scheduling system showed a zero-day wait time when the veteran actually waited 120 days. the va inspector general discontinued or canceled an estimated 4,600 appointments. what is it like to make a medical appointment at the va? hi, joe. i need to make appointments. tracy rodriguez invited us to find out. her husband served three tours in iraq and afghanistan. he relies on the va for health care. april 24th, she sat down at a kitchen table and let us listen while she tried to make three medical appointments. i think they have one person answering the phone over there or something. the phone call itself took more than half an hour. he needs to see urology. as soon as you ve got. definitely sooner than july or june. the wait for yourology, two minutes. surprisingly, primary care could happen in six weeks and when she tries to get an appointment for
in iraq and afghanistan. he relies on the va for health care. april 24th, she sat down at her kitchen table and let us listen while she tried to make three medical appointments. the phone call itself took more than half an hour. he needs to see urology. yes, definitely sooner than july. reporter: the wait for urology, two months. surprisingly, an appointment for primary care could happen in just weeks. but when she tries to get an appointment for an eye docker, a specialties clinic, five months, abnormal, she says for her. one out of three is not bad. reporter: victor and kristie, the va wouldn t respond to direct questions on the unreeblt of the wait times, instead, we got information that the va is more transparent than ever about wait times.
time the va did not have the services for obstetrics and gynecology. they are mostly just for gynecological services women need. i was sent outside of the va for health care. i was able to access top-quality care that the va picked the bill up for. it is great to see that veterans are going to be able to access the same services. that being said, this shouldn t be a solution to the problem. there are obvious fixes that need to be made to make sure that veterans can access the va in a timely manner and i think we re going to be i would hope to see that those fixes are being made through a congressional legislation as well as changes in policy within the department of veterans affairs. one of the things about this though that strikes me is, the sort of top-down approach. i m not sure that that s going to work. it seems to me that the problem is really out there it is in the field. in the field. there is actually something that was written today about that actually. sam foote,
past year. it s held steady for a decade. a sign that generally va patients are content with their health care. you work for the va. does that jive with your experience? it absolutely does jive with my experience. i didn t work on the health care side of things. i know plenty veterans that go to the va for health care. i go to the va for health care. majority of people we talk to are satisfied with this. the va is a humongous system. there s over 5 million patients in the va in 2012. that s over 5 million unique patients. there are going to be some unfortunately who have issues. if these 40 veterans are on a secret waiting list, these are just allegations at this point. nothing has been proven. we don t know. there s an investigation looking to see if the allegations are true. if they are true, how horrible. this is still a small number of the veterans going in for health care. and this is not terribly
home i ve been told welcome home 100,000 times. i met a vietnam vet about a year ago who had never been told welcome home once. so they re hiding their service. they re hiding all that and keeping it inside. it keeps them living in the past. and they re so glad to see us being treated the way we re being treated that they just they grin and bear it. and they re happy for us. and one last question because we talked about this right before coming on. and that is we were talking about the va and things that are and are not going right. and you mentioned that you re having trouble getting a new pair of legs. tell me what that s about. i really don t know. i think it s just they re overwhelmed with what was currently in the system and the numbers that keep adding up. it s just a mass interest into the va, people wanting health care and some of the other individuals i mentioned before who had never sought out the va for health care. now they have to because they don t have a job anym