The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday sought to clarify VA Secretary Robert McDonald’s controversial comparison between the VA’s wait times and wait times at Disneyland, by saying veterans themselves have said wait times are not the only important factor when it comes to healthcare at the VA.
But the VA declined to apologize for McDonald’s remarks, which angered members of both parties on Monday, and declined to admit that the wait time scandal that broke in 2014 was the result of purposeful manipulation of data by VA workers. Instead, the VA blamed it on a bad computer program.
“When you got to Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line? Or what’s important?” McDonald said Monday morning. “What’s important is, what’s your satisfaction with the experience?”
Hours after McDonald spoke, the VA released a statement from the agency itself, not a named spokesman, that said the VA is working to improve service, a goal officials “take seriously.”
“We know that Veterans are still waiting too long for care,” the statement said. “In our effort to determine how we can better meet veterans’ needs, knowing that their satisfaction is our most important measure, we have heard them tell us that wait times alone are not the only indication of their experience with VA and that’s why we must transform the way we do business.”
The VA also said relying on wait times alone can have “unintended consequences,” a reference to the years VA officials themselves manipulated wait time data in order to make it appear that veterans were getting timely access to care.
The statement said the agency is working with private companies to provide “positive experiences” for veterans.
The VA statement also described the agency’s old wait time system and the changes it’s seeking to make, but omitted any reference to the deliberate manipulation of wait time data by officials.
Instead, the VA chalked up the scandal to a system for generating wait times that was based on when appointments were requested, which it said created a “computer-generated time stamp … that did not reflect the veteran’s preference.”
It said changes were needed to “clear up these interpretations or misinterpretations.”
