Today, the Social Security Administration announces the launch of a new Health IT initiative with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that enables all Social Security disability case processing sites to receive medical records electronically from all VA facilities. Veterans will receive a faster decision on their Social Security disability claim, speeding them and their dependents through this new process. Both agencies will save time and money with an automatic request through the eHealth Exchange.
“President Obama has said, ‘we must maintain the sacred covenant we share with our veterans by ensuring they have the care and benefits they deserve,’ and I could not agree more,” said Carolyn W. Colvin, Acting Commissioner of Social Security. “We are committed to providing our veterans with the world class service they so richly deserve and improving the speed and efficiency of our disability program.”
The new Health IT program was tested successfully at Social Security locations around the country. On Veteran’s Day, November 11, the eHealth Exchange will go live, nationally, to all Social Security disability case processing sites.
Social Security requests nearly 15 million medical records annually from healthcare providers and organizations to make medical decisions on about three million disability claims. Medical documentation is essential to make a disability determination. Historically, the agency obtained medical records through a manual process (mail, fax, secure mail). This new national initiative puts in place an automated process to obtain medical records electronically without human intervention.
“VA is currently improving quality of life by enabling Veterans to share their health information with federal partners and integrating their data into a safe and secure health-related consumer application,” said Dr. David Shulkin, Under Secretary for Health of the Department of Veterans Affairs. “Currently, when eligible Veterans apply for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits the average wait time for Social Security to receive paper records from VA can take months; this partnership allows Social Security and VA to share the Veteran’s health information electronically in minutes. The Social Security and VA partnership allows VA to continue to be a leader in interoperability efforts among federal partners while improving overall quality of life for our Veteran patients.”
This partnership adds the VA to Social Security’s more than 50 other Health IT partners, including the Department of Defense, in approximately 7,000 facilities across the United States providing electronic health records. Social Security’s goal is to continue expanding the number of healthcare organizations and federal agencies providing electronic health records within a safe and secure environment.
To learn more about Health IT, please visit www.socialsecurity.gov/disabilityssi/hit.
Social Security offers two other programs to expedite disability claims filed by veterans. Wounded Warriors and veterans with a VA disability compensation rating of 100% Permanent & Total have their Social Security disability claims treated as high priority and receive expedited decisions. For more information about these programs, please visit www.socialsecurity.gov/people/veterans.

by Traci Chapman
Staff Writer

It was Cindy and Bob Ward’s first time at Oklahoma State Fair’s Senior Day – and by the end of the day, they say they realized there really was no place like home during a day they would never forget.
“If you had told me this morning we would have done any of this, I would have thought you were kidding around,” Cindy Ward said that afternoon. “I never, ever would have expected this.”
In fact, when the El Reno couple entered the Modern Living Building, this year Oklahoma Senior Day’s new state fair home, they said they were impressed at the number of vendors, the entertainment and the wide range of activities going on, even early in the morning. With a Wizard of Oz theme – There’s No Place Like Okla’HOME’a – the Wards said they hadn’t really realized the state fair offered such a host of activities designed especially for seniors. When they discovered the “King and Queen of Emerald City” contest, they decided to enter – well, perhaps not exactly “they.”
“It was my idea,” Cindy said with a laugh. “Bob would never do anything like this on his own, but he went along with it for me.”
That’s how the couple ended up on the Senior Day stage, as they competed with four other couples in a “Newlywed Game” style contest designed to test how well each husband and wife knew each other. The Wards wondered about their chances, as they were surrounded by couples who had been married far longer than their eight years – two of them wed for 50 years; of the other two couples competing, one said they had been married more than 10 years, another had celebrated more than 20 wedding anniversaries.
But, the El Reno proved wrong everyone who believed those who lived together longest knew each other best, matching each other’s answers on four of five questions.
“I couldn’t believe it, but we just are so compatible, just know each other so well, that I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Cindy said.
After being crowned 2017 king and queen and receiving a host of prizes, flowers, crowns and a trophy, the couple took part in the antique tractor parade, which wound its way through State Fair Park.
Bob and Cindy Ward met, as many couples do, online. After each lost their respective spouses, they reached out on a Christian dating site, literally across the miles – Cindy lived in Deming, New Mexico, while Bob was in Sierra Vista, Arizona.
“We had a 97 percent match, and when we met, it just clicked,” Bob said. “We knew it was meant to be.”
With family members facing serious illnesses in Cindy’s hometown – El Reno – the Wards decided Oklahoma was the place to be, and they’ve never looked back, they said.
“It hasn’t always been easy, but we’re together and that’s what matters,” Cindy said.
While Cindy and Bob Ward were the stars of Senior Day, they were far from the only attraction during the special event. Many vendors provided medical, home, entertainment and other information, while others conducted diabetes, blood pressure, fall risk and memory screenings.
The day started with Ms. Oklahoma Senior America Dawn Anita Plumlee singing the National Anthem. The Duncan, Oklahoma, singer and songwriter was crowned during a July 29 pageant; 2016 Ms. Oklahoma Senior America, Dove Morgan Schmidt of Bristow, led the antique tractor parade later that day.
The antique tractor parade featured not only Schmidt and the Wards, but also other state fair royalty – Oklahoma City Indian Princesses, Miss Oklahoma State Fair, Miss Oklahoma State Fair Outstanding Teen and Oklahoma Frontier Experience cast members, as well as several area Red Hatters riding their own float. Tractors, ranging from historic to beautifully restored and even a little silly, were not only the parade’s stars, but also then remained for the rest of the fair as part of a tractor exhibit involving several Oklahoma tractor clubs. The Not Just Country Line Dancers, Oklahoma State Fiddlers, Okie Stompers, Southeast Navy Band, Dorothy’s Line Dance Class, Vocal Sounds of Oklahoma and Yellow Rose Dinner Theater provided entertainment, and Oklahoma State Department of Health sponsored two Tai Chi sessions. Several trivia and creative activities rounded out the day, while an Elvis Extravaganza was the event’s evening finale.
“We wanted to make this bigger than ever before – to make this a celebration of all seniors, to give them what they’re interested in seeing, learning about and doing,” organizer Wynelle Record said. “We’re very happy with the turnout, and we’re already looking forward to next year.”

Oklahoma Artist Harold Stevenson to be recognized by Oklahoma Legislature

Photography and Text by Terry “Travels with Terry” Zinn t4z@aol.com
Past President: International Food Wine and Travel Writers Association http://realtraveladventures.com/author/zinn/
www.new.okveterannews.com – www.martinitravels.com

Octogenarian, Harold Stevenson will be honored with a Legislative proclamation and reception at the Oklahoma State Capitol on the afternoon of April 19 followed by a public reception.
At press time details are being formulated but for more information you may contact Melodye Blancett, at Meloyde.Blancett@okhouse.gov or me at TRAVELSWITHTERRY@aol.com, with the subject line being “Harold Stevenson.”
This recognition comes as a result of decades of exhibitions with Harold’s studios ranging from Paris, to Idabel Oklahoma, Key West, and Wainscott, New York. As a native from Idabel Oklahoma, he now has returned to his beloved community as an example of the circle of life. He returned to his childhood home on Avenue A and subsequently passed it on to his nephew who built him a cabin in the Idabel woods.
In a 1998 Persimmon Hill Magazine interview by M.J. Van Deventer, she writes: “Harold Stevenson was drawing and using colors even before he learned to write his name. “I invented painting all by myself,” he says. Today, he is considered an iconoclast, an uncompromising artist who listened only to his own voice and paints the subjects that bring him the greatest pleasure.”
Harold says, “I was very precocious and by nature, I became very gregarious. There’s no such thing as a stranger to me.” At the age of twelve he opened his own studio in downtown Idabel. “Other kids my age were delivering papers or milk. But I had an art studio in the middle of town. I actually sold my paintings. I made my own job.”
Born on March 11, 1929 in Idabel and growing up in Idabel Harold was readily accepted by his neighbors when he asked to paint their portraits which later resulted in a larger than life exhibition of his works titled, The Great Society. With encouragement from the founder of the Oklahoma Art Center in Oklahoma City, Nan Sheets, Harold received education from the University of Oklahoma in 1947, Mexico City College, and studied under Yasuo Kuniyoshi and Max Schallinger.
Decades later his larger than life portraits were accepted into the Fred Jones Junior Museum of Art’s permanent collection accompanied with a monumental exhibition. The Museum recently accepted a collection of Harold’s paintings from longtime friend, Buddy Dugan, from his San Francisco’s home collection.
Besides the Fred Jones Junior Museum of Art collection, his works are also in the permanent collection of New York’s Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim, and the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Besides other exhibitions his reclining panoramic portrait, inspired by actor Sal Mineo, is in the Guggenheim. Of note was his huge painting of Spanish bullfighter, El Cordobes, when it was hung from the Eiffel Tower. Harold is best known for his large canvas paintings, some ranging from six feet by ten feet.
Harold’s contemporaries and acquaintances include artists; Marcel du Champs, Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol, Poteet Victory and philanthropist Peggy Guggenheim where he visited her at her Venice palazzo. He has been described as one of the art worlds living icons with work that spans almost seven decades. He is part of a generation that was once classified by a 1962 art show in New York City as the “New Realists.”
With an avid interest in classical history Harold Stevenson’s subject matter includes realistic depiction of classical subjects, Oklahoma cowboys, native Americans, landscapes and an admiration of the human form.
In coming back to his home in Idabel, Harold reflects: “There a providence that ties all these generations together. You cannot see the thread or the links that bind life together. But it is curious to me that in the last cycle of my life I would come back to this – my roots. It is a great reward for me to still be a local. I’m an armchair relic of the past, living in the house in which I was born.”
Harold continues from the 1998 interview. “But gradually I’m becoming a part of the current generation of Idabel people. I’m very interested in knowing the next generation. I have a new following. And it is very flattering.”

Dear Savvy Senior,
What are the eligibility requirements to get Medicaid coverage for nursing home care?
Caregiving Daughter

Dear Caregiving,
The rules and requirements for Medicaid eligibility for nursing home care are complicated and will vary according to the state where your parent lives. With that said, here’s a general, simplified rundown of what it takes to qualify.
Medicaid Eligibility
Medicaid, the joint federal and state program that covers health care for the poor, is also the largest single payer of America’s nursing home bills for seniors who don’t have the resources to pay for their own care.
Most people who enter nursing homes don’t qualify for Medicaid at first, but pay for care either through long-term care insurance or out-of-pocket until they deplete their savings and become eligible for Medicaid.
To qualify for Medicaid, your parent’s income and assets will need to be under a certain level that’s determined by their state. Most states require that a person have no more than about $2,000 in countable assets that includes cash, savings, investments or other financial resources that can be turned into cash.
Assets that aren’t counted for eligibility include their home if it’s valued under $560,000 (this limit is higher – up to $840,000 – in some states), their personal possessions and household goods, one vehicle, prepaid funeral plans and a small amount of life insurance.
But be aware that while your parent’s home is not considered a countable asset to determine their eligibility, if he or she can’t return home, Medicaid can go after the proceeds of their house to help reimburse their nursing home costs, unless a spouse or other dependent relative lives there. (There are some other exceptions to this rule.)
After qualifying, all sources of your parent’s income such as Social Security and pension checks must be turned over to Medicaid to pay for their care, except for a small personal needs allowance – usually between $30 and $90.
You also need to be aware that your parent can’t give away their assets to qualify for Medicaid faster. Medicaid officials will look at their financial records going back five years to root out suspicious asset transfers. If they find one, their Medicaid coverage will be delayed a certain length of time, according to a formula that divides the transfer amount by the average monthly cost of nursing home care in their state.
So if, for example, your parent lives in a state where the average monthly nursing home cost is $5,000 and they gave away cash or other assets worth $50,000, they would be ineligible for benefits for 10 months ($50,000 divided by $5,000 = 10).
Spousal Protection
Medicaid also has special rules for married couples when one spouse enters a nursing home and the other spouse remains at home. In these cases, the healthy spouse can keep one half of the couple’s assets up to $120,900 (this amount varies by state), the family home, all the furniture and household goods and one automobile. The healthy spouse is also entitled to keep a portion of the couple’s monthly income – between $2,030 and $3,022. Any income above that goes toward the cost of the nursing home recipient’s care.
What about Medicare?
Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors 65 and older, and some younger people with disabilities, does not pay for long-term care. It only helps pay up to 100 days of rehabilitative nursing home care, which must occur after a hospital stay.
Find Help
For more detailed information, contact your state Medicaid office (see Medicaid.gov for contact information). You can also get help from your State Health Insurance Assistance Program (see ShiptaCenter.org), which provides free counseling on all Medicare and Medicaid issues.
Send your senior questions to: Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit SavvySenior.org. Jim Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today show and author of “The Savvy Senior” book.