Local VA reduces average wait time to 81 days

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GEORGE F. LEE / DECEMBER 2009
The National Park Service, which operates the Arizona Memorial, confirmed it received a $10,000 check dated May 27, 2009, from Navy Veterans that appeared to be signed by Bobby Thompson, former director and chief financial officer of the United States Navy Veterans Association. The Punchbowl cemetery also said it, too, received a $10,000 check with the same date and signature.

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Military veterans seeking their first appointment with a primary care physician in Honolulu no longer have the ignoble distinction of suffering the longest delays in the entire Veterans Affairs system.

The average wait time to see a primary care physician for the first time in Honolulu has fallen from 145 days in mid-May to 81 days as of July 1, according to bimonthly data released by the VA on Friday.

Fayetteville, N.C., with an average wait time of 92 days, replaced Honolulu with the worst record in the VA system.

Honolulu’s improvement follows a pledge made June 16 by Wayne Pfeffer, the new director of the VA Pacific Islands Health Care System, to dramatically reduce the wait time for new patients to just 30 days within three months.

Pfeffer was returning from Guam on Friday but wrote in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, "The providers and support staff have truly stepped up to the challenge laid before them by leadership. These efforts are demonstrated by the continued improvement throughout the organization."

The number of veterans on the VA’s electronic wait list, Pfeffer said, also has steadily declined from 1,737 in January to 229 on July 18 — an 87 percent drop.

"As we address current issues, we also look at our future growth and needs and continue to advocate for additional space necessary to meet the increasing growth of Hawaii’s veteran population and need for additional health care services," Pfeffer wrote. "I appreciate the support and feedback from veterans and consider it an honor to serve this community."

Sloan D. Gibson, acting secretary of Veterans Affairs, testified before the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs that trust in the system needs to be restored.

"The trust that is the foundation of all we do — the trust of the veterans we serve and the trust of the American people and their elected representatives — has eroded," Gibson testified. "We have to earn that trust back through deliberate and decisive action, and by creating an open and transparent approach for dealing with our stakeholders to better serve veterans."

This week U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat and a combat veteran, introduced bipartisan legislation that would temporarily reimburse non-VA medical facilities that treat eligible veterans across the country.

Veterans would only have to provide a VA identification card or other proof of VAenrollment and would not be required to wait for VA authorization.

Gabbard did not have an immediate estimate of the costs, but said the program would last only one year if the VA meets wait-time goals established by the secretary — or two years if the secretary does not certify the wait-time goals.

The bill is co-sponsored by Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who is also a veteran.

"For us," Gabbard said, "this is personal. These are our brothers and sisters in uniform who are being mistreated."

While other bills are aimed at overhauling the VA, Gabbard said the bill that she and Kinzinger authored "is very simple, very direct. It’s a common-sense solution."