Private doctors for veterans is still not the right answer

The wait for care isn't new. The fact that veterans were sent to private doctors is not new. Nothing that is happening is new even though it is in the news again.

When my husband was being evaluated for his claim, which took six years, one of the doctors he had to see was a private psychiatrist. The kicker is, he filed his claim back in 1993!

Waits for Doctors Vary Widely Outside VA
NBC News
June 13, 2014

Veterans aren't the only ones who can find it tough to get a quick appointment with a new doctor.

There are wide variations in wait times, depending on where you live and what kind of care you're seeking.

Need routine primary care? The average wait to see a family physician for the first time ranged from 66 days in Boston to just five days in Dallas, according to a survey in 15 large cities by health care consulting firm Merritt Hawkins.

And that's before the new federal health care law opened the way for millions of newly insured people to start looking for a doctor.

"To say it's an easy solution to the VA problem — we'll just have them get care in the community — overestimates the capacity the community has to absorb these folks," said Dr. Yul Ejnes of the American College of Physicians.
read more here

As long as we want to pretend this is all shocking, knowing how long it has all been going on is more sickening than anything else.

Here is another reminder in case you forgot.

VA's fee basis care utilization also increased from about 821,000 veterans in fiscal year 2008 to about 976,000 veterans in fiscal year 2012.