There is a Federally funded State program in which innocent victims can get reimbursed for expenses relating to the crime. The Federal government offers incentive$ to the States who develop and institute this program, so most States now have an up and running VOCA program to compensate victims. Any medical expenses related to the crime, including lost wages, disability, dental, eyeglasses, therapy, medicine --all these expenses will be reimbursed.
The following is my experience.
In October 2007 the State of Florida expanded the definition of victim to include any resident even if the attack/crime occurs out-of-state or in another country. Prior to this, if the crime didn't happen in Florida, it wasn't their problem. In May of 2008 I was brutally attacked while I was in Costa Rica.
When I was able to return home I was in denial that anything I saw, felt, tasted, touched, experienced, or happened was real. I was certain that I had died in the jungle or was in a coma in some hospital in Costa Rica and in a bitter-sweet sacrifice my mind had created an escape--an alternate reality, as a coping strategy.
I remember part of the conversation the first time I met my therapist. I told her she wasn't even real and nothing mattered here it was all fake and this was the delusionary world my mind had created to spare Me from the truth. And, anything I did in this world didn't matter because the real Me and the real World were out there. I tried to rationalize with her about my need to find my way back to the real world, and my fears. What if I did figure out how to get back? Would I wake up in some coma, quadriplegic, and be unable to get back to this fake world? What if I got back to the real world and "woke up" and was still being strangled for the umpteenth time face down in the mud and I had only passed out for a brief moment. In the real world I, the real Me, was still being attacked?! I had to get back there so I could continue fighting!!! How can I get back there tell me, please tell me how, I need to get back so I can keep fighting him off of me!! And, if I got back to the real world and discovered I was dead, it would be the final realization and acceptance for my soul to "move on" to the next world. I had completely lost it.
I was living with my grandparents and my grandmother contacted the police department. The Victims Advocate was an angel and basically wrote the application for VOCA for me and sent it in. After 6 months and 10 appeals, including one from VOCA's oversight committee's legal team, I was finally awarded access to the grant. My therapist had been seeing me 3x a week for EMDR sessions and told me during the first few sessions that she was invested in my healing, and if VOCA denied me she would continue to see me pro-bono. I told her, "Of course, because that's what you would say in my dream since you're not even real and when I find my way back you'll disappear, but just so you know I like you and thank you for your generous kindness".
When people said things I wasn't expecting or things happened that weren't right (like having to appeal VOCA 10 times) I reassured myself that these nuances HAD to happen in this fake world otherwise it wouldn't be real enough for me to believe it. This world had to be real just enough in order for my mind to safeguard me from whatever was happening in the real world, so everything couldn't be perfect or I would have never "gone along with it".
Fast forward 1.5yrs since that point.
VOCA had consistently refused to reimburse me for the cost and training of my service dog. It was irrational and my Victims Advocate, the oversight committee, and I could not understand why, nor could we find out why it was denied. I had provided the receipt and letter from my therapist. Finally, 1yr after submitting the original claim for the service dog, in a moment of creative frustration I called in to the VOCA office. This is the conversation:
Me: "Hello, I have a question, does VOCA reimburse for a wheelchair if a victim becomes disabled during an attack?"
Person: "If their application is approved, then yes, anything medically necessary will be reimbursed"
Me: "What about a service dog?"
Person: "Yes, if it was medically necessary and a direct result of the crime."
Me: "Then how come my claim keeps getting denied?"
Person: "Uhh. That's a good question, let me find out"
The person I was speaking with was incredibly nice, smart, and cooperative. He asked his boss, who had to ask their boss, who had to verify with their boss. It turns out that my claim had been denied because there had been no precedence set. No one had ever submitted a claim for a service animal before. My current claims analyst (I hated all of them and they were all pieces of illiterate shitheads) had simply kept denying my claim because it wasn't already listed, or coded, or fking handed to her on a silver platter. They apologized and I think in a way to tactfully cover their ass they told me I needed a note from an MD saying my dog was medically necessary, and since my therapist was not a Doctor, the claim had been denied. **Why I wasn't informed of this earlier is why I think they pulled it cleanly outta their asses.
I went to a psychiatrist the next week, she wrote the note on her scriptpad, I emailed it to the boss' boss (bypassing the fktard analyst finally!), and 1 week later I got the check in full.
In summation about VOCA:
My therapy, acupuncture, chiropractic, and other medical bills from the US were paid quickly and cleanly with no problems. Checks usually arrived a week later. Sometimes the practitioner was familiar with VOCA and would submit directly. VOCA is not insurance and many "gatekeepers" at a doctor's office refused me because they thought it was some sort of Medicaid. Telling them the Dr would be paid in full in the following week from the State was a story they NEVER believed, and I don't blame them. When this happens, just pay for it and submit the receipt and get the check yourself.
Getting the initial acceptance was hard and my advocate straightup told them they were re-victimizing me. They denied my initial claim saying there was no proof a crime had occurred. Um. Are you fking kidding me? After getting no where for 6 months, my advocate contacted the oversight committee and their legal team figured out the stupid claims analyst 1) Yes, had gotten my application with the supporting materials and 2) Since there was no police report had denied it without further review.
Ok, but we submitted the criminal report, the FBI line-up, proof that he is in jail, and we are awaiting trial.
"But there wasn't a police report"
"BITCH, IT HAPPENED IN FKING COSTA RICA, THERE ARE NO POLICE REPORTS. THIS IS THE FBI REPORT AND IF A CRIME NEVER HAPPENED THEN WHY THE FK WOULD A MAN BE BEHIND BARS AND AN UPCOMING TRIAL?????"
Clearly the fkstick claims analyst couldn't understand that police reports didn't always lead to trial, or catching the bad guy, or whatever. Police reports only officially documented that a crime had occurred. BUT, putting a man behind bars and an upcoming trial trumps police report. At that point it's a given that a crime has occurred...unless, of course, you are a claims analyst for the State of Florida.
3 days later I received a letter saying my application was accepted and I had access to VOCA grant money.
Also, all the documents I submitted with the application were in Spanish and my claims analyst didn't speak Spanish, so she couldn't read it and just denied it. When my advocate asked her if she had the documents translated, the claims analyst said, "Yes, and there's no police report." When I called into the VOCA office and asked about receiving a copy of the translated documents, they were confused because the documents had never been translated. She had lied.
What I would like to say to my original claims analyst: THERE'S A FKING BI-LINGUAL ANALYST SITTING NEXT TO YOU, WHY DID YOU, MY REDNECK SHITASS ANALYST, GET MY CASE-FILE AND NOT THE SPANISH-SPEAKING ANALYST SITTING IN THE CUBICLE NEXT TO YOURS????? WHY COULDN'T YOU ASK HIM TO TRANSLATE???
My Advice:
NEVER deal with or talk to the claims analyst. ALWAYS speak to their boss. Even the person who answers the phone for the analysts, probably because the analysts lack the intelligence to even answer a phone, is a great resource. Never, never, never deal with the claims analyst. I went through a few and the new one is always astoundingly more retarded than the previous one.
The following is my experience.
In October 2007 the State of Florida expanded the definition of victim to include any resident even if the attack/crime occurs out-of-state or in another country. Prior to this, if the crime didn't happen in Florida, it wasn't their problem. In May of 2008 I was brutally attacked while I was in Costa Rica.
When I was able to return home I was in denial that anything I saw, felt, tasted, touched, experienced, or happened was real. I was certain that I had died in the jungle or was in a coma in some hospital in Costa Rica and in a bitter-sweet sacrifice my mind had created an escape--an alternate reality, as a coping strategy.
I remember part of the conversation the first time I met my therapist. I told her she wasn't even real and nothing mattered here it was all fake and this was the delusionary world my mind had created to spare Me from the truth. And, anything I did in this world didn't matter because the real Me and the real World were out there. I tried to rationalize with her about my need to find my way back to the real world, and my fears. What if I did figure out how to get back? Would I wake up in some coma, quadriplegic, and be unable to get back to this fake world? What if I got back to the real world and "woke up" and was still being strangled for the umpteenth time face down in the mud and I had only passed out for a brief moment. In the real world I, the real Me, was still being attacked?! I had to get back there so I could continue fighting!!! How can I get back there tell me, please tell me how, I need to get back so I can keep fighting him off of me!! And, if I got back to the real world and discovered I was dead, it would be the final realization and acceptance for my soul to "move on" to the next world. I had completely lost it.
I was living with my grandparents and my grandmother contacted the police department. The Victims Advocate was an angel and basically wrote the application for VOCA for me and sent it in. After 6 months and 10 appeals, including one from VOCA's oversight committee's legal team, I was finally awarded access to the grant. My therapist had been seeing me 3x a week for EMDR sessions and told me during the first few sessions that she was invested in my healing, and if VOCA denied me she would continue to see me pro-bono. I told her, "Of course, because that's what you would say in my dream since you're not even real and when I find my way back you'll disappear, but just so you know I like you and thank you for your generous kindness".
When people said things I wasn't expecting or things happened that weren't right (like having to appeal VOCA 10 times) I reassured myself that these nuances HAD to happen in this fake world otherwise it wouldn't be real enough for me to believe it. This world had to be real just enough in order for my mind to safeguard me from whatever was happening in the real world, so everything couldn't be perfect or I would have never "gone along with it".
Fast forward 1.5yrs since that point.
VOCA had consistently refused to reimburse me for the cost and training of my service dog. It was irrational and my Victims Advocate, the oversight committee, and I could not understand why, nor could we find out why it was denied. I had provided the receipt and letter from my therapist. Finally, 1yr after submitting the original claim for the service dog, in a moment of creative frustration I called in to the VOCA office. This is the conversation:
Me: "Hello, I have a question, does VOCA reimburse for a wheelchair if a victim becomes disabled during an attack?"
Person: "If their application is approved, then yes, anything medically necessary will be reimbursed"
Me: "What about a service dog?"
Person: "Yes, if it was medically necessary and a direct result of the crime."
Me: "Then how come my claim keeps getting denied?"
Person: "Uhh. That's a good question, let me find out"
The person I was speaking with was incredibly nice, smart, and cooperative. He asked his boss, who had to ask their boss, who had to verify with their boss. It turns out that my claim had been denied because there had been no precedence set. No one had ever submitted a claim for a service animal before. My current claims analyst (I hated all of them and they were all pieces of illiterate shitheads) had simply kept denying my claim because it wasn't already listed, or coded, or fking handed to her on a silver platter. They apologized and I think in a way to tactfully cover their ass they told me I needed a note from an MD saying my dog was medically necessary, and since my therapist was not a Doctor, the claim had been denied. **Why I wasn't informed of this earlier is why I think they pulled it cleanly outta their asses.
I went to a psychiatrist the next week, she wrote the note on her scriptpad, I emailed it to the boss' boss (bypassing the fktard analyst finally!), and 1 week later I got the check in full.
In summation about VOCA:
My therapy, acupuncture, chiropractic, and other medical bills from the US were paid quickly and cleanly with no problems. Checks usually arrived a week later. Sometimes the practitioner was familiar with VOCA and would submit directly. VOCA is not insurance and many "gatekeepers" at a doctor's office refused me because they thought it was some sort of Medicaid. Telling them the Dr would be paid in full in the following week from the State was a story they NEVER believed, and I don't blame them. When this happens, just pay for it and submit the receipt and get the check yourself.
Getting the initial acceptance was hard and my advocate straightup told them they were re-victimizing me. They denied my initial claim saying there was no proof a crime had occurred. Um. Are you fking kidding me? After getting no where for 6 months, my advocate contacted the oversight committee and their legal team figured out the stupid claims analyst 1) Yes, had gotten my application with the supporting materials and 2) Since there was no police report had denied it without further review.
Ok, but we submitted the criminal report, the FBI line-up, proof that he is in jail, and we are awaiting trial.
"But there wasn't a police report"
"BITCH, IT HAPPENED IN FKING COSTA RICA, THERE ARE NO POLICE REPORTS. THIS IS THE FBI REPORT AND IF A CRIME NEVER HAPPENED THEN WHY THE FK WOULD A MAN BE BEHIND BARS AND AN UPCOMING TRIAL?????"
Clearly the fkstick claims analyst couldn't understand that police reports didn't always lead to trial, or catching the bad guy, or whatever. Police reports only officially documented that a crime had occurred. BUT, putting a man behind bars and an upcoming trial trumps police report. At that point it's a given that a crime has occurred...unless, of course, you are a claims analyst for the State of Florida.
3 days later I received a letter saying my application was accepted and I had access to VOCA grant money.
Also, all the documents I submitted with the application were in Spanish and my claims analyst didn't speak Spanish, so she couldn't read it and just denied it. When my advocate asked her if she had the documents translated, the claims analyst said, "Yes, and there's no police report." When I called into the VOCA office and asked about receiving a copy of the translated documents, they were confused because the documents had never been translated. She had lied.
What I would like to say to my original claims analyst: THERE'S A FKING BI-LINGUAL ANALYST SITTING NEXT TO YOU, WHY DID YOU, MY REDNECK SHITASS ANALYST, GET MY CASE-FILE AND NOT THE SPANISH-SPEAKING ANALYST SITTING IN THE CUBICLE NEXT TO YOURS????? WHY COULDN'T YOU ASK HIM TO TRANSLATE???
My Advice:
NEVER deal with or talk to the claims analyst. ALWAYS speak to their boss. Even the person who answers the phone for the analysts, probably because the analysts lack the intelligence to even answer a phone, is a great resource. Never, never, never deal with the claims analyst. I went through a few and the new one is always astoundingly more retarded than the previous one.
