A Veterans Affairs audit of its troubled hospitals and clinics has identified 100,000 veterans facing long waits for health care, and clerks across the system report having been instructed to falsify dates in scheduling records.
The findings, reported by the VA on Monday, indicate widespread confusion across the system charged with caring for the nation’s veterans.
“We must work together to fix the unacceptable, systemic problems in accessing VA healthcare,” Sloan Gibson, the department’s acting secretary, said in a statement.
In the audit, which covered more than 700 VA facilities, 13% of scheduling staff reported that they had been instructed by supervisors or others to enter a date in the appointment books different from what the veteran had requested.