A group of 24 veterans organizations signed a letter slamming the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) under Secretary Denis McDonough’s leadership for allegedly stonewalling veterans’ access to timely medical care when the VA bureaucracy fails to meet their needs.
The letter, which was sent Monday and obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation, accused the Biden-Harris VA of undertaking a “concerted and strategic effort” to hinder veterans from accessing community care options when direct VA care is not immediately available. Community Cares, a Trump-era program greenlit in 2018 as part of the VA MISSION Act, allows veterans to get specific care from non-VA providers if the department approves the request.
Specifically, the letter calls on McDonough to approve community care referrals made by VA physicians and to remove “Referral Coordination Teams” that judge if any given referral by a physician is “clinically appropriate.”
“Mr. Secretary, while these last approximately 50 days of the Biden-Harris Administration may seem like a minute for government agencies, for the sick veterans waiting for health care and getting the bureaucratic runaround from [Veterans Health Administration] VHA almost two months can be a lifetime, both figuratively and literally,” the letter reads. “The Trump-Pence administration was clear as to what their regulatory intent was with regard to community care access in their original June 2019 community care access standard regulation.”
The VA also blamed budgetary constraints within the department on the existence of community care options, despite the fact that a patient only becomes eligible if direct VA care is not available, according to the letter.
The VA allegedly abuses inaccurate wait time numbers, which allows the VA to skimp on providing community care options to patients by inputting their date of inquiry in the VA system 20 to 28 days later, according to the letter. The practice gives the VA more time to allow the direct VA care system to take the request when community care could’ve provided it earlier, according to the letter. The organizations’ advocated for an external scheduling system that the letter claims would speed up care considerably.
“The budgetary facts do not support the argument that community care is somehow robbing Direct VA Care,” the letter reads. “Instead, it’s clear VHA can’t provide adequate and timely Direct VA Care, but apparently it is trying to protect those Direct VA care dollars for veteran patients that cannot be seen.”
The signatories include the National Defense Committee, U.S. Navy Association, Military Order of the Purple Heart and Mission: POW/MIA, along with 20 other organizations.
VA press secretary Terrence Hayes told the DCNF in a statement that the direct VA care system is seeing record-high usage and trust from its patients, saying the VA care system is “proven to be the best care in America for Veterans.”
“Whenever it takes too long to get a Veteran access to needed care at a VA facility (or if they would have to drive too far), we ensure that they get care from a community provider,” Hayes said. “Veterans eligible for community care can always choose to receive care from a provider in VA’s community care network.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include comment from the VA.
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