The Department of Veterans Affairs has largely fallen short of its goal to see patients within 30 days of the preferred time of care, despite that the system has hired 8,000 employees between April and December, started opening new health centers and added the Choice program, according to The Associated Press.
AP analyzed six months of data to track the progress of the VA after the appointment delay scandal last year led the government to give the VA $16.3 billion in funds last August to fix the problem.
Below are six key takeaways from the AP analysis.
- The number of appointments with wait times between 30 and 90 days has not improved.
- Nearly 894,000 appointments between Aug. 1, 2014 and Feb. 28, 2015 involved a delay of more than 30 days.
- Of those appointments, approximately 232,000 clocked wait times of more than 60 days.
- More than one in five of the appointments with waits of more than 60 days came from 47 clinics and hospitals across Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, New Mexico and Colorado. Many of these southern facilities have a strong military presence and increased patient growth, exacerbating the problem, according to AP.
- Slightly less than half of all VA facilities in Northeast, Midwest and Pacific Coast states that reported fewer than two appointments per month on average had a delay of more than 60 days.
- Approximately 46,000 patients made appointments through the Choice program, which allows veterans to seek care in the private sector. The VA had 8.9 million enrollees in 2013, according to AP.
However, AP notes that the number of appointments executed at VA facilities between May and February increased 4.5 percent year over year.
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