“The reforms Congress implemented last year are working and I’ve called Secretary Robert McDonald to ensure the VA will continue to prioritize veterans’ care by putting an end to unofficial scheduling systems,” Brown said in a statement to this newspaper.
Congressional leaders and veterans groups have pressed for more information on how the Dayton VA handled appointment scheduling for pulmonary care patients.
“VA’s struggles with transparency and accountability seem to never end,” U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, said Thursday. “It would be a great step forward if it is true that this whistleblower does not face retaliation for speaking up.”
The patient list included 150 veterans who are now dead, though those deaths weren’t linked to delayed care, Dayton VA Director Glenn Costie told this newspaper last Friday.
“They were all receiving care somewhere in our system of care,” Costie said. “They just had not been called back for their pulmonary (follow-up).”
He added it appeared to be a ”standalone issue with a particular clinic.”
McDonald — who took the VA’s helm after a nationwide scandal over scheduling practices ousted his predecessor — assured Brown the VA was investigating the scheduling irregularity, according to the senator’s office. Brown is a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs.
Costie was sent to temporarily take command of the Phoenix VA last year in the wake of the scandal, which started with allegations that veterans died while on a “secret waiting list” there.
So-called secret wait lists have been reported at other VA medical centers, according to Miller and published reports. But Dayton VA officials maintained last year that they had nothing remotely similar to such a list.
“When we first learned of the allegations out of Phoenix, we conducted our own internal audit of how our appointment system and wait lists work, looking for anything that could possibly be interpreted … correctly or otherwise … as a ‘secret wait list,’ ” Dayton VA spokesman Ted Froats said in a May 2014 statement. “I am pleased to share that the results of that audit were entirely positive.”
Miller, a Florida Republican, on Thursday questioned how the audit could have missed the issue with pulmonary patients at the Dayton VA.
“How did an internal audit miss exactly what it was looking for, again calling into question VA’s ability to be open and honest with the American people,” he said in a statement. “After at least 110 facilities have been caught with secret wait lists, how can anyone still claim this is a standalone issue?”
National veterans groups also have asked for answers on the delay in appointments at the Dayton VA.
“I think there needs to be a thorough investigation of these findings, and if it’s determined that 150 patients died as a result of not receiving proper care while under the VA’s watch, then somebody needs to be held accountable,” Roscoe Butler, American Legion deputy director for health care, said Thursday.
“The situation in Dayton illustrates in all-too-graphic detail the long, long road VA must travel in order to restore its image as a Tier 1 provider of health care to veterans,” Jerry Manar, deputy director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ National Veterans Service division, said in an email.
“It also illustrates the managerial incompetence in the Veterans Health Administration by showing that even after a year of herculean effort to ensure all veterans are scheduled for appointments, substantial pockets of veterans continue to fall through the cracks.”
The names of pulmonary care patients were kept on an electronic file “on a secure VA server,” Froats said in an email Thursday. He said policy on scheduling appointments had not been followed.
Froats wrote “appointment callbacks were always taking place,” but when the scheduling irregularity was discovered and the scope of the issue understood, employee schedules and assignments were adjusted to make appointments for the hundreds of waiting patients happen faster.”
The patients were “under the active care of other Dayton VAMC providers during this time period,” he wrote.
Most veterans have been scheduled for follow-up appointments, and are expected to be completed by December, according to Froats.
A scheduler who originally managed the appointment list for pulmonary patients was removed from the position, but remains employed at the VA, according to Froats. He added that “the situation remains under review.”
Froats said last week that the VA Office of the Inspector General was notified about the incident.
Congressional lawmakers this week expressed concern over the scheduling issue.
“The reports are very concerning and we must get to the bottom of what happened,” U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said in a statement. “I look forward to hearing from the VA about this.”
“Incidents such as this have been far too frequent since the scandal last year in Phoenix, and our veterans deserve better,” Sen. Johnny Isakson, chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, said in a statement. “I appreciate the VA’s swift response to this incident, and I will continue to work with the VA to ensure that those responsible are held accountable and that proper steps are taken to prevent this from happening again.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, said this week that he was waiting for more information.
“Our nation’s veterans deserve the best treatment and I will continue to fight until this issue is resolved,” he said in a statement.
Staff writer Josh Sweigart contributed to this story.
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