Veterans are waiting at least a year to receive hospice services from the Department of Veterans Affairs, but VA staff members aren’t telling patients and their families that they will face such a long delay in receiving care.
“Omitting this information did not allow patients and family members to understand fully the situation and options,” the VA’s inspector general wrote in a report made public Monday.
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The lengthy delays at the Washington, D.C., VA facility were uncovered after an unnamed veteran died while waiting for home healthcare services, even after he had been approved by a medical team.
Although funding for the Washington, D.C. facility’s home health services jumped from $1.3 million in 2010 to $6.7 million in 2014, veterans in the area still faced more than a year of waiting, the inspector general found.
The number of patients looking to purchase home care also spiked over the same period, growing from 148 in 2010 to 573 last year.
The report Monday came two years after the watchdog blasted the VA for deliberately limiting veterans’ access to home healthcare services.
In 2013, the inspector general discovered that 114 facilities had “applied more restrictive eligibility criteria” than was necessary to keep veterans from receiving home healthcare services, which include hospice care and assistance with everyday activities for elderly patients.
What’s more, the VA had rerouted nearly $100 million in funding to “higher priorities,” even as 49,000 veterans around the country waited for home healthcare services.
The VA had kept those 49,000 veterans off its official waiting list.
Nationally, more than 2,500 veterans are still on the waiting list for home healthcare. Just five VA facilities are responsible for more than half of those patients.
