Comments on: VA Hospitals continue to improve http://www.vamortgagecenter.com/blog/2007/09/12/va-hospitals-continue-to-improve/ Updated information on Veteran Benefits, featured Military Bloggers, the You Served Podcast and various other news and information relevant to Veterans. Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:44:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: CJ http://www.vamortgagecenter.com/blog/2007/09/12/va-hospitals-continue-to-improve/comment-page-1/#comment-25168 CJ Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:48:51 +0000 http://www.vamortgagecenter.com/blog/2007/09/12/va-hospitals-continue-to-improve/#comment-25168 That's "do NO good", not do not good. oops. That’s “do NO good”, not do not good. oops.

]]> By: CJ http://www.vamortgagecenter.com/blog/2007/09/12/va-hospitals-continue-to-improve/comment-page-1/#comment-25167 CJ Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:48:31 +0000 http://www.vamortgagecenter.com/blog/2007/09/12/va-hospitals-continue-to-improve/#comment-25167 It seems that anything veteran related can do not good these days. I've heard from friends all over the place that the VA isn't that bad. In areas greatly congested with veterans, like Florida, the lines are longer than most other places. According to the IG report, they only checked 10 VA hospitals - in the ENTIRE country. What the military.com piece fails to tell the reader is the IG used "14 of VHA’s 50 <strong>high-volume clinics</strong> and represented only 1 month of appointments". Here's an interesting parallel that may surprise the VA IG office: I'm moving soon, so my wife and I have been going to some of the better restaurants in the area that we've always wanted to go to. Would you believe that the waiting lines at these "high-volume" restaurants was long too!?! When I go to the mall, the high-volume retailers have longer lines as well. The movie theaters with more dense populations have longer lines. When I was in Arizona recently, the ONLY Sonic in town had an almost 45 minute wait - and that's fast food. Additionally, the VA only examined 60 appointments!! That's only 60 from each "high-volume clinic". They could have just as easily come to the exact opposite conclusion had they found 60 different people. The study shows that of those examined 75% had timely appointment. That's still not bad, especially if you look at the report on its whole. The problem with journalists who make a career out of making the military and veteran's administration look bad is that they expect and hope that the common reader will NOT read <a href="http://www.va.gov/oig/52/reports/2007/VAOIG-07-00616-199.pdf" rel="nofollow">the actual report</a>. Thanks for telling your story. It seems that anything veteran related can do not good these days. I’ve heard from friends all over the place that the VA isn’t that bad. In areas greatly congested with veterans, like Florida, the lines are longer than most other places. According to the IG report, they only checked 10 VA hospitals – in the ENTIRE country.

What the military.com piece fails to tell the reader is the IG used “14 of VHA’s 50 high-volume clinics and represented only 1 month of appointments”. Here’s an interesting parallel that may surprise the VA IG office:

I’m moving soon, so my wife and I have been going to some of the better restaurants in the area that we’ve always wanted to go to. Would you believe that the waiting lines at these “high-volume” restaurants was long too!?! When I go to the mall, the high-volume retailers have longer lines as well. The movie theaters with more dense populations have longer lines. When I was in Arizona recently, the ONLY Sonic in town had an almost 45 minute wait – and that’s fast food.

Additionally, the VA only examined 60 appointments!! That’s only 60 from each “high-volume clinic”. They could have just as easily come to the exact opposite conclusion had they found 60 different people. The study shows that of those examined 75% had timely appointment. That’s still not bad, especially if you look at the report on its whole.

The problem with journalists who make a career out of making the military and veteran’s administration look bad is that they expect and hope that the common reader will NOT read the actual report. Thanks for telling your story.

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