Veterans newly enrolling for health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs and requesting an appointment can endure a months-long wait before they first see a medical provider, according to an audit issued Monday.
(WashingtonPost)- The Government Accountability Office also said that the department’s method of measuring wait times understates the delay a veteran experiences.
The average waiting time — as measured from the time veterans requested that VA contact them to schedule appointments to when they were seen — at the six medical centers GAO studied ranged from 22 to 71 days. Of the 180 veterans GAO tracked, 60 still hadn’t been seen by the time the auditors ended their review last month, in several cases because VA never followed up on their requests to be contacted or because of other administrative errors.
In addition, wait times “varied widely, even within the same medical center,” and 12 of those who were seen had waited more than 90 days.
“These time frames were impacted by limited appointment availability and weaknesses in medical center scheduling practices, which contributed to unnecessary delays,” the report said.
The report was issued ahead of a House Veterans Affairs’ Committeehearing on Tuesday, two years after a hearing there helped trigger a flood of revelations that veterans had been enduring long waits for care and that some patient records had been fudged to hide it.
“This report proves what we’ve long known: wait-time manipulation continues at VA and the department’s wait-time rhetoric doesn’t match up with the reality of veterans’ experiences,” Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), the committee chairman, said in a statement. “But given the fact that VA has successfully fired just four people for wait-time manipulation while letting the bulk of those behind its nationwide delays-in-care scandal off with no discipline or weak slaps on the wrist, I am not at all surprised these problems persist.”