While visiting family in South Carolina, Marine Veteran Bobby Holt found himself in a tough spot. His eyeglasses broke and he was the only one able to drive his brother back to New England. Without his glasses, the trip wouldn\u2019t just be difficult\u2014it would be dangerous.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have my prescription with me,\u201d Holt thought to himself. \u201cWhat do I do?\u201d<\/p>\n
As both a Veteran and an accounting technician at VA Boston Healthcare System<\/a>, he knew the answer. Using the VA: Health and Benefits app<\/a>, he sent a secure message<\/a> to the optometry team in Worcester, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n Holt was surprised by the response: \u201cIt took like no time.\u201d<\/p>\n Just 34 minutes later, health technician Heather Morrow responded with a digital copy of his prescription.<\/p>\n \u201cI had to download it, email it to the store, and they made the glasses right there,\u201d Holt recalled.<\/p>\n That simple, fast reply made all the difference. Holt picked up his new glasses and was able to drive himself and his brother home.<\/p>\n Morrow has worked for VA for about a year, and she knew how meaningful her work could be.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a lot of family that were in the military, and I wanted to bring my knowledge to VA and give each Veteran the highest quality care that I know of,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Morrow and the Worcester team answer messages like Holt\u2019s every day, from general questions to travel help to unexpected needs like this one. Virtual tools like secure messaging make it easy to help Veterans quickly, no matter where they are.<\/p>\n \u201cAll day long, we\u2019re getting secure messages sent in for all different things,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I see them, I address them.\u201d<\/p>\n VA\u2019s virtual care tools\u2014like the VA: Health and Benefits app and My HealtheVet<\/a>\u2014help make it possible for VA to provide effective, reliable care focused on each Veteran\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n \u201cYou never know when something unexpected will come up,\u201d Holt shared, grateful for the timely help he received and for the people responsible. \u201cThis really turned around in a matter of a couple of hours.\u201d<\/p>\n Learn more about how to manage your health and benefits online<\/a>. To learn more about the VA: Health and Benefits app, visit the VA app page<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While visiting family in South Carolina, Marine Veteran Bobby Holt found himself in a tough spot. His eyeglasses broke and he was the only one able to drive his brother back to New England. Without his glasses, the trip wouldn\u2019t just be difficult\u2014it would be dangerous. \u201cI didn\u2019t have my prescription with me,\u201d Holt thought […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":657500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1775,440,81,1339],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-657521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-health-and-benefits","category-my-healthevet","category-telehealth","category-visn-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=657521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":657522,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657521\/revisions\/657522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/657500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=657521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=657521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=657521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Helping Veterans anytime, anywhere<\/h2>\n
Virtual care in action<\/h2>\n