In August, President Obama signed the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act. The act seeks to provide a number of remedies to problems uncovered earlier this year within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), including wait times for and inadequate access to health care.<\/p>\n
The cornerstone of the act is the requirement that VA facilities provide authorization for veterans to seek private medical treatment if a wait time is longer than 30 days or if they live more than 40 miles from a VA facility.<\/p>\n
According to Army Times, this provision is especially important because even as recently as July 2014, more than 30,000 veterans nationwide still faced wait times of more than three months.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, experts say that this change will not happen overnight. Ian de Planque, deputy director for the American Legion, told Army Times that he expects full implementation to take up to a year.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, VA schedulers are contacting (more…)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In August, President Obama signed the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act. The act seeks to provide a number of remedies to problems uncovered earlier this year within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), including wait times for and inadequate…<\/span><\/p>\n