VA Patient Access Progress Update

Patient Access Progress Update

Release 34 – November 19, 2015

Summary

In keeping with the commitment to improve transparency in Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) processes and in accordance with Section 206 of the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 (VACAA), VA today released the latest update of facility-level patient access data and is highlighting notable access improvements. In this release, VA is providing two reports:

• Completed Appointments (As of October 2015)
• Pending Appointments (Snapshot of data on November 15, 2015)*

Notable Improvements:

1. Nationally, VA completed more than 56.49 million appointments from November 1, 2014 through October 31, 2015. This represents an increase of 1.2 million more appointments than were completed during the same time period in 2013/2014.
2. VA completed 96.7 percent of appointments in October 2015 within 30 days of the clinically indicated or Veteran’s preferred date; 91.47 percent within 14 days; 86.57 percent within 7 days; and 24.47 percent are actually completed on the same day.
3. From June 1, 2014 to November 15, 2015, the Electronic Wait List went from 56,271 appointments to 47,496, a 15.59 percent reduction.
4. VHA created nearly 2.5 million authorizations for Veterans to receive care in the private sector from November 12, 2014 through November 11, 2015. This represents a 1 percent decrease in authorizations when compared to the same period in 2013/2014.

• DR34 (11-2015) Completed Appointment Wait Times by Desired Date.pdf
• DR34 (11-2015) Pending and EWL Biweekly by Desired Date.pdf