Last year, several scandals unfolded involving the Veterans Health Administration. Close to home, the Fort Collins VA hospital falsified its wait times for clinic appointments. To meet the VA goal of clinic appointments within 14 days, the hospital instructed its clerks to “cook the books,” falsifying appointment records to give the illusion that the vets were being seen in a timely manner.
Farther away in Phoenix, the local VA hospital had two separate wait lists for clinic appointments and surgeries. One was the public wait list where everyone received timely appointments. The other was a secret wait list where veterans would wait a year or longer for treatment and where at least 40 veterans died waiting for appointments.
The VA system is the largest integrated health care system in the United States. It consists of 150 medical centers, 1,400 outpatient clinics, and 53,000 health care providers. This is a model of “one stop shopping” health care delivery where all providers are employed by the VA and all care is integrated under one umbrella, all at no cost to the patient.
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