U.S. senators Cory Gardner and Michael Bennet want to know what the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is doing to solve the agency’s recurring problems in Colorado with scheduling speedy medical appointments, according to letters they sent Tuesday.
Separate one-page letters from the Colorado Republican and Democrat to VA Sec. David Shulkin are among the worst nationally, and are three times worse than in Phoenix, where the wait-list scandal erupted three years ago.
“The Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act of 2014 was implemented to fix the shameful wait times for veterans,” Gardner wrote in a letter released Tuesday morning. “However, (The Postap) report indicates that the VA has done very little to improve the situation in Colorado.”
Wrote Bennet, later in the day: “This trend is deeply concerning and unacceptable for veterans living across the Rocky Mountain Region. … it is unacceptable that wait times remain, on average, troublingly high.”
A VA spokesman said Shulkin “appreciates” the senators’ input and “looks forward to engaging” with them directly.
U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman on July 28 said Shulkin “assured me veterans with urgent health care needs are able to receive same-day service at the Denver VA Medical Center,” but offered nothing specific about primary-care waiting lists.
“The secretary believes that things are on track to improve further after the replacement Denver (VA Medical Center) opens in November, when veterans will begin receiving health care at the newest and most advanced VA medical center in the nation.”
That center has been plagued with cost overruns that and years of delays.
VA patient-access data released on July 1 show that the average wait for a primary care appointment at just the Denver VA Medical Center has grown to more than 18 days, nearly four times the national average.
Administrators put part of the blame on a shortage of physicians and practical nurses, as well as a heavy influx of new patients. The newest veterans face the longest waits, data show, with periods averaging 47 days for a visit with a primary care physician in Denver and 37 days in Aurora.
Throughout the 13 hospitals and clinics that make up the eastern Colorado system, the average wait for a primary care appointment as of July 1 was more than 12 days. Only Amarillo, Texas, and Palo Alto, Calif. — both smaller than eastern Colorado — were worse.
In all, though, nearly 13.5 percent of all the appointments at the eastern Colorado had longer than a 30-day wait, federal data show — worst in the nation.
“Timely access to doctors for our veterans is essential, and anything less is an incredible disservice to the men and women who have served our nation,” Gardner’s letter says. “They deserve better.”
Bennet’s letter peppers Shulkin with seven questions about the issue, including concerns over the difficulty of hiring qualified physicians.
The eastern Colorado system currently has a 16 percent vacancy rate — there are 336 physicians — even though it offers some primary care doctors as much as $200,000 a year in salary and additional training.
The number of scheduled appointments in the system has grown by 41 percent in 2½ years to 91,278, data show, while those in Phoenix have risen by 48 percent to 102,363.
Since the scandal broke in 2014, have improved dramatically, to six days for a primary care appointment. Regionally, about 7 percent of all appointments in Phoenix were outside the 30-day window.
with allegations that VA hospitals intentionally falsified records to make it appear patients were being seen promptly when, in fact, they were placed on long waiting lists.
, which offers veterans federally paid medical care outside the VA when waiting times exceed 30 days or the drive to a VA medical facility is more than 40 miles.