VA hospitals beat out personal amenities, Medicare survey exhibits : NPR

The U.S. Division of Veterans Affairs takes care of about 9 million veterans at 1,255 amenities. It’s the nation’s largest built-in well being care system.

Charles Dharapak/AP

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Charles Dharapak/AP

The U.S. Division of Veterans Affairs takes care of about 9 million veterans at 1,255 amenities. It’s the nation’s largest built-in well being care system.

Charles Dharapak/AP

A nationwide Medicare survey launched right this moment discovered that veterans rated Veterans Affairs hospitals greater than personal well being care amenities in all 10 classes of affected person satisfaction.

The VA takes care of about 9 million veterans at 1,255 amenities — the nation’s largest built-in well being care system. Regardless of many broadly publicized scandals, VA well being care has been constantly rated as aggressive with personal care in dozens of peer-reviewed articles.

“I strongly consider that the VA is the best choice for veteran care. Examine after research exhibits that high quality and affected person security is no less than nearly as good if not higher than our personal sector counterparts,” mentioned Dr. Shereef Elnahal, VA undersecretary for well being.

This most up-to-date survey, often called HCAHPS (Hospital Shopper Evaluation of Healthcare Suppliers and Techniques), confirmed that the VA beat out personal amenities in all of the classes surveyed, corresponding to affected person satisfaction, hospital cleanliness and communication with nurses and docs.

“This presents among the many first alternatives to straight evaluate us with our personal sector counterparts, and we’re actually pleased with the outcomes however we cannot be content material till 100% of hospitals are pinging in the appropriate scores,” Elnahal informed NPR.

Favorably evaluating with the personal sector is essential for the VA, as a result of Congress has expanded the VA’s use of personal care as an choice when vets have to attend too lengthy or journey too far for a VA appointment. Personal care is way more costly for the VA.

Republicans in Congress, who typically help better use of personal care, have even accused the VA of obstructing it. Most not too long ago, Home Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Mike Bost wrote to VA Secretary Denis McDonough about what he known as his “full frustration with the Veterans Well being Administration’s lack of well timed motion to offer group care to veterans that … are in dire want of well timed care.”

“I hope you share my frustration. These roadblocks don’t serve veterans nicely and we should do higher,” Bost wrote.