Posted on 04/13/2017 1:07:30 PM PDT by george76
Veterans will now have the opportunity to check wait times at the 1,700 Veterans Affairs facilities across the country.
...
The new website is a must for the VA. The unforgivably long wait times at too many VA centers has plagued the agency and placed veterans in danger. At a Phoenix facility, veterans had to wait for care an average of 115 days.
The VA is also taking concrete steps of draining the swamp of bad employees. Under current law, some clinics' hands are tied over VA employees who engage in nefarious behavior. For instance, an employee in Houston who watched porn in front of patients was still allowed to keep his desk job for at least 30 days.
It seems Shulkin is done with delays. Shortly after an Office of Inspector General report found unsanitary conditions and inadequate equipment at a D.C. medical center, the director of the facility was promptly fired.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
They also need to track the patient visits for all professionals including direct patient visits, resident sign off visits, phone consults... etc.
There are a lot of games the staff are using to look busy and have a lot of free time while working very little.
One major problem with VA management is that there is no vertical lines of authority.
You can be in charge of a unit but none of the employees in the unit answer to you.
Psychologists answer to the chief psychologist in the hospital.
Nurses answer to the chief nurse in the hospital.
Social workers answer to the chief social worker in the hospital.
Psychiatrists answer to the chief psychiatrist..
Physician’s Assistants answer to the chief PA for the hospital...
All horizontal lines of authority and it sucks... no authority in a management position.
ping
Biggest problem with the VA as well as all federal departments is the cumulative effect of two generations of affirmative hiring and promoting.
They need to set up a cost accounting/management reporting system for the VA so they can tell which employees are working and which ones are slacking. The majority are slacking.
I used to do this for large hospitals back prior to the switch to DRG reimbursement. It used to be cost reimbursement prior to that. You would compute weighted average daily admissions and compute cost per unit figures for each department.
Yes, and the lower level employees are so cocky that they challenge the MD’s. MD’s get frustrated that they are not supported and leave.
When one MD leaves the patient load on the remaining docs increases and they get frustrated and leave.
The bureaucrats at the VA are organized crime.
So..., much..., WINNING!
I would like to make a correction.
Trump did not come into office with a new broom to clean things up.
He came in with a fire hose!
I have considerable first hand exposure to a VA hospital and know many Dr’s and staff. There are a lot of excellent physicians at the VA who really care.
One of the biggest problems was when Obama changed the requirements for PTSD that a person no longer needed to be in combat. Everyone started filing for PTSD disability, thus creating the overflow that blocked those really deserving it.
If you get 100% disability you get $4,000 per month tax free.
Thus, for a large percentage of the patients they do not want to get well, they want to prove how sick they are to get full disability. It is really frustrating for the Dr’s.
PTSD claims for sexual harassment is very common. PTSD from a bad boss... PTSD from seeing dead soldiers in their coffins. I even saw one who had PTSD because his drill Sargent yelled at him! I’m not making this up.
At Bay Pines, there is a wait time even if you’re dead.
5.56mm
The author's source materials do not say "fired." They say, "relieved from duty."
From this, we may deduce that the former director, while no longer working in that position, is still an employee of the VA.
firing bad employees?
That would be racist.
The new website to track wait times: http://www.accesstocare.va.gov
bmp4l8R
Still getting paid the same salary in a different position. It’s almost impossible to fire anyone under current law. Even people caught dealing drugs and convicted get their jobs back.
Yes, that's why when I saw the word "fired" in the article, I went looking for the real story. Civil servants don't get fired, period.
Trump beating Clinton could give PTSD to many snowflakes.
Army had a few snowflakes in 66-67 when I was there. I suspect there are more than a few in the Army post 2001 who had no idea what the military was about.
Interesting site, but I doubt its accuracy so far. I noticed that at my nearby VAs the wait times for new primary care patients are much worse than for established patients. I think this is because every new patient must make a request for an appointment that is recorded, keeping the longer waits ‘on the books’.
Many established veterans have given up trying to contact their primary care physicians for non-scheduled appointments because they are so often told that they won’t be seen for weeks to months. Not to mention that they often can’t get through to the clinic in the first place to even request an appointment. That decreases the number of return visit requests ‘on the books’.
I suspect if everyone who needed an appointment actually successfully called to request one, the wait times for established patients would be much worse. As it is, there are many not counted who have just given up trying and go to the ER or outside providers.
Now that numbers are being tracked, veterans should make it a point to call and make a primary care appointment when needed. If they need to be seen elsewhere in the meantime, they can later cancel the appointment unless they still need it for continued follow up of the issue. Then hopefully the numbers will begin to accurately reflect the actual problem.
My 2 cents,
O2
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