Brian Thomas with Todd Sledge -- 4/7/25

Brian is joined in studio by the Cincinnati's VA's own Todd Sledge.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey thirty eight if you have care C detalk station,
if you're having a decent Monday. Bryan Thomas always pleased
to see, especially in studio, Todd Sledge and the since
Antiva taking great care of our veterans each and every day.
They are appreciate all that the since ANAVA does for
my veteran friends and the listening audience. And you know me,
I love to help out veterans and veterans causes, and
I know Todd Sledge does too. Todd, welcome back to

(00:23):
the Morning Show. Thanks for making the trip in. Yeah,
it's great to see in person for a change instead
of over the phone. Now. Yeah, I am. I always
mention that because you know, it's so much easier to
have a conversation with somebody when you're staring at the
in the face. Yeah right, jeezus. WI. So what is
going on at the VA we need to talk about today? Well,
there's a lot going on, Brian, you know a lot
of different things. Today. I wanted to focus on all

(00:45):
the different tracking and communication mechanisms that veterans should be
plugged into to see all the information that we have
going on, and how they can see what's happening with
with their VA healthcare system. But before we do that,
a I have something I like to do per with you.
I have a challenge coin. Oh yeah, from the VA,

(01:05):
and I just wanted to recognize on behalf of all
of our veterans and all of our folks there that
you're outstanding dedication and service and recognition my friends. So
my brother, thank you very much for that. Absolutely couldn't
do it without you. Oh this is a true, true
honor I have over the years, you know, because you
know me, I love helping out veterans of veterans causes,

(01:25):
so I have accumulated quite a few of these over there.
I knew you didn't need an explanation on one. No, no, no,
I tell you how to shake your hand and grab
a hold of it. So the only problem is is
the challenge component of it by a couple of beers
over the years, you know what I mean. Anyhow, thank you.
I've cherished this absolutely, thank you for what you do.
I mean, the relationship we've had all these years and

(01:47):
with your listeners, it's been fantastic. Well it's the least
I can do. Again, I always like to point it
I never enlisted and I have so much respect for
the men and women who actually went and went down
that road not knowing what their future head in store
for them. That's a that's just an amazing accomplish, an
amazing thing to do. And you guys are all wonderful people,
So thank you very much for a little so much pleasure.

(02:09):
And I, uh, just something you point out all the time.
I want to make sure I get it in now
before we move on to the topics that we have
to talk about today. If you get care from the VA,
and I'm pretty confident you're going to get really good care.
But someone had complained to me a couple of weeks
ago about something and I said to him, I go,

(02:30):
did you say something to the folks that have since
any VA about it? Did you put you know, I
don't know if there's a form to fill out, but
I said, they're really good at, you know, addressing concerns
because they want to make the process as smooth and
painless and as effective as efficient as possible. So don't
you know, speak your mind. You don't have to be
a jerk about it, but be sure and go ahead

(02:50):
and let them know about your concerns. Yeah. Absolutely, I
say it all the time. We have a we have
a full service patient advocate office, you know, I call
it our concierge office. Yeah, if you've got to complain,
you got concern, or you just don't understand something, something
doesn't make sense, these advocates are there to be your
your personal liaison between that department or that service to
help resolve the problem. It goes directly to that administrator

(03:12):
who then works with that staff. And I kind of
take something from what my grandfather told me many many
years ago. He said, Todd, if you have a problem,
it's like having a rock in your shoe. If you
don't take the rock out of the shoe and keep
walking on it, you can't say anything because it's your
fault for not taking the rock out of the shoe
exact exactly. And to the extent you have a problem
or a complaint, it's possible that one of your fellow

(03:33):
veterans does too, and they haven't set anything. So bring
it to their intention and don't don't hesitate to do so. So.
In terms of tracking, you know, there's a lot of
online stuff. There's a lot of apps out in the world.
I suppose one of the larger challenges is you've got
a lot of senior veterans and quite often they are
and this is no insult to them. They're technologically challenged

(03:53):
and they need a little bit of help, you know,
navigating how the house and the whys and the whereforce. Yeah,
so what we you know, we use a lot of
different things like everybody else. Our Facebook page is very robust,
and I really encourage people to be plugged into that
or to make sure that caregiver or that spouse or
someone who's helping you know, grandpa or grandma or aunt
uncle follow what's going on because we use that a

(04:14):
lot as not national information on what we have going
on locally. There's also something on our website called gov
Delivery where you actually can subscribe to receive information we
pushed directly out, okay from that medical newsletter thing. Yeah,
it's like a kind of like an online newsletter like
email mechanism that lets you know, like, hey, here's this announcement,
whether it's about the parking issues that you know keep

(04:35):
going on at the hospital, or medication recalls, different changes
with clinics. There is the variety of things. So you know,
we have, like everybody else, our websites are our Facebook
pages in this Gov delivery and these are all three
things you definitely want to be tracked into and some
other things we'll talk about in a few minutes. Yo, okay.
And you know, in addition to the assistance you can
get directly at this insane VA, I got to put

(04:56):
a shout out to all the Veteran Services commissions out
there absolutely as they can help you navigate this process. Yeah. Really, well,
I know Claimont County Veterans Services comes on all the
time and we're happy to help you hook up to
the app. We're happy to help you get your VA
benefits and everything. So yep, same way, same way, great, great,
multiple multiple ways of doing that. And the website again,
Cincinnati dot VA dot gov, our Facebook page of Cincinnati, VA.

(05:19):
And get a chance to talk with you here in
a few minutes about our podcast that we got going on. Podcast. Yeah, well,
let's just dive on into that right now. You're the
one that brought it up. You're doing a podcast. Yeah,
we started a podcast about two months ago and thanks
to my colleague Chris Klug who's on with me, he
came up. He said his wife had a big influence
on the name. But the podcast is called Beyond the

(05:40):
Boots and I love that name. Oh that's great. I
love the name. Yeah. It's on Spotify, it's on Apple,
Go check it out. It's about a nineteen twenty minute
podcast where we talk very candidly about the VA healthcare benefits.
The veterans can get why they should use VA. We've
had some veterans on there. Is want to talk about
their their stories and journeys, and so that's a great
mechanis will be plugged in to any time. Well, and

(06:01):
signing up for your VA benefits is critically important because
it is healthcare. You know, you can have your own
medical insurance or your employer, but this, you know, these
are benefits, as I always like to point out, that
you earned as a consequence of your service. And you
know what you want it. You want to get hearing aids,
you need glasses. There's a lot of things that you'll
provide that insurance companies just aren't going to have a
part of. Yeah, exactly, you know, hearing aids, eyeglasses, mental

(06:24):
health care, prosthetics, there's some of those big, those big
elements that do cost a private in the private sector,
a lot of bit of money to do. Yeah, and uh,
you know I run across veterans all the time who
are spending thousands and thousands of dollars on these hearing aids,
and we can give you the same ones, you know,
for free. Uh and uh you know, come and get them.

(06:44):
I mean, it's just amazing to me. All right, say
forty five will bring consul Edge back to talking about
some other elements of the Cincinna via health care system
and how they benefit you. Don't go away, be right
back fifty five KRC. Get ready for spring and have
your room forty eight fifty five care see de Talks DA.
A happy Monday to you, Todd Sledge since AVA in studio.

(07:04):
God bless you, Todd Sledge. I truly truly appreciate the
gesture getting that challenge coin from this since a VA
that means a world to me. And uh and one
more time, because you you mentioned the podcast. You mentioned
the name of the podcast, but off air you said,
I mean it took off right away. You got great numbers.

(07:25):
There's a lot of veterans you're listening to it. So
I just wanted to emphasize that because if the veteran's
out there. I didn't even know there's a podcast. We'll
apparently join in the fun, right, Yeah, exactly. It's marketed
and stated on our Facebook page as well as our
website called Beyond the Boots. You can find it if
you know, if you're on Spotify, Apple, different YouTube as well.

(07:46):
And it just took off on as soon as we
started doing it, and a lot of good feedback from veterans.
They like the shortness, the candidness of it. And I'm
very fortunate to have my colleague Chris from my office
who is a veteran combat veteran as well, pride of
a perspective that you know that I can't from from
non military service, but from the VA side. It's a
good combination. That's great. I'm glad you're doing that now.

(08:07):
I understand you. Also the since AVA hosts virtual town
hall meetings, how often is this done? And we kind
of topics you talk about. Yeah, So what we do
is we the virtual platform allows us that we have
to call out to target it veterans, and the amount
that we're able to do that is about we can
reach twenty thousand veterans through this telecommunication approach. That we have.

(08:28):
So we might, for example, and we do it quarterly,
so it's every three months. We might target a population
that says, okay, who's been newly enrolled within the last
three years to the Cincinnati VA and we can specifically
reach out to that group. They get a robo call
that tells them that this this town hall is going
to happen the day before. Then they get another call
about two minutes before the actual town hall happens. Then

(08:50):
they're brought on into you know, like a teleconferencing system
where my boss, the director, other subject matter experts are
their Plus, there are screeners on the back that allows
veterans to ask questions that we can scroll and go
through and see, you know, if there's a general question
we can take live to the entire group. We do that,
but we don't take personal health information. And we average

(09:12):
out of that twenty thousand, we average over about three
thousand that stay on for that twenty five minute town hall.
Oh that's great. He's been an amazing reach and good feedback.
And those that have questions that we don't get to
our Patient Advocate office, who I mentioned earlier, they follow
up with these folks. If it's about I couldn't get
a dermatology appointment, or I'm lost about what happens with this,
or my claim I'm having trouble getting a response on

(09:36):
my claim. We follow up with those approaches and make
sure everybody gets an answer back. Oh, that's wonderful. I'm
glad to hear that's been so successful as well. Now
you mentioned that one of the great things you do
provide in because veterans are sort of cut from a
different chunk of fabric as the rest of the society
that did not serve in terms of mental health benefits.

(09:56):
I know, most insurance plans, at least as I've come
to understand, have very limited like you get ten yep,
and that's it. Is there any limitation on mental health
services at the VA for the veterans, Yeah, there is not.
Excuse me, there is not any limitation on the mental
health services. I mean, whether it's a bounce back and
forth between residential, impatient outpatient one on one medications groups,

(10:19):
whatever you might need. There's no cap on. You know, Hey,
you've gone through this program twice and you can't do
it any further. Sometimes, you know, given the challenges with
what our veterans deal with They may need to go
through some of our processes multiple times and that's okay,
and it's no detriment or negativity to them. This what
have we got to do to get you where you
need to get to exactly? You know, at least you're

(10:40):
not doing Freudian therapy that takes like ten years on
the couch and talking about your childhood and right, yeah,
absolutely absolutely. Now is there any telehealth through that since Ava, Yeah,
there is. We do all kinds of telehealth. We do
telehealth mental health as well. Oh that's great. Yeah, mental health, dermatology,
nutrition and food service, weight loss man which meant whole health.

(11:01):
So the veterans have a whole gamut of well, especially
a lot of our younger veterans love it where they're like,
you know, hey, I can go out to my car
or a private area at lunch or on a break
and I can see my therapist or I can see
my doc, or I can see who I need to
to get that exposer, so you don't have to come
to the VA and do that. We have a lot
of veterans that like to Brian. They like to come

(11:21):
down there and they like to get the hospitality that
goes on in the camaraderie. But we do offer a
lot of telehealth. Yeah, camaraderie is a critical thing for
the veterans especially, I think, as I've come to learn
from from some some other organizations Patriots Landing for example,
in northern Kentucky. Those guys, you know, need each other
and they really benefit from being together. Absolutely, so I

(11:43):
understand that component well. But I also understand the ease
and convenience of telehealth and the idea that you can
just sort of leave the room and sit in your
car with a zoom screen and you know, talk with
your therapist. You mentioned dermatology telehealth, like you just show
a picture of your pretty much arm with the with
the whatever is going on there? Can you tell me
what this is? Doc? Yeah, pretty much. You know some

(12:03):
things that they can do, you know, through a screen
without having to do some type of physical exam that
you know usually that's usually a follow up. You know,
somebody came in and saw a specialist and you know,
it's follow up to how things are going. So that way,
you know, time and convenience of that person that veterans
time to be able to get seen in a timely
manner really does help with telehealth, all right, So it's
easy to get your VA benefits d D two fourteen

(12:26):
discharge papers. Yeah, well, it's it's helpful, you know. That
validates everything. It's not a necessity because we do have
systems in place where we can check, you know, as
the different records and different things that go on and
validate stuff the way things are integrated. But it is
helpful to have. It makes the eligibility process go go quick.
And as as you helped me many times as well

(12:47):
as I do. It's it's an easy call. Five one, three,
four seven, five, six, four nine nine is that eligibility number,
and our eligibility specialists are there to walk you through
the process, help you understand what we need to do.
I've went three four seven, five, six, four nine nine.
You got the benefits, take a hold of them and
enjoy all the wonderful services the Cincinnati VA is offering.

(13:10):
And it just keeps getting better. It's awesome. You and
I have been talking for years and you have You
have accomplished so many goals and you have made things
so much better for the American veteran over the years.
You're always in a process of trying to make things
better and I truly appreciate it on behalf of my
veteran listeners. Well, thank you buy it. We couldn't do
it without you. It's a good partnership. It's just wonderful
being a position to be able to do this and

(13:32):
have this conversation. Todd s Ledge, God bless you and
thanks again for the challenge. Coin Man, I certainly will
cherish it. Scott Wortman from The Enquivers On earlier seven
oh five, he took over for Sharon Coolidge, talked about
what he's going to be reporting on and some of
the more significant topics that are going on right here
in the city Sincinnati. Christopher Smithman with a smith event
Monday Monday with Brian James, and of course this conversation
all on the podcast page fifty five cares dot com.

(13:55):
Thank you Sean McMahon for covering four. Joe Strecker, I'll
see you tomorrow, folks. Tune in tomorrow the Bright Bart
Inside Scoop, the Daniel Davis Deep Dive, among other things.
Got some great guests lined up, so that'll be tomorrow, folks.
I hope you have a wonderful day. Stick around because
Glenn Back is coming right up