WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley received an acknowledgement from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that veterans have experienced problems with the Veterans Choice program and a pledge to improve services to Iowa veterans and veterans across the country.   Grassley wrote to the VA in January, citing examples of the extreme frustration conveyed to him from Iowa veterans facing difficulty seeing their preferred doctors and a bureaucratic nightmare of telephone holds and referrals simply to make a doctor’s appointment.   

“Congress created the Veterans Choice program to give veterans more options and better control over their own care, not create new hassles,” Grassley said.  “Instead, the VA’s implementation of the Choice Program has been so un-user friendly that veterans in many cases have told me they felt they would have been better off just waiting for an appointment within the VA, even if there is a long wait.  Veterans rightly became frustrated, and I expressed their frustration to the VA.  It’s gratifying for the VA to acknowledge that its implementation of the program has been lacking and promise that it’ll do better going forward.  Veterans earned good medical care, and the VA needs to make sure they get it.” 

Grassley has heard from numerous Iowa veterans that the VA made it extremely difficult for them to schedule appointments through the Veterans Choice program.  The VA did so by routing all appointments for non-VA providers through an outside contractor.  The contractor was not equipped to handle the calls.  

Grassley’s office has been told by the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that the VA, acknowledging its mistake, promised to bring customer service back in-house when issuing the next contract for the Veterans Choice program.  

Congress enacted the Veterans Choice program in light of waiting list scandals and other problems in making sure veterans get needed medical care.  The legislation was intended to give veterans who live far from a VA facility or could not be scheduled for an appointment in a timely manner to seek non-VA care.

Grassley wrote to the VA in January after hearing from Iowa veterans about severe problems with customer service and the Veterans Choice program.  A veteran from West Bend said he called the program at least a dozen times, the shortest wait was 20 minutes, and one day he was on hold for 2.5 hours.  He contacted an advocate who had similar problems.  The veteran wrote, “I thought this VA Choice program was supposed to help the backlog not create one.”

In a response to Grassley, VA Under Secretary for Health David J. Shulkin wrote, “… admittedly, there have been, and continue to be, challenges along the way.  We take your concerns seriously and remain committed to ironing out the issues that have resulted in significant delays for your Veteran constituents and Veterans across the country.”

Shulkin continued, “As stated in your letter, VCP was designed to expedite and improve Veterans' access to health care. The examples in your letter about the issues experienced by some Veterans highlight the need for more robust outreach to Veterans, current VCP providers, non-VCP providers, and VA employees about VCP.” 

Grassley said he will continue to work on the VA’s progress in making the Veterans Choice program successful for veterans.

The VA’s letter to Grassley is available here. 

 

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