Is Local VA Clinic Failing Our Veterans?
Local veterans who get healthcare from the VA clinic in La Grange can’t call their doctor, not directly anyway.
They can walk into the clinic and get assistance. But they can’t call. Veterans must first either schedule a call-back online or speak to a middle person at the VA regional office in Temple.
“This has been going on for years since they built the new facility and moved from the clinic on Travis Street, said Larry Conti, a Vietnam veteran from West Point who relies on the VA for his primary healthcare needs.
Back in 2017, the VA created a new clinic on the St. Mark’s Medical Center campus which replaced the old VA Outreach Clinic on Travis Street. The Outreach Clinic was staffed by VA contractors and had a public phone number that patients could call to schedule appointments or simply ask a question to their doctor.
The new clinic is staffed by VA employees and it does not have a public phone number.
“If a veteran has an emergency and needs to speak with their doctor, it’s real iffy,” Conti said.
Conti said the “last straw” for him came recently when he needed to get some paperwork signed by his VA doctor so that he could see a heart specialist.
“I’m not saying it didn’t happen,” Conti said.
However, Conti expressed frustration at the process. He said he called the number in Temple and then later got a voicemail response from a different phone number. When he called that number back, he got a different person.
“It’s getting absurd,” Conti said.
Fayette County Veterans Service Officer Jackie Wessels said she has heard the same complaints from many veterans.
“When they had the clinic on Travis Street, they had a local number and that’s what the veterans are used to, calling that local number,” Wessels told the Record.
Wessels said she even has trouble contacting the local VA clinic on behalf of the veterans she serves.
“It’s a very bad situation,” Wessels said.
The Record asked the VA why the local clinic does not have a phone number that veterans can call. VA spokesperson Deborah Mayer said VA’s Centralized Contact Center (CCC) handles all calls to clinics.
“The CCC is responsible for receiving all primary care calls and assisting Veterans with appointments, medications, and getting messages to their provider/or nurse, and many routine inquiries can be quickly handled by the CCC staff without interruption to clinic services,” Meyer said.
Here are the options Meyer said veterans should use for contacting their clinic: “To respond to Veterans’ inquiries and appointment requests, we provide a couple of options for Veterans: (1) to use the secure message function of the MyHealtheVet website www.myhealth.va.gov that allows the Veteran to send electronic correspondence directly to their assigned provider and/or nurse, and receive a response back directly from them generally within two work days or (2) call the Centralized Contact Center, which handles all incoming Primary Care calls for Central Texas Veterans Health Care System (1-800-423-2111, select option 2).”
Most local veterans who depend on the VA for healthcare served during the Vietnam War or before. Many of those have limited computer skills and internet access. Communication through a website is off the table for many of them.
“The CCC actually has longer hours of operation than the clinic, as their hours of operation are 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday, excluding holidays,” Meyer said. “Requests are handled by the CCC and then submitted electronically into the patient’s record and available to the provider/nurse immediately after being submitted. Requests not of a routine that need a provider’s input are also entered into the Veteran’s record then forwarded to the provider who typically responds to these messages during their scheduled administrative time.”
When asked to explain the VA’s reasoning for not providing a public phone number at the La Grange Clinic, Meyer gave the following response: “This is standardization of services for all clinics to help with interruption to clinic services.”