Federal grants will improve telehealth services for rural veterans in Virginia, Montana and Alaska

A disproportionate number of veterans are in rural areas, and telehealth could soon improve their health care, which is often lacking because of limited resources or long-distance travel to Department ofVeterans Affairs  hospitals. The Department of Health and Human Services has partnered with the VA to provide almost $1 million to rural veterans' health care providers to improve VA telehealth and HHS state health information exchanges. The three states with the highest rates of rural veterans -- Virginia, Montana and Alaska -- will each receive about $300,000.

The VA said its telehealth system, once it's fully integrated nationwide, will be capable of providing at least 1.2 million medial consultations annually for veterans who would otherwise have to travel long distances to be treated, Robert Longley of About.com reports. Under the Honoring America's Veterans Act signed by President Obama last month, the VA is authorized to waive co-payments for veterans who use telehealth services. (Read more)

Obama orders VA to focus on mental health, with special emphasis on rural areas

President Obama signed an executive order Friday directing the Department of Veterans Affairs to expand mental health services and suicide prevention efforts, with a special emphasis on rural areas, which provide a disproportionate share of military members, Megan McCloskey of Stars and Stripes reports. Much of the order contains initiatives that were announced earlier in the summer by the VA.

The order instructs that any veteran with suicidal thoughts be seen by a mental-health professional within 24 hours, a standard already set by the VA but rarely met, McCloskey reports. In many areas of the U.S., psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers are sparse. To address this, the order directs the VA to partner with the Department of Health and Human Services to utilize community services to help meet demand. The agency will also create 15 pilot sites in underserved areas by contracting with local facilities, and it must create a plan for rural areas, which could include a mental health professional sharing program, McCloskey reports.

The VA put together a 21-person team in June to begin addressing these issues, and it has until June 2013 to hire just under 2,000 additional mental health staffers and the issues with pay, loan repayment, scholarships and partnerships with community-based providers to lure more mental health employees. (Read more)

For-profit colleges targeted for pitches to veterans; press call set for 3:30 Mon. on cost transparency

UPDATE: Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray will hold an embargoed press call with reporters at 3:30 p.m. ET today to make an announcement on college cost transparency. The call and all related materials will be embargoed for publication online until 12:01 a.m. Tuesday and in print Tuesday morning. To receive the dial-in information, send an email to press@ed.gov agreeing to the embargo terms.

For-profit colleges have been paid hundreds of millions of dollars in GI Bill benefits, and veterans' groups, the White House and some in Congress say it's beginning to look suspicious. "They say the schools prey on veterans with misleading ads while selling expensive and woefully inadequate educations," David Zucchino and Carla Rivera of the Los Angeles Times report. This is a rural story because military members come disproportionately from rural areas, and there are indications that abuse by for-profit colleges may also be disproportionately rural.

Eight of the 10 colleges that have collected the most GI Bill benefits since 2009 were for-profit institutions, and they got 86 percent of their revenue from the program, Zucchino and Rivera report. It generally costs twice as much to attend a for-profit school as a public one, and congressional investigators say dropout rates, interest rates and default rates at for-profit schools are higher than at public institutions. Also, credits veterans earn at for-profits don't always transfer.

In April, President Obama issued an executive order requiring the Department of Veterans Affairs to trademark "GI Bill" so it couldn't be used by for-profits to deceive veterans. The order also required the 6,000 colleges that receive GI Bill funds to offer "Know Before You Owe" information packets to veterans. (Read more)

American Legion post in rural Connecticut town renovates its building to house homeless veterans

An American Legion post in a small Connecticut community has renovated its building to house 15 homeless veterans, reports the radio outlet of the Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network.

Post Cmdr. Mark Czmyr and his father,
Navy vet William Czmyr, had the idea.
(Photo by Lucy Nalpathanchil)

Jewett City, population about 3,000, is "a rural town that lost its major textile industry when the mills closed after World War II. It's a quiet community with a Main Street that's quintessential New England," Lucy Nalpathanchil reports for WNPR and National Public Radio.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is in the third year of an initiative to end homelessness, but the biggest challenge remains in rural communities where the VA has had a hard time connecting with veterans, Nalpathanchil reports. "For example, it could take a veteran in Jewett City more than an hour to get to one of Connecticut's two VA hospitals."

Laurie Harkness, director of the VA's Errera Center in Connecticut, "says Jewett City could be a model for other communities," Nalpathanchil reports. "She says ideas like this come up all the time, but this rural town has something not found in very many places." She told WNPR, "This is the first project that I've ever been involved in where there was no 'not in my backyard.' Everybody supported it."

Innovative program for veterans teaches Marines how to farm, and how to market what they produce

Marine Master Sgt. Ruben Villarreal, right, holds a sage plant as part of the Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training Program, a six-week course that teaches service members and veterans about entrepreneurship and agriculture. He's learning to make tea and market it. “We’re looking at capturing a market that hasn’t been addressed. The purpose behind that and sage tea is to raise money, or seed capital, to allow and empower other veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan wars,” Villareal told Gretel Kovach of The U-T San Diego, formerly the San Diego Union-Tribune. (U-T photo by Charlie Neuman)

VSAT is aimed “to provide them the opportunity to go out there, start up a business, be entrepreneurs, be employers instead of employees, drive the market, create jobs, and continue making America what it is, and that is great and free, Villareal said. Marine veteran Colin Archipley and his wife, Karen, started the program five years ago on their organic farm above Escondido, Calif. With some funding from the Department of Veterans Affairs, they've focus more lately on active-duty service members preparing to leave the service. The intensive, six-week, 270-hour course is now operated in partnership with California State University San Marcos. Veteran benefits and donations are available to cover the $4,500 cost, writes Kovach.

One of the most successful graduates is Mike Hanes, a former Force Recon Marine and Iraq combat veteran who struggled to adjust after he left the service in 2004, notes Kovach. "For about two years while he attended college, he was homeless. 'After class at night, I’d crawl into a bush' in Balboa Park, he said. He graduated in 2009 from San Diego State University but still lacked the business know-how and network to turn his hot sauce recipe into a marketable product. He graduated from VSAT in February and now his Dang! hot sauce is sold in 12 local Whole Foods stores." (Read more.)