More Than 2,000 Veterans Are Waiting For An Appointment Outside The VA

[Revmitchell]

More than 2,000 veterans are languishing, waiting for an appointment outside the Veteran Affairs (VA) system at the Overton Brooks VA Medical Center (OBVAMC) in Shreveport, La.

“As a VA employee/whistleblower and United States Army Veteran, it is my unpleasant duty to report to you that the Overton Brooks Veteran Affairs Medical Center (OBVAMC) in Shreveport, Louisiana currently has over 2,000 veterans waiting in the non-VA care and choice system,” Christopher Shea Wilkes wrote to the White House on Aug. 17.

Wilkes, an Army veteran, is a mental health social worker at the OBVAMC, and he originally blew the whistle on secret wait lists there in 2014.

“As of August 15, 2017, a large number of our veterans at the OBVAMC are waiting to simply be given an appointment that has to be scheduled to non-VA care, Choice first, and/or Choice 30,” Wilkes continued in the letter. “Other veterans are waiting for the documentation from their outside appointment with a non-VA provider to be downloaded from the TriWest portal and uploaded into the VA system. This is not only a VA facility problem. A significant portion of the blame falls on the TriWest system.”

More Than 2,000 Veterans Are Waiting For An Appointment Outside The VA

 

[Squire Robertsson]

It's stories like this one that causes me to say, "Praise the Lord's Providential Blessing." for the San Francisco VA system.

 

[Mr. Davis]

It's stories like this one that causes me to say, "Praise the Lord's Providential Blessing." for the San Francisco VA system.

Ditto for the Palo Alto VA system.

 

[Squire Robertsson]

Yeup, here in the Bay Area, the VA can draw on Stanford Medical, UCSF and USF Nursing for residents (MD and NP). This gives the local VA the affordable, well-qualified manpower it needs to fully staff its positions.

Ditto for the Palo Alto VA system.

 

[tyndale1946]

Ditto for the Palo Alto VA system.

I know this is not true in all places as some have said but you know what there should be a tomb for the unknown VA soldier who after serving their country had to wait in some bureaucratic red line to receive benefits owed them... If you served you deserve... Now if I told you what I really thought Squire would ban me... You all know what I'm saying... Oooorah!... VA get your act together!... Brother (once a Marine always a Marine) Glen

 

[Squire Robertsson]

Glen, I'm not down playing the often fatal problems the VA has in other parts of the country. In the Providence of God, I live where the VA works properly for me. Other places either

• don't have
• or haven't figured out how to work with

major, large enrollment medical schools.

 

[church mouse guy]

Veterans should be given something like Medicare and allowed to obtain medical care wherever they want because no one can make VA work since different presidents have varying degrees of concern, as you know.