More than a year after news first surfaced that veterans weren’t getting timely access to care within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system, it’s clear that more needs to be done to meet these patients’ needs. In honor of Veterans Day, Joining Forces Wellness Week will take place Nov. 9-13, giving physicians an important opportunity to serve the men and women who have served our country.
Understanding unique health needs
Joining Forces Wellness Week, cosponsored by the AMA and 10 other health care organizations, will offer five webinars that give insight into how health care professionals can improve the health and care of veterans and service members. Each webinar is worth one continuing medical education credit and will cover such topics as:
- Implications of the military’s service culture for health care professionals
- Generational differences
- Service and resilience among families of veterans and service members
Providing care
Physicians are needed in the Veteran’s Choice Program, which allows veterans to see physicians outside of the VA system if they are having difficulty accessing the medical care they need.
The program allows veterans enrolled in VA health care to receive care from non-VA physicians if they have been or will be waiting for more than 30 days to receive care or live more than 40 miles away from a VA medical care facility. Physicians have responded, but many more participants are needed. Recent VA data shows that about 468,000 appointments were not able to be scheduled within the 30-day time frame.
Read the steps you can take to participate in the Veteran’s Choice Program.
Recommendations for improving the VA health system
While physicians in private practice are rising to the call for providing care to veterans in need, the VA is getting additional assessments of what improvements it needs to make. A recent independent report found four systemic issues that must be addressed to enable the VHA to provide better, more consistent care to veterans and service members:
- A disconnect in the alignment of demand, resources and authorities
- Uneven bureaucratic operations and processes
- Non-integrated variations in clinical and business data and tools
- Leaders who are not fully empowered as a result of a lack of clear authority, priorities and goals
After finding these systemic flaws, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Alliance to Modernize Healthcare provided recommendations under an approach that divides the entire VA health system into four integrated parts that must work together to transform the organization: governance, operations, data and tools, and leadership. “Solving these problems,” the report said, “will demand far-reaching and complex changes that, when taken together, amount to no less than a system-wide reworking of Veterans Health Administration.”
The report delivers a common quote among VA patients and physicians to illustrate the widely varying processes of each VA facility, “If you’ve seen one VA hospital, you’ve seen one VA hospital.” This statement can be turned on its head. Physicians, apply to help through the Veteran’s Choice Program and be the reason that one veteran’s quality of care changes for the better.
