Tag Archives: benefits

Why you, a service provider, should use the Warrior Gateway Directory

Posted on by Chris

The Warrior Gateway Directory allows users in the military community to easily find the resources they need. However, it is also a tool which makes it easy for service providers to interact with their clients and stakeholders. We know there are a lot of sites out there that list information, resources, and service providers for the military community…

So why should you, a service provider with limited time and resources, use the Warrior Gateway Directory?

1) It allows you to easily communicate important information with your client base in the military community. We list basic but necessary information about service providers (where you’re located, what you do, how to get in contact with you, etc.), which you can edit once you claim your profile. We are also developing more advanced ways to communicate via your service provider profile, such as an Announcements box, an Events Calendar, the ability to post the need for volunteers or emergency donations, plus more.

Why use the Warrior Gateway to communicate rather than relying only on traditional channels like your own website? We are building a single, central place for users who are looking for information about service providers; it makes it easier for the user if he or she can find information about ten organizations in one place rather than on those ten organizations’ separate websites.

2) You can easily find out what your clients are saying and thinking about you. We allow users to leave ratings and reviews for service providers they have used. This can help you to discover areas which are in need of attention or improvement in your organization’s provision of services. Think of it as an online comment box.

3) You can interact by commenting back. If a user posts a review for your organization, you can post an official reply which will be displayed directly below the user’s comment. This will allow you to directly and publicly address the user’s concerns (or thank them for their praise!). We think this will create an open forum that will be good for transparency.

4) It provides a unique metric of success for stakeholders, especially donors. Knowing what clients think about a service provider can be more illustrative than traditional financial metrics used for non-profits, such as program expenses and revenue, when measuring an organization’s success and effectiveness. We’d like your success as a provider of services to the military community to be told not just through your financials but through the words and stories of those whose lives you affect with your service. This will have major implications for the way donors measure your success as the ‘ratings-and-reviews’ model becomes more prevalent in the non-profit community.

5) It’s a good way to discover and get in touch with other organizations doing work similar to yours. Just as our users in the military can use the Warrior Gateway Directory to seek out organizations near them, so too can you! This should be useful for coordination and referrals, and also for sharing resources and best practices with organizations like yours. We are also looking into building an online forum for discussion and resource-sharing between service providers.


We are confident that the Warrior Gateway Directory is a tool that will help service providers communicate with their clients, stakeholders, and other service providers. To use the Warrior Gateway, get started by finding your organization’s listing in the Directory and claiming it. If you can’t find a listing for your organization, you should add it to the Directory. You can then verify or edit the information we have listed for your organization, and respond to any comments left by users on your profile page. Also, be sure to tell your clients about your profile on the Warrior Gateway and suggest they log on and leave a rating and review about you.

If you have any further questions about how you can start using the Warrior Gateway to the fullest advantage of your organization, don’t hesitate to contact us.

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Shinseki: cutting claims backlog a top priority

Posted on by Chris

From the Washington Times:

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki (center) is greeted by veterans as the Charleston Vet Center in Charleston, W.Va. Image courtesy Associated Press

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki said he is making it a top priority this year to tackle the backlog of disability claims that has veterans waiting months – even years – to get financial compensation for their injuries.

Among those waiting for relief are sick Vietnam and Gulf War veterans to whom the former Army commander feels a special allegiance.

“I’m a kid out of the Vietnam era, I just have enough firsthand knowledge of folks walking around with lots of issues. If there’s a generation of veterans that have had a tough row to hoe, it’s the Vietnam generation,” said Mr. Shinseki, 67, as he traveled through snowcapped mountains in Ohio and West Virginia between meetings with veterans.

Mr. Shinseki, a former Army chief of staff who had part of a foot blown off when he was a young officer in Vietnam, was unapologetic about a decision he made in October to make it easier for potentially 200,000 sick Vietnam veterans who were exposed to the Agent Orange herbicide to receive service-connected compensation.

He said it was the right thing to do, even though the volume of claims will grow and it will likely take about two years to get the average claim-processing wait time back to where it is today, about five months.

Read the full article here.

Hiring at the VA

Posted on by Chris

We’re currently at the National Association of State Directors of Veterans Affairs (NASDVA)’s winter conference, hearing about many of the issues and activities of VA offices at the state and local levels.

The Washington Post today has a good piece on exciting new goings-on at the federal level–the hiring of 105,000 employees over the next two years within the VA system. The Post interviewed Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs W. Scott Gould. Here is an excerpt:

Q Who exactly are you looking for? Just doctors and nurses or claims folks?

We’re looking for medical professionals: Doctors, nurses top our lists. Also claims processors. We’re putting a big emphasis on clearing through the backlog. Obviously, in addition to new technology and better processes, we need good people to make those judgments.

How’s this going to work? Besides a $12.4 million television ad campaign, are there recruitment fairs at medical schools or some other outreach?

We’re airing on the Olympics; we’re on all the major award shows. We think it’s a brand-new way of getting out in front of folks and letting them be aware of what the VA has to offer. In addition to that, we’re looking to streamline our internal processes. So when someone calls, they express an interest, they’re going to find a more customer-friendly VA.

Pretend I’m a med student who’s plotting my post-school plans. What would be the sales pitch?

Number one, the mission. Taking care of our veterans, taking care of the people who have protected our freedom over time. I can’t think of a better synergy and overlap between a physician who wants to do something for their community and heartfelt service to veterans. The second would be leadership that gets it. Leadership that’s prepared to invest in them and develop their careers over time. And the third thing I’d say is that we’re growing.

Via Washington Post.

Proposed increase in the family separation allowance

Posted on by Chris

GOOD Magazine has a nice piece on the struggles of being wounded in battle, and a proposed increase to the family separation allowance. The family separation allowance is a benefit paid out to servicemembers separated from their families during a tour of duty. As the author of the article notes, the family separation allowance can make a big difference when a servicemember is wounded and is taken to a military hospital back in the US. Since the military hospital is often located far from the wounded servicemember’s family, it is costly for the family to come visit. The family separation allowance can help to reduce this financial burden.

The family separation allowance is currently set at $250 per month, but Congressman Jerry McNerney of California is proposing that the allowance be increased to $450 per month, in addition to increases for a number of other benefit payments (read here for more details on Congressman McNerney’s proposed legislation).

Imagine how difficult your life would be, and how much more money you would have to spend, if your husband or wife left home for seven to 15 months at a time. Would you have to pay more often for babysitters, lawn services, and prepared food? Would you have to take extra time off from work to do all those things that usually take two?

Now imagine the stress on you and the rest of your family if your spouse wasn’t just gone from home, but in Iraq or Afghanistan, and you spent every day scared to death of a phone call. Or imagine yourself as the deployed service member, trying to focus on the mission in front of you, worrying from afar if your family has enough money to pay for food, rent, and utilities. Isn’t it worth $200 more per month to help alleviate the psychological and physical stress, heartache, lack of sleep, and the cost of a missing spouse and parent?

Read more: http://www.good.is/post/from-the-hurt-locker-to-capitol-hill/#ixzz0fAmLBW1V
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Read the full article here.

Lawsuit results in possible benefits increases for veterans with PTSD

Posted on by Chris

This article in the Washington Post tells about a recent legal agreement that will result in the military reviewing the medical records of thousands of OEF/OIF veterans with PTSD that were denied benefits for the disorder.

The agreement stems from a judge’s order in a class action lawsuit originally filed by seven combat veterans. They alleged the military illegally denied benefits to those discharged, at least in part, because of the disorder during a six-year period that ended Oct. 14, 2008.

Legal notices are currently being mailed to about 4,300 veterans informing them they can “opt-in” to the lawsuit until July 24 to be part of the expedited review. Attorneys for the veterans estimate that millions of dollars could be paid to veterans under the agreement, with some veterans receiving hundreds or more dollars in increased monthly benefits.

More information on the lawsuit can be found here. For the full article click here.