VA cautious and ‘calculated’ as it reopens
WASHINGTON — As its cases of COVID-19 appear to level off, the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System has moved to allow in-person appointments and is beginning to work through a backlog of exams that determine veterans’ disability ratings, officials said during a virtual town hall Monday.
On June 15, VA Pittsburgh began to gradually expand health care services that were put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Barbara Forsha, deputy director of VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System. She noted the VA Pittsburgh facilities — the hospital on University Drive in Oakland and the Heinz campus in O’Hara — continued to follow federal health guidelines by requiring all visitors to wear masks and distance themselves from others.
“We’re moving back to opening slowly, phased in, in a calculated manner, to ensure safety of all,” Ms. Forsha said.
On Monday, VA Pittsburgh facilities launched VEText, a mobile check-in app that allows patients to text “here” to their health care provider and the provider to send messages back. “It has worked very well,” Ms. Forsha said.
Like other health care providers, the VA dramatically cut back in-person services at its facilities. According to Ms. Forsha, the VA saw 36,623 patient visits from March to May of this year, compared with 120,388 face-to-face visits during the same time frame one year ago.
“Whenever possible, we did change these face-to-face appointments to phone or VA Video Connect,” the agency’s tele-health program, she said.
On the VA’s benefits side, medical exams to determine veterans’ claims for disability benefits will resume as well, said Jennifer Vandermolen, director of the Veterans Benefits Administration’s Pittsburgh regional office. The processing of claims has continued unabated through the pandemic’s stay-at-home orders, she added.
The cancellation of medical exams caused a disruption of veterans’ claims for disability benefits, she said.
“We know there is quite a backlog, so they will be starting with those veterans who are in our priority category,” Ms. Vandermolen said, including in that group
veterans who are homeless, elderly or suffer financial hardship. After those exams are completed, the VA will work through claims in the order they were filed, she said.
The Pittsburgh VA has recorded 76 total cases of COVID-19 at its University Drive hospital in Oakland, according to data updated by the VA at 8 a.m. Monday. Fifteen employees were among those cases.
Seven people are currently infected, while 66 others have recovered, according to the VA’s data. There have been three deaths.
The Pittsburgh VA is ranked near the middle of the 140 VA facilities reporting COVID-19 statistics. It has avoided the outbreaks seen in VA health care systems in New Jersey, New York and New Orleans, all of which reported more than 500 cases and dozens of deaths.
The Pittsburgh VA has so far prevented a surge in VA hospital cases seen in places like San Antonio, Phoenix, Tampa and Columbia, S.C., which reported a high number of cases in the past two weeks, the VA data showed.
Ms. Forsha said the VA Pittsburgh has a committee that monitors the current COVID-19 data on a daily basis to determine next steps, including when to call back health care volunteers.
“We have a plan for how we’ll reopen and bring things back on,” she said. “We will make those decisions when we feel that it’s safe to be able to do that, by looking at the numbers of cases, what’s going on in our community, what’s going on in our organization and as we phase various folks in.
“These are unprecedented times in our world history, and we must continue to prepare for our biggest challenges, which still yet might lay ahead,” Ms. Forsha said.