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LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS


Reporting for duty Physicians step up amid VA crisis


The Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Care Center at Harlingen, pictured above, is among the list of Texas VA facilities with the longest average wait times for new patients seeking primary and specialty care, according to federal audit data.


“We are going


to sign up. That’s what we do.”


BY AMY LYNN SORREL As Congress and the embattled U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) work to resolve overwhelming backlogs in medical care for the nation’s veterans, the Texas Medical Association and physicians across the state are enlisting to stand in the gap and help alleviate the documented access-to-care problems. The move comes as VA takes fire for excessive wait times and falsified records over those wait lists. Several senior leaders have resigned. Although the access-to- care problems vary by region, a national audit of the VA system found “systemic problems” that included tens of thousands of veterans who either asked for medical appointments but never received them or ended up on months-long wait lists for their first care visits.


September 2014 TEXAS MEDICINE 33


AP PHOTO/VALLEY MORNING STAR, DAVID PIKE


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