On May 8, 2024, APA Services brought 18 psychologists from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to Capitol Hill to talk about the extraordinary mental and behavioral health care provided by the VA throughout the country. These psychologists led over 20 meetings to urge members of Congress to protect the sustainability of the VA.
Recently, a Red Team Executive Roundtable Report identified that the VA “urgently needs to take action to control community care utilization and spending if the direct care system is to continue to be available to serve the diverse, specialized, and often highly complicated health care needs of enrolled veterans.” This group urged Congress to follow the report’s suggestions by:
- Including telehealth in VA access standards to ensure better access to high quality care within the VA as an alternative to more costly community care.
- Using comparative VA versus community drive-time and wait-time standards for authorization of care. (Currently these standards are only applied to VA care without consideration of the same standards in the community.)
- Transferring veterans to VA inpatient units after receiving their emergency care in the community to save considerable costs. (Eighty-four percent of the out-of-network community care emergency services costs are for inpatient care following a referral from their Emergency Department when inpatient VA care might be available.)
Following the Hill meetings, participants joined congressional staff for a reception to celebrate the role of the VA in protecting veterans’ mental health. APA Deputy CEO Jim Diaz-Granados, PhD, greeted staff and members in attendance.
For more information, contact K. Conwell Smith.