Tuesday, May 13, 2014

WYOMING, COLORADO and TEXAS: While Veterans wait for Medical Services VA Workers manipulate Records to Cover Their Ass

An email obtained by Fox News Friday revealed that an employee at a Wyoming VA hospital instructed his workers to manipulate records to make it seem like patients were being seen within the agency’s required 14-day window, which he described as “gaming the system.”
Fox News has learned that the VA was informed of dubious scheduling practices at the Cheyenne VA Medical Center and at a community-based outpatient clinic in Fort Collins, Colorado, which is part of the Wyoming center, through an internal investigation in December 2013. The problems at and the investigation into the Fort Collins clinic were reported earlier this week.
However, the VA took no formal disciplinary action and did not order an independent probe into the matter until Friday, when Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki said he learned of the email.
Now Rep. Jeff Miller, the chairman, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, is questioning why if the VA learned there were problems in December, the agency is only taking action now. He said Shinseki’s actions are “faux outrage at its finest.”
He sure puts on a good show .. huh?
The June email signed by an employee named David Newman, a Telehealth coordinator at the Cheyenne center, describes to the workers methods they can use to manipulate records in the patient appointment system to comply with a VA policy that requires patients be seen within 14 days of their desired date of appointment.
"Yes, it is gaming the system a bit," the email reads. "But you have to know the rules of the game you are playing, and when we exceed the 14-day measure, the front office gets very upset."
Lots of photo-ops
Shinseki said in a statement that after he learned of the email on Friday, he ordered the employee who wrote it placed on administrative leave. He said he also ordered the VA’s independent inspector general to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter.
Read the rest of the story HERE.

Follow the link below to a related story:

VA employee: Wait list data was manipulated in Austin, San Antonio

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