Youngstown VA clinic gets thumbs up, but wait times still lag

YOUNGSTOWN

The consensus is that the Youngstown Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic provides quality health care.

But because the facility is too small for the population served, getting an appointment with a medical specialist or for mental-health services can sometimes take a month or more, said several veterans who use the clinic.

The problem, called “wait time,” is not unique to the Youngstown facility, however.

The VA began auditing and reporting wait times last spring after a scandal over attempts at many of its facilities to cover up delays by manipulating the medical network’s scheduling system, according to The Associated Press.

One initiative is the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act, signed by President Barack Obama in August 2014, which made $16.3 billion available to

reduce wait times.

Part of the act is the VA’s new Choice Program, intended to ease wait times by giving vets the option of getting care outside the VA system, which requires a referral from the VA.

However, through February 2015, just 27,000 patients had made appointments for private-sector care through the Choice Program. The VA system averages about 4.7 million appointments per month.

Veterans Affairs officials have cited modest improvements in the campaign to reduce wait times, but they also have said that change won’t happen overnight.

The problem is not uniform across the VA, however.

Read more about the situation in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.