VA destroyed patient records to eliminate backlog

[Clocker]

Records of backlogged requests for medical exams were destroyed to improve bureaucratic efficiency ratings. VA supervisors justified the destruction of old records by saying that most of those patients had probably gotten the work done elsewhere or died or something.

Welcome to the brave new world of single payer health care.

Employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) destroyed veterans’ medical files in a systematic attempt to eliminate backlogged veteran medical exam requests, a former VA employee told The Daily Caller.

Audio of an internal VA meeting obtained by TheDC confirms that VA officials in Los Angeles intentionally canceled backlogged patient exam requests.

“The committee was called System Redesign and the purpose of the meeting was to figure out ways to correct the department’s efficiency. And one of the issues at the time was the backlog,” Oliver Mitchell, a Marine veteran and former patient services assistant in the VA Greater Los Angeles Medical Center, told TheDC.

“We just didn’t have the resources to conduct all of those exams. Basically we would get about 3,000 requests a month for [medical] exams, but in a 30-day period we only had the resources to do about 800. That rolls over to the next month and creates a backlog,” Mitchell said. ”It’s a numbers thing. The waiting list counts against the hospitals efficiency. The longer the veteran waits for an exam that counts against the hospital as far as productivity is concerned.”



Full story. (http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/24/va-employees-destroyed-veterans-medical-records-to-cancel-backlogged-exam-requests-audio/)

[Boris]

Looks like there may have been a little more going on at the VA to juice up the efficiency ratings.

Two Durham VA Medical Center employees have been put on administrative leave because of "inappropriate scheduling practices," the Department of Veteran Affairs said in a Monday statement.
The facility in Durham, North Carolina, is at least the fourth hospital accused of manipulating health care appointments.

A VA scheduler in San Antonio said clerks scheduling medical appointments for veterans were "cooking the books" at their bosses' behest to hide the fact some had to wait weeks, if not months, for appointments.

The VA's official policy is that all patients should be able to see a doctor, dentist or some other medical professional within 14 days of their requested/preferred date. Any wait longer than two weeks is supposed to documented. But many veterans end up waiting longer, and the delays are never reported, veterans and their advocates say.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/12/us/va-scandal-durham-north-carolina/

The most disgusting part of this is to label it as "inappropriate scheduling practices". These people purposefully caused harm to those they were there to care for. Find the law they broke, charge them, and lock them up. Continue to work your way up the org chart until they are all in jail.

[johnhannibalsmith]

I don't know where FanDan finds his Jon Stewart videos to embed, but the clip I just watched about this one is pretty good.

http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/261851/speedreads-jon-stewart-angrily-slams-the-obama-administration-over-va-hospital-malfeasance

[DJofSD]

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/05/17/vets-using-phoenix-va-are-angry-sick-and-scared.html

This entire affair is just as shameful as the lies we told the native American's and the lies that were told to the emancipated Blacks.

I wonder if Michelle is still proud.

[Saratoga_Mike]

Fire more people, then privatize the system on a region-by-region basis.

[JustRalph]

It's only been like this for 30 years

[Clocker]

It's only been like this for 30 years

Impossible. The Commander in Chief just heard about it on CNN a week or so ago.