Senators push to keep ARCH active

U.S. Senator Susan Collins, the Ranking Member of the Aging Committee and one of the top Republicans on the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee, and U.S. Senator Angus King have sent a letter to Secretary Eric Shinseki of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which requests that the VA indefinitely extend the Access Received Closer to Home (ARCH) pilot program in Caribou.         “The ARCH program in Caribou is clearly helping meet the needs of veterans in the northern part of Maine,” the senators wrote, adding that the program “improves coordination with community-based health services, which increases access to cost-effective care for veterans in rural areas.”
“Maine has one of the highest ratios in the nation of veterans to overall population, and in a large, rural state like Maine, it is critically important that the VA goes the extra mile to see that our veterans have access to and receive the treatment they need and deserve,” said Sen. Collins.
“For veterans in northern Maine, a one-way drive to the Togus VA Medical Center in Augusta can take four hours or more to complete. Especially for our ailing and elderly veterans, such a trip can be physically taxing, painful, or detrimental to their health, and we must do all that we can to improve access to health care they receive through the VA,” Collins added.
“For generations, Mainers have proudly and honorably shouldered the heavy responsibility of defending our country, and as a result, our state today is home to more veterans per capita than most other states. It is incumbent upon us to ensure that we provide these men and women the highest quality care and support that our country can offer,” Sen. King said.
“In a rural state like Maine, however, accessing vital and deserved health care resources can be both physically and logistically challenging for our veterans, especially those who are disabled or elderly. That’s why it’s so important the VA continue outreach programs, like the ARCH initiative in Caribou, that bring these critical care and support services directly to their communities,” King noted.
According to the lawmakers’ letter, the ARCH program is operating at five pilot sites in Arizona, Kansas, Maine, Montana and Virginia. Particularly for ailing and elderly veterans, travel to VA medical centers can be more expensive, more time-consuming, and less safe than a trip to the local ARCH location. The ARCH program is also reducing the cost of mileage reimbursement for the VA.
Information provided to Sen. Collins and the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs by the VA indicated that the three-year pilot program is scheduled to conclude at the end of the current fiscal year on September 30, 2014. The VA has made no final decision on whether to extend the ARCH program or the services it provides at the five original sites beyond this date, and a decision is not expected until the collection and analysis of further data.