New tool sheds light on VA care wait times
NASHVILLE - Some Veterans Health Administration facilities across Tennessee still struggle with wait times as evidenced by the launch of a new website designed to give veterans a sense of what they can expect at locations near them.
The new tool, Access and Quality in VA Healthcare, lists average wait times for a variety of appointments for February as well as satisfaction scores. The online portal launched April 12.
Long patient wait times emerged as a national issue in veterans’ health care, leading to the resignation of VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki in 2014. Wait times for mental health appointments sprung to the fore in late 2016 after the body of a 32-year-old Army National Guard veteran was found on the Veterans Health Administration campus in Murfreesboro.
The Nashville VA Medical Center is still struggling with relatively long wait times. As of February, patients seeking primary care appointments waited an average of 50 days. That was eight days longer than the wait in September 2014, the last time the VA released comparable data.
The online portal is good news for John Krenson, executive director of Operation Stand Down Tennessee, a support group that works with patients at the Nashville VA.
Veterans have relayed both positive and negative experiences with the VA over the past few months in the wake of reporting on quality and wait times at facilities in the state and nationally, Krenson said.
Across the state, the newly released data shows wait times vary, and there have been some changes, both good and bad, since 2014.
Wait times for new mental health patients — an area that has emerged as a flashpoint as more veterans seek care for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries — improved at most of the Tennessee facilities that reported data. Nashville dropped from an average of 20 days in 2014 to 11 days in 2017, and Clarksville dropped from 19 days to five.
Returning patients at the Nashville hospital waited an average of eight days for a primary care appointment in February, the longest wait among the state’s 25 VA medical facilities.
The Clarksville VA Clinic saw a dramatic improvement in wait times, particularly for new patients seeking primary care appointments. In 2014 the wait averaged 72 days, the longest in the state, while in 2017 the figure dropped to 46 days, although that is still the fifthlongest in the state.
Patients at the Memphis VA Medical Center had relatively short wait times compared to veterans at other Tennessee facilities. New primary care patients waited an average of 16 days in 2017, among the fastest five facilities in the state.
The Alvin C. York VA Medical Center in Murfreesboro had longer wait times for new patients seeking primary care appointments. Its average wait increased from 14 days in 2014 to 36 days in 2017. For mental health, however, the center improved from an average of 13 days in 2014 to six days in 2017.
A spokeswoman for the VA in Nashville did not respond by press time to inquiries about wait times and initiatives to bring them down.
The data is not representative of every experience. Some veterans get in with no trouble and have few complaints about care, while others are frustrated with the system.
“Our reality is whatever that particular person experiences,” said Krenson. “It’s whatever that person experiences and you can’t change their mind.”
The ability to search for the average wait time at a facility for a new or return appointment will help set vets’ expectations as they seek care, or reinforce that they are not the only ones with a particular experience, said Krenson.
The VA is now tracking how long it takes to get an appointment from the time a call comes in. Previously it measured against how long it took to schedule from when a patient wanted an appointment.