00:02Well I spoke to a whole lot of veterans over the last couple of years while I was the National
00:06Health Reporter looking at some of the issues that they've faced and in the course of that
00:11they were telling me about these calls that they were getting and a lot of targeted advertising
00:17that they were seeing from companies who were coming to them to try and sign them up for
00:21free services.
00:23I actually started getting some of the targeted ads myself because the algorithm had identified
00:27that I was interested in these issues and from there we started looking into who are the
00:32companies that are approaching veterans and offering these free but actually taxpayer funded
00:37services and are veterans being put at risk of harm because of this.
00:42We know that veterans need support so what is the harm in this?
00:46Well what we're seeing is instead of a veteran going to their regular treating GP with an
00:51issue and then being referred onwards for services in some of these cases the companies are targeting
00:56veterans directly and then they're not getting the sort of independent person in between the
01:02service and them.
01:04So in some cases we're seeing internal referrals within the companies for products and services
01:10and in one case of a veteran I spoke to who was signed up for medicinal cannabis somehow he
01:17didn't speak to any of his prescribing doctors for over 18 months.
01:22He says he doesn't think he ever should have been prescribed this medicinal cannabis because
01:26he had a history of substance abuse and he ended up in a psychiatric ward for veterans because
01:31he was harmed by this product that he was supplied that was supposed to help him.
01:35Yeah okay so what has the government said about this?
01:38So the minister Matt Keogh did not agree to do an interview about this and the department
01:43also didn't want to do an interview for our Four Corners program tonight but the minister
01:47has said that they have invested large amounts of money into getting veterans the care and
01:53help that they need and that they're concerned about for-profit providers targeting veterans
01:58more broadly and they are progressing legislation looking at harmful practices but we're yet
02:04to hear more details and hear a commitment to what that will specifically entail so we'll
02:10be interested to see what their reaction is to the program.
02:12And have you spoken to the RSL for this report?
02:14Yes we did speak to the RSL National President Peter Tinley they have also heard of these
02:18harmful practices targeting veterans and they say they're not against for-profit companies
02:22per se but they want the government to properly regulate those companies to make sure that
02:27veterans aren't being put at risk of harm.
02:30And we hear about veterans struggling to access the services that they need is this happening
02:34as well?
02:35Yeah that's right I think we've heard about this allied health cap that veterans were very
02:40much against that was overturned.
02:42The cap I think it was was that the...
02:44Exactly we'll actually be looking at that campaign tonight as part of the Four Corners
02:48program and some of the people that were actually funding that and I think it's important to say
02:54that veterans are struggling to get care that they need sometimes the government has invested
02:58more money to go to providers so that they can get good care but we are also seeing examples
03:04of over-servicing in some cases where veterans don't even know what is being billed against their
03:08name or their DVA number so they're not actually getting some of these services that the government
03:13is paying for so they're putting billions of dollars into this system to try and help veterans
03:17but there are some for-profit companies that are taking advantage of that and the veterans
03:22are not getting the good quality care and help they need and deserve.
03:25Thanks for that stuff.
