“Slow-Rolling” Appointments: Not Just at Larger VA Medical Centers Anymore
It seems as if the VA appointment “record-keeping issue” is indeed widespread, and possible systemic. The Army Times is reporting that VA investigators are now looking at the Cheyenne, WY, VA Medical Center (VAMC).
A nurse – who’s now been suspended from duty – at the Cheyenne VAMC allegedly told employees there to falsify appointment records. According to Wyoming’s congressional delegation, “the department only took action against the nurse after an email about ‘gaming the system’ surfaced in media reports.”
Additionally, two employees at the Durham, NC, VAMC were placed on leave last week for “inappropriate scheduling practices”. Investigations have also been started at VA hospitals in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado.
Oh, and the problem apparently has been under investigation for a while, too. The VA OIG apparently began investigating similar complaints of “hidden” wait times at the Albequerque VAMC months before the scandal broke in Phoenix.
If the problem is this widespread – and has been under investigation for months – that tells me senior VA leadership indeed needs to go. IMO, that means either they were complicit in the practice or were completely out of touch with reality. In either case they’ve proven they’re simply not able to do their job.
Category: Crime, Legal, Veteran Health Care, Veterans Issues, Veterans' Affairs Department
It’s a damn shame that veterans had to die to bring this to light. The upper level leadership of the VA needs to be fired and then charged with some form of manslaughter.
Do they think this is restricted to health care? Someone should look at some of the other programs, like VR&E.
With healthcare reform, now this will be extended to everybody…
actually, upper management is probably the least culpable in this mess. It’s the mid-level people that know and run day-to-day operations and who know what is going on in their sections and offices. Changing the captain of a ship that’s capsized isn’t going to help the ship. It’s just a feel-good measure with a smidgeon of payback thrown in. Real change begins in the middle in large orgs. This is government. No one is going to come in, as happens in the private sector, and effect the painful changes that are needed. The only such action I recall in modern history is when the ATCs went on strike and Reagan gave them the ultimatum. They thought he was bluffing. They thought wrong.
2/17 – there may be a few in upper management, but this was probably blessed at the local hospital and maybe regional level… but we all know that the only thing that senior VA management will do is “move” these administrators around or they will “retire” out of convenience.
Who does the work of the VA? The chief administrators, the political appointees? Hell no. The work is done by those who leave early most Fridays, turn a three-day weekend into a four or five day mini vacation, who kill most of a workday BSing with co-workers, gabbing on the phone to friends, and complaining about how much work they have to do rather than just doing it. Who sees this? Who is charged with responding to this? Who approves the leave requests? Sure, fire the big dogs. I’m good with that. Just don’t expect anything to change because it won’t.
Sadly, the VA is another shining example of .gov run initiative. Soon, a large chunk of America will understand what special levels of Hell the left has brought down upon the masses first hand under the guise of the Affordable Healthcare Act (aka Obamacare)…. I predict a few years from now when the public outcry about lack of funding on the public sector gets louder – they’ll pass mandates allowing the masses access to the VA – where special protected classes of citizens will get priority access….
Offered without comment:
source: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/representative-calls-va-deaths-national-crisis-eve/nfw58/
Not in any way tring to diminish those numbers, but roughly 195,000 people annually die as a result of medical malpractice. So those 12 malpractice claims of deaths per year discovered at VA Hospitals is well below the national average.
Again, I am not trying to diminish the deaths at all, and even one is too many. But that is .000062% of all deaths in the USA due to medical malpractice.
Yer math’s a touch off, rb325th – that works out to somewhat less than 93/year, system wide, over a 13 year period vice 12/year.
Still, I’m reasonably sure you’re essentially correct. I’d like to see the actual rate statistics to be sure, but I’m fairly sure they’d prove you are.
Medically, the VA IMO does a decent to good job. However, from what I’ve seen administratively IMO they suck the Grand Wazoo.
This is almost certainly just another example of someone looking for a sound bite – and an American public so ignorant about math that they fall for manipulative BS like this tripe.
Sitting in the corner with the dunce cap now… Hate when I do that to myself.
Still, the numbers while not great and regrettable are not even close to being at the same level of incompetence seen nationally.
Administratively the VA sucks ass,and that begins at the upper levels of leadership and works its way down. Upper managment are the damned POGs who if they ever were actually working for a living, it was sometime way in their past and they have forgotten what it is like.
Congress says; “hey VA, you are not seeing patients soon enough”. So the VA Solution is not to spend more money (because they cannot get it from congress, and they arn’t going to cut their personal budget), instead they create a new benchmark for performance to be met, one totally unrealistic in face of the workload of the VAMC’s of course. So now the Administrators there are working to ensure that they meet the “standard”, instead of actually improving care. It is a numbers game to the Admin side, they forget the numbers are attached to real people.
They are forcing already overworked VAMC’s who could use more doctors and other resources to meet even more difficult goals.
There is enough blame to be had by all concerned. The VA and the Politicians.
No offense intended, amigo; I hope none was taken.
Hell, I’ve done exactly the same myself (mental math error) more times than I like to think about. As a result, I make extensive use of a calculator these days – and do most calculations twice to make sure I didn’t enter the numbers incorrectly. (smile)
Remember Obama;’s kerfuffel about the slow appointment of liberal judges by Congress? Well, it seems the Obama Administration was more livid about the delay of the appointments of liberal judges than they were for the appointments of veterans in need of care for fatal medical conditions.
This government is beyond broken. It is entirely in business for itself and adrift from the people it purports to represent.
Hey, AP. When did you get released? How’s parole working out? Just kidding. AP used to comment regularly and then, like a snowflake on the water, he was gawn.
Maybe like me, he’s an AT&T DSL subscriber.
Govt bureaucracy can’t scratch their own ass without getting trained and certified first. They were trained to do this shit.