Whether it is waiting three hours on the phone to speak to a doctor or not being able to make a doctor’s appointment for eight months, veterans are having a difficult time trying to see doctors. The lack of doctors and their minimal time to see the veteran patients are causing the veteran to wait an excessive amount of time.
Congress thought they resolved this issue by creating the Veterans Choice program in 2014. This law expanded the number of options that veterans had for receiving health care. The goal of this act was to provide veterans with visits to the physician’s offices in a timely manner. Their attempt to solve the waiting issue appears to have actually made it worse. There is an increase in the demand for care and the doctors and offices are not prepared for the influx of patients.
Doctors are having issues with this act as well because when they finally see the patients, they are not being paid in a timely manner for the visit. It is taking months for doctors to receive the payments from the patients and the VA and this is causing them to become frustrated. Yes they want to help the veterans, but they can’t continue to help them if they won’t receive the payment on time. In the end, both the lack of doctors and lack of paying for care is really causing issues for veterans to seek health care.
Clearly it is an issue that needs to be fixed. For many of our veterans the VA system is the only source of medical help, and right now it is a system that is in need of repair.