The VA Northern Arizona Health Care System, subsidiary 649 in Prescott, Arizona scheduled 14,162 pending appointments in June compared to 15,044 the previous month, according to data collected from the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs.
Of the total number of appointments, 11,330 had a wait time of 30 days or less (80%) and 2,832 appointments (20%) were scheduled more than 30 days out.
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in January 2019 reported that wait times for new appointments at VA health care facilities were similar to or better than wait times at private-sector providers between 2014 and 2017.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO), however, released a report in July 2019 that cautioned that the VA's data-tracking system only captures part of the appointment process and fails to account for the time that it takes the VA to enroll veterans in its health benefits program.