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.”
Richard Griffin, the VA’s acting inspector general, said his office was investigating 69 government-run VA medical facilities nationwide for possible wrongdoing, up from 42 two weeks ago. The investigations could result in criminal charges, which he said may be needed to combat senior VA leaders who have allowed and even encouraged fraudulent scheduling practices often called “gaming” the system.
“Once someone loses his job or gets criminally charged for doing this, it will no longer be a game. And that will be the shot heard around the system,” Griffin said Monday night at a hearing of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.
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.
Wait times for new patients far exceeded the 14-day goal, the audit said. The wait time for primary-care screening appointment at Baltimore’s VA health care center was almost 81 days. At Canandaigua, New York, it was 72 days. On the other hand, at Coatesville, Pennsylvania, it was only 17 days and in Bedford, Massachusetts just 12 days. The longest wait was in Honolulu – 145 days.
