Veteran Affairs Patient Satisfaction From Outside Reports

A multitude of investigations were conducted in response to the 2014 VA Scandal with reports and audits showing manipulation of records, long wait times, delays in treatment and overwhelmed caseload by VA practitioners (Wikipedia, n.d., para. 3-7). There are also concerns about the VA’s lack of accountability once

to the Veterans who have served our country. As the organization moves forward they envision

The New York Times article, “Wait Lists Grow as Many More Veterans Seek Care and Funding Falls Far Short” says the Department of Veterans Affairs agency has a new crisis they’re facing. The wait list of Veteran’s is more than 50% higher than it was last year, departments say. They are also facing nearly a $3 billion budget short, which could very well affect the care of our veterans.

They claimed Iraq and Afghanistan veteran polls have been taken, it shows that whatever improvements and actions being were taken were not enough. Fifty-nine percent of the people rated the job the government was doing to help was good, while fifty-six percent rated it as them doing poorly. In an article by CNN news nineteen veterans have died because of delays for medical treatments from the Veterans Affair. Those nineteen veterans were only a small proportion of that group. A number of eight-two veterans who have died because of delays for medical treatments like colonoscopies or endoscopies. Some people like my father (Jason McLain), who is a retired veteran, believes that some doctors have their own personal bias toward veterans. Jason McLain stated, “When I go to the VA they do not help me as soon as I need their help. Although when I go to any other civilian doctor’s office they help me right away with any of their help”. A website by the name of Free Grants Community stated that success and failures of the Departments of Veterans Affair are frequently the subjects of political promises and debates. There are many places that can help with benefits or homelessness, simply anything veteran(active/retired) need. A six-year veteran stated that there are places to help but emphasizes that you have to pursue yourself. After you are done with the military to go back to school and to keep getting educated. Besides the fact the regular ordinary citizens complain that veterans are not getting enough help, there have been complaints against all employers for discrimination has blames the economic crisis and ballooning deficits for the inability to provide for more

The VA System needs a complete over all we are doing a terrible disservices to our veteran’s.

According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, there are more than 1,500 locations to receive treatment and care across the country, which divides up to approximately 30 locations per state. The lack of locations may limit some veterans from receiving the care they desire. “Veterans who utilize VA services have worse health status that the general population” (Nelson, Taylor, Lurie, Escarce, McFarland, & Finn, 2011). This implies that the services offered are not sufficient enough to meet the needs of veterans. According to Jack Downing, President and CEO of Soldier On, “Seventy percent of veterans drive twenty-five miles or more to a VA facility.” These facts prove that we need more access for veterans so that they can get the

In the past few years there has been increasing discussion about how to provide adequate care for the increasing number of veterasn who are eligible for care through the Veterans’ healthcare administration (VHA). There are concerns is that the VHA is not providing the level of access, efficiency, and quality of care that veterans expect. Lee & Begley, (2016) suggest access to care for the veteran population may be resulting in poor health outcomes. In response to these concerns, the Veterans ' Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act (VACAA) of 2014, also known as the Veterans Choice Act, was created to improve Veterans’ healthcare. The VACAA proposed to do this by expanding the number of options veterans have for receiving healthcare, by providing access for healthcare at non-VA care centers as well as providing for an increase in staffing at VA facilities (U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2016).

One of the most serious problems facing all veterans today is the lack of proper healthcare. Soldiers, sailors and airmen are leaving active duty without having proper healthcare to cover their physical or mental injuries. The department responsible for veteran’s healthcare is the Department of Veterans Affairs. (VA) According to The department of Veterans Affairs website, “The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is responsible for administering programs of veterans’ benefits for veterans, their families, and survivors. The benefits provided include disability compensation, pension, education, home loans, life insurance, vocational rehabilitation, survivors’ benefits, medical benefits and burial benefits. It is administered by the United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs.” The VA, who was formerly called the Veterans Administration, was established 21 July 1930, to consolidate and coordinate government activities affecting war veterans. The VA encompassed the functions of the former U.S. Veterans ' Bureau, the Bureau of Pensions of the Interior Department and the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. On 25 October 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation creating a new federal Cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs to replace the Veterans Administration effective 15 March 1989 (V.A.)

The main research questions in this study are: 1) is veteran healthcare equal to private healthcare; 2) do veterans have to wait longer for treatment options; and 3) do veterans have limited treatment options? It is hypothesized that veterans receive inferior healthcare services compared to private healthcare and the community is unaware of the disparities.

The Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) has been tasked with providing support and benefits to Veterans after they have completed their service. However, many Veterans are reporting difficulty accessing care due to systematic barriers within the VA’s Veterans Health Administration (Oliver, 2007). Complex eligibility requirements, long wait lists and lack of providers are a few of the issues Veterans are faced with when trying to access health and mental health care. Additionally, studies indicate that veterans, predominantly those from the recent wars in Iran and Iraq, have disproportionately high amounts of mental illness (Shim & Rust, 2013). These same veterans are experiencing difficulty accessing mental health care due to issues around a backlog of healthcare eligibility applications and a shortage of mental health providers through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), which operates the Nation’s largest, integrated health care delivery system (APA, 2014). In 2014, at the request of the Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) evaluated the merit of the allegations of mismanagement at the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) and the Health Eligibility Center (HEC).

Over the past 15 years, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) has seen a dramatic increase in the average degree of disability, growth in the number of compensation recipients, a rise in the number of medical issues claimed and an increased level of complexity of claimed issues. To illustrate this point, prior to the September 2011 terrorist attacks, 333,700 Veterans received compensation at the 70-100 percent level; however, these figures rose to over 1.1 million by the end of 2013. Additionally, since 2009, VA’s disability compensation workload rose 132 percent. This is in large part due to an unprecedented demand resulting from over a decade of war, military downsizing, economic issues, increased outreach, the addition of presumptive conditions and an aging Veteran population.

The Veterans Health Administration is home to the United States’ largest integrated health care system consisting of 150 medical centers, nearly 1,400 community-based outpatient clinics, community living centers, Vet Centers and Domiciliary. Together these health care facilities and the more than 53,000 independent licensed health care practitioners who work within them provide comprehensive care to more than 8.3 million Veterans each year. VHA Medical Centers provide a wide range of services including traditional hospital-based services such as surgery, critical care, mental health, orthopedics, pharmacy, radiology and physical therapy. In addition, most of the medical centers offer additional medical and surgical specialty services including audiology & speech pathology, dermatology, dental, geriatrics, neurology, oncology, podiatry, prosthetics, urology, and vision

Current funding for veteran healthcare care is low and insufficient because of the large number of veterans, who are being discharged from the military as the country transitions to a democratic President. According to Dr. Rachel Nardin in her article about veteran healthcare, “Soldiers get excellent acute care when injured on active duty, but as revelations of poor conditions for soldiers receiving ongoing outpatient care at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center highlighted, service members often have trouble getting the care they need once active duty ends” (Nardin 1)

Some problems I discovered while doing my research are that many Veterans don't receive proper medical care and it is often hard for them to find. They are not automatically enrolled in Va benefits when they return home and have to apply for them. Those that have access to benefits often find themselves on waiting lists to receive benefits.

Contrary to the perception that our nation’s veterans are well supported in fact many go without the services they require of which they are