At the same time, weve had a large increase in care in the community, choice hasnt worked as intended. Here are some things were doing to fix it. On april 24th we changed the measure from Straight Line to driving distance. Using the fastest route. This roughly doubles the number of veterans eligible for the 40mile program under choice. Excuse me. But there is much more to do. A followon mailing to all eligible veterans is about to go out. Weve Just Launched a major change in internal processes to make choice the default option for care in the community. Additional staff training and communication extensive provider communications, improvement to the website and ramped up social networking. New mechanisms together, timely feedback. Directly from both veterans as well as from front line staff. These are all, already in place or about to launch. In the longer term, we must rationalize Community Care into a single channel. The different programs with different rules and reimbursement rates
Message where it needs to be delivered, that the time is critical and i look forward to being part of the solution. Thank you very much, mike, for your comments and your contributions. Ill take it a little bit out of order now and take my law partner and former member of congress, state of georgia, congressman Jack Kingston to give his perspective on some of the things theyre doing down in georgia, particularly in the port project area and hes now with us, with these projects probably had something to do with them back when you were in congress yourself. Jack, why dont you go ahead and tell us about what is happening down there. Thank you very much, senator. I have to take a point of personal privilege that i really came here to lobby jennifer on going ahead and getting a fast lane on 395. I think we all would like to see that happen. And, mike, i want to say my mother actually lives in louisville, colorado, and your toll road is great. Thank you. Ive driven it many times. It is such a
Captioning performed by vitac forward to hearing first from sloan gibson. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Chairman isakson Ranking Member blumenthal and the committee, were committed to making the Choice Program work and to providing veterans timely and geographically accessible care, using care in the community whenever necessary. Ill talk shortly about what were doing and the help that we need from congress to make all of that happen. First, i want to talk very briefly about access to care. Most mornings at 9 00 a. M. , for the last year, Senior Leaders from across the department gathered to focus on improving veterans access to care. Weve concentrated on key drivers of access, including increasing Medical Center staffing by 11,000, adding space, boosting care during extended hours and weekends by 10 and increasing staff productivity. The result, 2. 5 million more completed appointments inside va this year than last. Relative value units, a common measure of care delivered that measured car
patrick, can doctors handle the special care so many vets need? for the routine stuff, absolutely, alex. right now, 10% of the v.a. care is through private doctors and nonv.a. care. right now, 10%. there is this new initiative 26 billion dollar initiative just launched by the v.a. a few months ago to allow veterans to use what is called patient center community care. montell was right. we need a surge of doctors. there is a national shortage in doctors and mental health care professionals specifically and the v.a. is bearing a brunt of that national shortage but we need folks to go and be patriots and take care of these heroes when they come home. gentlemen, thank you both for weighing in. appreciate that. thanks. thank you for having me. one week after that california rampage, the santa barbara county sheriff s department is launching an internal investigation. should deputies have been able to prevent what happened? clint van zandt is next. is the better choice for him, h