me,” he said. “I just knew I was ill.”
Kabatchnick, who defended the department against disability claims in the early 1990s, plans to file complaints with the VA on Izzard’s behalf. He believes that Izzard should have been seen that day because he had symptoms of a heart attack, which Izzard said he reported to the admissions clerk.
“The VA failed to exercise a reasonable degree of care,” Kabatchnick said. “That’s what’s happened here.”
Frasher said Izzard’s case likely wasn’t considered an emergency because he wasn’t in obvious distress from symptoms of a heart attack at the time. He drove to the VA, back home and then to the hospital in Greensboro, she said.
“I’m outraged by that response,” said Kabatchnick, who has accepted Izzard’s case pro bono as part of his work with the veterans program at N.C. Central.
Izzard now goes to the VA in Salisbury to be treated for his diabetes. The diagnosis for that illness automatically qualified him for benefits, Frasher said.
“It’s unfortunate and heart-breaking that you weren’t able to get your eligibility before the incident,” Frasher said.
Izzard met with VA officials hoping to find some relief from his medical bills. They said they had no programs that could help him.
“You have to look at me,” Izzard told them. “I’m a simple man (living) paycheck to paycheck.”
Contact Jennifer Fernandez at 373-7064 or jennifer.fernandez@news-record.com
Accompanying Photos
Photo Caption: William Izzard at his home in Greensboro.
MORE INFORMATION
For information on veterans benefits:
Online:
Phone:
(800) 827-1000: Service-related benefits
(704) 638-3470: Health benefits
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