The Department of Veterans Affairs said Friday that it has slightly cut wait times for veterans seeking health care, citing an 11% decrease in average wait times for VA primary care and a 7% decrease for mental health care compared to the same time last year.
The shorter waits come even as the VA has enrolled more than 400,000 veterans in health care over the past year, a 30% increase from the previous year, according to Dr. Shereef Elnahal, the VA under secretary for health, who spoke with reporters during a virtual roundtable from the Richmond, Virginia, VA Medical Center.
The VA also hired more than 61,000 new health care workers last year as part of an effort to boost services following the PACT Act, a historic 2022 expansion of VA medical care and disability compensation for veterans sickened by exposure to toxic substances while serving.
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The combination of more health care workers and improved clinic productivity, Elnahal said, are helping the VA “meet that increasing demand for care, all while we’re seeing greater demand from our existing base of veterans as they get older and get more chronic conditions and need more care, but also new enrollees coming into the system very intentionally because of the PACT Act.”
The average time it takes for a veteran patient to be seen by a VA mental health professional for the first time is now around 17 days,…
