Longest VA care wait times mostly in South, data show
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — The chronic delays plaguing the Department of Veterans Affairs health system are concentrated in a fraction of its hospitals and clinics — many in the South — that have done far worse than others in delivering prompt care, according to government data.
A year after Americans recoiled at revelations that sick veterans were getting sicker while languishing on waiting lists, VA statistics show that the number of patients facing long waits has not declined, even after Congress gave the department an extra $16.3 billion last summer to shorten waits for care.
Nearly 894,000 appointments completed at VA medical facilities from Aug. 1 to Feb. 28 failed to meet the health system’s timeliness goal, which calls for patients to be seen within 30 days. More than a quarter of those appointments involved a delay of longer than 60 days.
Since the summer, the number of vets waiting more than 30 or 60 days for nonemergency care has largely stayed flat. The number of medical appointments that take longer than 90 days to complete has nearly doubled.
Many occurred in several Southern states, often in areas with a strong military presence, a rural population and patient growth that has outpaced the VA’s sluggish planning process.
Of the 75 clinics and hospitals with the highest percentage of patients waiting more than 30 days for care, 12 are in Tennessee and Kentucky, 11 are in eastern North Carolina and the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, 11 are in Georgia and southern Alabama and six are in north Florida.
Seven others were clustered in the region between Albuquerque, N.M., and Colorado Springs, Colo.
Those 47 clinics and hospitals represent just a fraction of the more than 1,000 VA facilities nationwide, but they were responsible for more than 1 in 5 of the appointments that took longer than 60 days to complete.
That has meant aggravation for veterans like Rosie Noel, a retired Marine gunnery sergeant awarded the Purple Heart in Iraq after shrapnel slashed open her cheek and broke her jaw.
Noel, 47, said it took 10 months for the VA to successfully schedule her for a follow-up exam and biopsy after an abnormal cervical cancer screening test. Her first scheduled appointment in February of 2014 was postponed due to a medical provider’s family emergency, she said. Her makeup appointment at the VA hospital in Fayetteville, N.C., one of the most backed-up facilities in the country, was canceled when she was nearly two hours into the drive from her home in Sneads Ferry on the coast.
The AP examined six months of appointment data at 940 individual VA facilities to gauge changes since a scandal over delays led to the resignation of the VA’s secretary and prompted lawmakers in August to give the VA an additional $16.3 billion to hire doctors, open more clinics and build the new Choice program that allows patients facing long delays to get privatesector care. Data for individual facilities were not available for August.
The analysis reveals stark differences. In the Northeast, Midwest and Pacific Coast states, few VA sites reported having significant delays. A little less than half of all VA hospitals and clinics reported averaging fewer than two appointments per month that involved a wait of more than 60 days.
But at the VA’s outpatient clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., 7,117 appointments completed between Sept. 1 and Feb. 28 involved a wait of more than 60 days.
VA officials cite efforts to ramp up capacity by building health centers and hiring more staff. Between April and December, the system added 8,000 employees. In Fayetteville, the VA is finishing a health center to help alleviate the delays that frustrated veterans like Noel.
But they also acknowledge that in some places, the VA is perpetually behind rising demand. Total enrollees in the VA system ballooned from 6.8 million in 2002 to 8.9 million in 2013.