Category: Veterans’ Affairs Department

Stars & Stripes reports that Senator Tom Coburn’s office released a report entitled “Friendly Fire: Death, Delay, and Dismay at the VA”, the results of a study for more than a year in which they charge that more than a thousand veterans have died as a direct result of their treatment, or mistreatment, by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs;

The report identifies $20 billion in waste and mismanagement that the authors say could have been better spent providing health care to veterans. Most disturbingly, it alleges that poor patient care and mismanagement at the hands of the VA may have led to the deaths of more than 1,000 veterans.

Coburn partly blames Congress for some of the problems identified in the report.

“The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee largely ignored the warnings about delays and dysfunction at the VA for decades, abdicating its oversight responsibilities and choosing to make new promises to veterans rather than making sure those promises already made were being kept,” Coburn said in a press release.

Corburn, who is not a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, charges that the committee has had only two oversight hearings in the last four years.

From the Stars & Stripes we read that the on-going audit of regional Veterans’ Affairs medical facilities is finding even more veterans who are waiting for their appointments to see doctors;

The updated report includes new figures showing that the wait times actually experienced at most VA facilities were shorter than those on waiting lists for pending appointments. For instance, new patients at the Atlanta VA hospital waited about an average of 44 days for an appointment in April, the new report said. But the average wait for pending appointments at Atlanta was 66 days.

Similar disparities in average wait times were found around the country. Pending appointments, for example, don’t include patients who walk into a clinic and get immediate or quick treatment, VA officials said.

Like I’ve said, these are regional problems. I’ve never had a problem getting appointments within days, but my local clinic, in Cumberland, MD, rides herd on our appointments and they do a very good job. I’ve even had video appointments in the local clinic with doctors a hundred or so miles away. I think it’s all about how seriously the administrative folks take their jobs. Dealing with a smaller clinic that has connections to the community seems to serve veterans better.

But, Captain Obvious, the interim Secretary of the department, is on the job;

“In many communities across the country, veterans wait too long for the high quality care they’ve earned and deserve,” acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson said Thursday.

The department has reached out to 70,000 veterans to get them off waiting lists and into clinics, Gibson said, “but there is still much more work to be done.”

By the way, I just paid for my lifetime membership in the American Legion as a direct result of their work trying to help the VA straighten out this mess in Phoenix. That what the VSOs are supposed to do and they seem to be doing a good job of it.

Paul sends us a link to the New York Times which reports that “V.A. Punished Critics on Staff, Doctors Assert“;

The federal Office of Special Counsel, which investigates whistle-blower complaints, is examining 37 claims of retaliation by V.A. employees in 19 states, and recently persuaded the V.A. to drop the disciplining of three staff members who had spoken out. Together with reports to other watchdog agencies and the Times interviews, the accounts by V.A. whistle-blowers cover several dozen hospitals, with complaints dating back seven years or longer.

[…]

[Dr. Jacqueline Brecht, a former urologist at the Alaska V.A. Healthcare System in Anchorage] complaints were corroborated by other Alaska personnel and were the subject of an email that Dr. Brecht sent to a military doctor at the time. Dr. Brecht wrote that administrators “schedule fake patient appointments (i.e. commit FRAUD).” They do so, she wrote, “just so our numbers look good to DC (and the administrators get their bonuses for these numbers).”

It’s a cultural thing, something that won’t go away easily or with the firing of their Secretary.

The Associated Press reports that an internal audit by the VA reports that 57,000 veterans have been waiting for more than three months for appointments with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs healthcare system. Additionally, 64,000 have never been seen by a VA doctor;

Examining 731 VA hospitals and large outpatient clinics, the audit found long wait times across the country for patients seeking their first appointments with both primary care doctors and specialists.

The audit said a 14-day target for waiting times was “not attainable,” given growing demand for VA services and poor planning. It called the 2011 decision by senior VA officials setting it, and then basing bonuses on meeting the target “an organizational leadership failure.”

13% of the people who schedule appointments for veterans report that they were instructed by the supervisors to account for the long wait times creatively (not in the interest of the veteran, but rather in the interest of the bureaucrats).

Acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson said the audit showed “systemic problems” that demand immediate action. VA officials have contacted 50,000 veterans across the country to get them off waiting lists and into clinics, Gibson said, and are in the process of contacting an additional 40,000 veterans.

But, we should have waited for Shinseki to pull his head from his nether regions and things would have got better faster. That was sarcasm, in case some of you internet sharpshooters don’t recognize it.