COVID causes appointment cancellations

#Middlebury #Veterans

Between March 15 and May 1, the Department of Veterans Affairs canceled 7.3 million medical appointments. The VA’s rationale at the time was to protect staff and veterans from the COVID-19 virus and to conserve their supplies. For the veteran, however, it could mean a minor medical problem became a major one because it was not attended to.

The VA’s Office of Inspector General waded in and examined all those vanished appointments. It looked at whether the facilities were digging out those old records and making new in-person appointments, canceling for good if the veteran went somewhere else, converting appointments to video telehealth … something, anything, to get those veterans the care they’d originally sought.

The results:

• Almost one-third of cancellations showed no follow-up or tracking for primary, mental health or specialty care. There was no way, per the OIG report, for the facilities to track canceled appointments.
• The VA quickly rigged up a tracking system for those appointments and told facilities to review all cancellations. Some appointments were either followed up or conducted by phone or video – but not necessarily rescheduled.
• There were “mass” cancellations, groups of 10 or more, totaling 350,000 appointments, indicating the veterans likely had not been called.
• For a time, all cancellations were labeled as being at the request of the patient, whether or not they actually were. This is a potentially huge problem: If it looks like a patient canceled an appointment, the wait time for a new appointment might be different.
• Certain medical care such as lab work, X-rays and ultrasounds were not counted because they aren’t considered “an occasion of service” by the VA. The OIG, however, counted those canceled appointments.

By June 15, 11.2 million appointments had been canceled. If you had an appointment that was canceled, call them back. You’re probably on a to-do list somewhere. Get someone on the phone and get the attention you need.

© 2020 King Features Synd. Inc.