Pursuit's Take
Congress created the Choice Program in 2014 to address longstanding challenges with veterans’ access to care at VA medical facilities. While the existing Choice Program will expire on or before August 7, 2017, VHA has submitted to Congress a plan for consolidating several programs that provide similar care through non-VA providers into a new, single VA community care program in fiscal year 2018.
Under the Veterans Choice Program (Choice Program), veterans may receive care from non-Veterans Health Administration (VHA) health care providers when timely care from VHA providers is not available or readily accessible.
GAO’s preliminary analysis indicates that veterans who are referred to the Choice Program for routine care because services are not available at VA in a timely manner could potentially wait up to 81 calendar days to obtain care if VAMCs and the TPAs take the maximum amount of time VA allows to accomplish its appointment scheduling process.
GAO’s preliminary analysis also indicates that VHA cannot determine the average overall wait times veterans have actually experienced under the Choice Program because it lacks complete, reliable data to do so.
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