Report: VA Distorts Record on Wait Times

Report: VA Distorts Record on Wait Times

By HOPE YEN – 2 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Veterans Affairs repeatedly understated wait times for injured veterans seeking medical care and in many serious cases forced them to wait more than 30 days, counter to department policy, an internal investigation shows.

The review by the VA inspector general's office, released Monday, examined 700 outpatient appointments for primary and specialty care scheduled in October 2006 at 10 VA medical centers.

It found that the Veterans Health Administration in recent months falsely reported to Congress that nearly all of its appointments — about 95 percent — were scheduled within 30 days of a patient's requested date. In fact, only three in four veterans — 75 percent — received such timely appointments.

Of the veterans kept waiting more than 30 days, 27 percent of them had more serious service-connected disabilities, such as amputees and those with chronic problems including frequent panic attacks. Under VHA policy, such veterans must be scheduled for care within 30 days of their desired appointment date.

In addition, despite warnings by the IG in 2005 to more accurately report wait times, department officials last year also may have understated the number of veterans on their electronic waiting lists by more than 53,000.

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http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jedov4eyrpcVwKphhbZ1-HyXgzpg

I'll bet the bastards cannot even spell "incompetence", much less do anything about it.

or not dealing with.

I posted before that he had contacted that flesh eating bacteria. He was hospitalized for a month. Now that they have gotten all the bacteria, the need to do skin grafting because so much area was exposed and with out skin he could walk. He was transferred to the VA hospital in Minneapolis on Wednesday and tomorrow they are going to operate to remove all the bandages and draft skin. And then a month of rehab. But they got him in right away and operated right away. The thought was it would take a month. Thank goodness this hospital works a little faster.

He's very lucky they were able to arrest the spread of that dreaded disease. Does anyone have a clue how he got it?
I don't know if you remember nostamj, a DUer of note who was a great man. He didn't survive that.