Source: United States Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) highlighted issues with timely access to community care for veterans, including a veteran on his own staff, with Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Denis McDonough at a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee (SVAC) hearing this week.
“I have a staff [member] who is stuck in one of these ruts between the VA and community care. Roughly four months ago, she was told that it would take five months to get an appointment for the particular specific service she needed, obviously well outside the 28 days to qualify. In hopes of not having to wait five months, which by the way in itself is a ridiculous proposition, she sought third-party care or community care. She got approval from the VA to pursue community care, but what she got caught up in is the authorization system. The movement of information from the VA to the third party administrator, back and forth, back and forth, which became very frustrating,” explained Senator Cramer. “One of the more concerning issues for me is there’s this pointing of the finger back and forth between the two entities. We sent it, we didn’t receive it, we faxed it, we didn’t get it. Now I suppose they could both be right, but right now I have a staff [member] who is neither getting the care and at the same time, sort of anxious about where’s all my personal healthcare information that keeps getting faxed.”
Senator Cramer emphasized this is not the first time constituents have had issues with the VA health care system and discussed underlying issues in the bureaucracy.
“I would like to say this is the only one that I’ve had to deal with, but I have constituents who have had very similar situations where days turn into weeks turn into months,” said Senator Cramer. “I’m afraid the VA like every bureaucracy around here, if [Congress doesn’t] prescribe in law precisely what they have to do, and write into law precisely what they’re prohibited from doing, they’ll do whatever they want to do.”
He then pivoted to a discussion on solutions and proposed the inclusion of critical access hospitals as an extension of the VA health care system to ensure veterans in rural communities have timely access to care.
“I want to be part of the solution. A lot of us are from rural states, you’re hearing a lot of the rural issues—the access issues are particularly relevant to them. Would it be possible that in a state like Montana, Alaska, or North Dakota, where we have a lot of critical access hospitals, which are critical access because they’re so far from other places. They’re hospitals that run on very small margins, have very small populations, but they’re still necessary. Is there a way that we could work on something where at least, we could simplify it for those people in those very remote rural places and make a critical access hospital an extension of the VA?” said Senator Cramer.
Secretary McDonough responded positively to Senator Cramer’s critical access hospitals proposal and committed to resolving the staff member’s health care scheduling issue.
“I visited a facility like that with Senator Moran in Kansas and we do a lot of business in that facility for vets in Kansas. So I think there’s a way to make this work. I’m open to having that conversation… but it seems like something that we could do some work on. I also worry about your staff member. I’m confident if she’s comfortable talking to our Office of Community Care, we can get that worked out,” responded Secretary McDonough.
“I appreciate that and we’ll follow up on that. I’ve had other people that I’ve helped in similar situations where when I make the inquiry, it gets solved. But every time I do that, it bothers me because I think of how many people don’t know me. Most people know me in North Dakota just like everyone knows Senator Tester in Montana, but there are some people who don’t think to call their senator,” concluded Senator Cramer.
“You don’t want to have to have that special pleading,” agreed Secretary McDonough.