WASHINGTON — More than 57,000 U.S. military veterans have been waiting 90 days or more for their first VA medical appointments, and an additional 64,000 appear to have fallen through the cracks, never getting appointments after enrolling, the government said Monday in a report newly demonstrating how deep and widespread the problem is.
It’s not just a backlog issue, the wide-ranging Veterans Affairs review indicated. Thirteen percent of schedulers in the facility-by-facility report on 731 hospitals and outpatient clinics reported being told by supervisors to falsify appointment schedules to make patient waits appear shorter.
The audit is the first nationwide look at the VA network in the uproar that began with reports two months ago of patients dying while awaiting appointments and of cover-ups at the Phoenix VA center. A preliminary review last month found that long patient waits and falsified records were “systemic” throughout the VA medical network, the nation’s largest single health care provider serving nearly 9 million veterans.
“This behavior runs counter to our core values,” the report said. “The overarching environment and culture which allowed this state of practice to take root must be confronted head-on.”
Acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson said Monday that VA officials have contacted 50,000 veterans across the country to get them off waiting lists and into clinics and are in the process of contacting 40,000 more.
The controversy forced VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign May 30. Shinseki took the blame for what he decried as a “lack of integrity” through the network. Legislation is being written in both the House and Senate to allow more veterans who can’t get timely VA appointments to see doctors listed as providers under Medicare or the military’s TRICARE program. The proposals also would make it easier to fire senior VA regional officials and hospital administrators.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the report demonstrated that Congress must act immediately.
“The fact that more than 57,000 veterans are still waiting for their first doctor appointment from the VA is a national disgrace,” Boehner said.
The new audit said a 14-day agency target for waiting times was “not attainable,” given poor planning and a growing demand for VA services as Vietnam-era vets age and younger veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars enter the system. The 2011 decision by senior VA officials to set the target, and then base bonuses on meeting it, was “an organizational leadership failure,” the report said.
At a Monday evening hearing of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Richard Griffin, the VA’s acting inspector general, said he was investigating 69 agency medical facilities nationwide for possible wrongdoing, up from 42 two weeks ago.
A previous inspector general’s investigation into the troubled Phoenix VA Health Care System found that about 1,700 veterans in need of care were “at risk of being lost or forgotten” after being kept off an official, electronic waiting list.
The report issued Monday offers a broader picture of the overall system. The audit includes interviews with more than 3,772 employees nationwide between May 12 and June 3. Respondents at 14 sites reported having been sanctioned or punished over scheduling practices.
Wait times for new patients far exceeded the 14-day goal, the audit said. For example, the wait time for primary care screening appointment at Baltimore’s VA health care center was almost 81 days. At Canandaigua, N.Y., it was 72 days. On the other hand, at Coatesville, Pa., it was only 17 days and in Bedford, Mass., just 12 days. The longest wait was in Honolulu — 145 days.
But for veterans already in the system, waits were much shorter.
Despite the long waiting list, the audit said most veterans seeking care are able to get timely appointments. About 96 percent of the 6 million appointments scheduled at VA facilities as of May 15 were slated within 30 days, the report said.
