VA chief vows renewed focus on customer service for veterans

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

On the eve of Veterans Day, the Veterans Affairs Department announced a reorganization Monday designed to make it easier for veterans to gain access to the sprawling department and its maze-ike websites.

VA Secretary Robert McDonald called the restructuring the largest in the department’s history and said it will bring a singular focus on customer service to an agency that serves 22 million veterans.

“As VA moves forward, we will judge the success of all our efforts against a single metric: the outcomes we provide for veterans,” McDonald said. The VA’s mission is to care for veterans, “so we must become more focused on veterans’ needs,” he said.

The VA has been under intense scrutiny since a whistleblower reported this spring that dozens of veterans may have died while awaiting treatment at the Phoenix VA hospital, and that appointment records were manipulated to hide the delays. A report by the department’s inspector general said workers falsified waitlists while their supervisors looked the other way or even directed it, resulting in chronic delays for veterans seeking care and bonuses for managers who appeared to meet on-time goals.

The inspector general’s office identified 40 patients who died while awaiting appointments in Phoenix, but said officials could not “conclusively assert” that the delays caused the deaths.