Here’s a different view of the VA, from a practicing physician, and an excerpt:
“Nowhere else than at the VA have I felt as much that I was a part of something greater than myself. We “care for him who shall have borne the battle” in a system that, for all its woes, remains a singular presence in the confused patchwork of medical care that is American medicine. Enter the VA medical system and you know that your critical medical data are available to every provider at every VA hospital in the country in ways unimaginable in the private sector; you know that care delivered in the VA system often meets or exceeds the quality standards of the private sector.1You know, moreover, that you and the person sitting next to you in the waiting room will get the same level of care, because there is no mysterious and fickle insurer to reckon with at the end of the appointment.
I don’t know what happened in Phoenix or elsewhere, what those hidden lists hold, what grief lies there. I wish those reporting on this scandal would do more to separate issues of access to care from problems with the quality of care. I do know that, all around the country, physicians who trained at the VA or who have chosen to live out their medical career with the VA have their own hidden lists, their indelible memories of men and women who entrusted their care to us. Let us continue to work for them.”
A second article “Watershed Moment,” summarizes the current problems and what needs to be done. Here’s an excerpt:
“Yet access to care, particularly to outpatient appointments, has been an enduring problem for the VA, as documented in multiple reports from the OIG and the Government Accountability Office (GAO)… A key reason was inconsistency in the recording and tracking of wait times according to the “desired date,” defined as the date by which a patient wants to be seen or a health care provider wants him or her to be seen.1 A preliminary VA audit showed that 13% of scheduling staff — at 64% of the 258 surveyed facilities — had been instructed to enter a different desired date than that requested by the veteran, though it remains unclear what proportion of these changes represents willful falsification.2
There is anecdotal evidence that scheduling issues led to adverse health outcomes for veterans in Phoenix and elsewhere; more systematic assessments are under way. However, there is precedent for concern, since a September 2013 OIG report concluded that delayed gastroenterology consultations for colon-cancer screening had led to delayed diagnoses for more than 50 veterans, some of whom ended up dying of colon cancer.3
Beyond access to care, health system performance should be evaluated on the basis of health outcomes, the quality and safety of the care delivered, patient satisfaction, and costs. In many of these domains, the VA has kept pace with or surpassed private-sector health systems
The VA is a historic institution with a long tradition of providing care to former military service members. In recent years, the agency has made progress in addressing a backlog of disability claims and in sharply reducing veterans’ homelessness. In the 1990s, VA health care, facing a similar crisis of confidence and bipartisan calls for privatization, was transformed into a more technologically advanced, decentralized, and quality-oriented system. Now it needs to protect the best elements of its infrastructure, built around longitudinal, holistic care of each veteran, while embarking on another round of reforms.“
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