VA works to gain vets’ trust after OIG report
Director: Safety nets in place for immediate care
Reports of problems at Veterans Affairs health care facilities nationwide — including here in New Mexico — may be keeping veterans from seeking the care they need, the director of the state’s system said.
“We’ve had situations where people said, ‘I didn’t come to the VA,’ even though we could have helped them, even though they needed us,” New Mexico VA Health Care System Director Andrew Welch told the Journal. “They had not used us before because they had their own perceptions. They delayed their care, which was to their detriment.”
Welch said the state’s system is working on improvements following a report by the Office of Inspector General last month that raised concerns about access and delays in outpatient mental health care at the Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center in Albuquerque and other facilities across the state.
“We had already completed many of the things they suggested that we do,” Welch said of the report, which followed an unan
nounced inspection by the OIG. “We anticipate all of the things in the report will be completed by January. We’re looking forward to showing them we’ve made the improvements that we need to make.”
The OIG inspected the facilities following an anonymous complaint on March 22, 2017. The complaint alleged some patients waited as long as 18 months for appointments or therapy and follow-up was lacking for patients on medication.
The OIG inspected the center in March last year.
The OIG found the facility had high appointment cancellations rates, a lower percentage of appointments completed within Veterans Health Administration time frame goals, and longer wait times for new patients. It found the scheduling staff was not using the electronic wait list and consults were open beyond 90 days.
Several factors contributed to patients’ mental health care access problems and delays, according to the OIG. These factors included provider and scheduling staff shortages and hiring practice delays, underutilization of non-VA care and telemental health services, disproportionate provider productivity, scheduling staff training and supervision issues, and policy noncompliance for pending consults and follow-up with no-show patients or patients who miss their mental health appointments.
Medical Center Chief of Staff James Goff said many of the problems pointed out by the report were no different from ones pointed out in a recent Journal investigation of the state of health care in New Mexico.
“When you look at the wait times in those reports, we have the same challenges,” he said. “We struggle in the exact same ways. The difference is that we have strict prescriptive standards for timeliness and access to care that none of the others (medical facilities) have.”
Welch and Goff said the VA has implemented several measures to address the problems pointed out by the report.
There have also been changes of leadership.
Lorraine Torres-Sena now heads up the Behavioral Health Care Line. The VA has revamped the way it does scheduling for mental health patients, they said, including reassigning clerks under health administration services to ensure scheduling practices are followed. Goff said Torres-Sena and her staff have been very “aggressive” in the recruitment of providers to replace the ones the VA lost. Welch said the VA has doubled its suicide intervention team.
“Even though they did a really deep look into things, we have safety nets for our patients,” Welch said.
Safety nets include the Beacon Clinic at the hospital that treats veterans with mental illness on a walk-in basis. Patients may also use the emergency room. There is also an on-call provider, they said.
“We take any veteran who walks in or calls in in any way, shape or form, and we address it immediately,” Torres-Sena said.
Welch, Goff and Torres-Sena also urge veterans who are in need of help to call the Veterans Crisis Line at 1-800-273-8255.