The VA Southern Arizona Health Care System, subsidiary 678GG in Tucson, Arizona scheduled 2,443 pending appointments in September compared to 2,298 the previous month, according to data collected from the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs.
Of the total number of appointments, 2,425 had a wait time of 30 days or less (99.3%) and 18 appointments (0.7%) 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.