Comment on AO01-Proposed Rule-Nelson, Ted J.

I am a Manager of a 5 county transportation provider in rural Minnesota; currently we provide 80,000 rides yearly. I know this grant is needed to help with getting our veterans to and from the medical appointments. I am a 20 year retired veteran myself. I know that we have many older and younger veterans in our area who need this to get to and from appointment. The nearest VA hospital is 3 hours away for most of us out here. Being able to set up a one call to arrange rides and to have the technology in place to make coordination allot easier is needed. Currently the five counties are coordinating the rides themselves this takes away from what the VA Reps are here to do and for them to only have to make one call and it is all taken care of for them is what they need so they can focus on the needs of the veterans. We have public transit facilities already arranging rides on a daily basis we should rely on them and with new technology and the ability to have a single number that has access to all transportation providers in the area could have the capability of saving allot of tax payer money and would be so much easier and streamline and coordinate these rides providing better reliable service to the veterans using these services. I have heard of many veterans not wanting to use some of the transportation services out here because once they get to the hospital they have to wait for all the other vets to be done, who wants to wait 4 or 5 hours after your appointment for a ride home? Would you? I don’t think so, is this how we should be treating our vets or anyone for that matter? I lived hurry up and wait for a long time and for many of these vets this is not the time they should be doing that.