White House Review of Veterans Administration Finds 'Corrosive Culture'
Friday, 27 Jun 2014 10:59 PM
The department must address “significant and chronic systemic failures” and restructure the Veterans Health Administration, which oversees more than 1,700 facilities delivering health care to military veterans, it said.
The departmnt also needs to hire more doctors and other health care professionals, the report concludes.
Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee issued this statement:
“It appears the White House has finally come to terms with the serious and systemic VA health care problems we’ve been investigating and documenting for years. While it’s extremely unfortunate President Obama did not heed our warnings about the very real and very deadly problems within the VA health care system sooner, we stand ready to work with stakeholders inside and outside the administration to institute VA reforms that will improve services to America’s veterans while bringing real accountability and efficiency to the department.”
The White House released the report summary after Nabors delivered it to Obama during a meeting that also included acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson. Obama asked Nabors to remain in his temporary role assisting the VA.
Former VA secretary Eric Shinseki stepped down May 30 amid a growing scandal over revelations of extended waits for veterans seeking medical appointments and alleged falsification of records regarding those wait times.
An internal VA audit of 731 veterans’ medical facilities released June 9 found more than 120,000 veterans were either waiting for care longer than 90 days or hadn’t received an appointment. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Phoenix office is conducting a criminal investigation of the delays.
Manipulated Records
An earlier review, before Shinseki resigned, found scheduling staff were told to manipulate appointments to cover up wait times at 64 percent of VA facilities.
As part of the effort to speed care to veterans, Nabors’ report suggests convening a panel of health-care experts and industry leaders to develop a set of best practices. It also cautions against using performance measures, such as wait-time data, as a gauge of the quality of care.
Congress is working on legislation that would authorize billions of dollars to shorten long wait times for veterans seeking medical care at Veterans Affairs facilities and to make it easier to fire employees at the agency.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Senate version would cost as much as $35 billion over 10 years while the House version would double VA health spending and cost as much as $44 billion over five years. A House-Senate conference committee will resume talks on the measure next month when Congress returns to Washington.
The VA has an influx of patients as about half of the 1.9 million troops discharged after serving in Afghanistan or Iraq return to the U.S. in need of medical care, according to VA data. The department operates the U.S.’s largest integrated health system.
© AFP 2014
