The interim report from the Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general, which details veteran wait times for health care at the Phoenix VA hospital among other areas, is stunning just from a numbers perspective.
18 reports
The number of reports the VA inspector general has issued since 2005 that detailed wait times and scheduling issues at VA hospitals
42 facilities
According to the report, “To date, we have ongoing or scheduled work at 42 VA medical facilities and have identified instances of manipulation of VA data that distort the legitimacy of reported waiting times.”
1,400 veterans, 1,700 veterans
According to the report, “To date, our work has substantiated serious conditions at the Phoenix HCS [Health Care System]. We identified about 1,400 veterans who did not have a primary care appointment but were appropriately included on the Phoenix HCS EWLs [Electronic Wait Lists]. However, we identified an additional 1,700 veterans who were waiting for a primary care appointment but were not on the EWL.”
115 days
According to the report, “VA national data, which was reported by Phoenix HCS, showed these 226 veterans waited on average 24 days for their first primary care appointment and only 43 percent waited more than 14 days. However, our review showed these 226 veterans waited on average 115 days for their first primary care appointment with approximately 84 percent waiting more than 14 days.”
66 percent
The percentage reported in 2013 by Phoenix VA as veterans who had no wait times. The IG took issue with this, saying, “It appears that a significant number of schedulers are manipulating the waiting times of established patients by using the wrong desired date of care. Instead of schedulers using a date based on when the provider wants to see the veteran or when the veteran wants an appointment, the scheduler deviates from VHA’s scheduling policy by going into the system to determine when the next available appointment is and using that as a purported desired date. This results in a false 0-day wait time. We evaluated FY 2013 established patient appointments in primary care and determined that for 66 percent of appointments, Phoenix HCS recorded veterans had no wait time.”
4 years ago
The IG says that all of this was outlined in a 2010 report, saying, “Many of these schemes are detailed in the then Deputy Under Secretary for Health for Operations and Management April 2010 Memorandum on Inappropriate Scheduling Practices. The purpose of the memorandum was to call for immediate action to identify and eliminate VHA’s [Veterans Health Administration] use of inappropriate scheduling practices to improve scores on clinical access performance measures. The memorandum discussed many of the same schemes we identified at Phoenix HCS and other medical facilities throughout VHA.”