Report: VA overstates how fast it provides mental health care to veterans
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Report: VA overstates how fast it provides mental health
care to veterans
By: Steve Vogel, Washington Post, April 24, 2012
The Department of Veterans Affairs has greatly overstated how
quickly it provides mental-health care for veterans, according to
an inspector general's report released Monday.
Contrary to VA claims that 95 percent of first-time patients
seeking mental-health care in 2011 received an evaluation within
the department's goal of 14 days, just under half were seen in that
time frame, the report found. A majority waited about 50 days on
average for a full evaluation.
A similar claim that 95 percent of new patients in 2011 got
appointments to begin treatment within 14 days of their desired
date was also far off the mark; the report from the VA Office of
Inspector General estimated that 64 percent of patients did; the
rest waited on average 40 days.
The inflated claims, made in the VA's fiscal 2011 performance
and accountability report, come with the department facing growing
demand for mental-health services, as thousands of veterans return
from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sen. Patty Murray, (D-Wash.), who is chairman of the Senate's
Committee on Veterans Affairs and requested the investigation, said
the report is "deeply disturbing and demands action from VA. This
report shows the huge gulf between the time the VA says it takes to
get veterans mental-health care and the reality of how long it
actually takes veterans to get seen at facilities across the
country."
Delays in treatment for veterans seeking help for post-traumatic
stress can be devastating, Murray said.
"Getting our veterans timely mental-health care can quite
frankly often be the difference between life and death," she
said.
On Thursday, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said
that the department will hire 1,900 mental-health workers, an
increase of more than 9 percent, an action taken based on a review
of mental-health operations that began in 2011. "We have made
strong progress, but we need to do more," the VA said in a
statement released Monday.
The inspector general's report concluded that the Veterans
Health Administration (VHA), which runs VA medical care, lacks any
accurate method of measuring how long veterans wait for
mental-health care.
The data on whether new patients were seen within the desired
time were often based on available appointments, rather than the
patient's clinical needs. If the patient was given an appointment
two months later because of a lack of openings, the veteran would
still be recorded as having been seen within two weeks of the
desired date.
The report recommends that the VA revise its measurements to
reflect the time veterans actually wait for mental-health care and
that the VA study whether mental-health staff vacancies represent a
systemic problem.