Houston VA facilities doctored patient appointment data

Employees at Houston-area Department of Veterans Affairs facilities manipulated scheduling data for hundreds of medical appointments, understating patient wait times by days or even months, according to an agency watchdog.

Investigators with the VA's Office of Inspector General concluded that two former scheduling supervisors and the current director of two Community Based Outpatient Clinics in Houston had instructed staff to record appointment changes as if the patient had canceled, even when the VA initiated the changes, according to a report released Monday.

"As a result, VHA's [Veterans Health Administration] recorded wait times understated the actual wait experienced by the veterans," the report found. "Furthermore, we considered the errors identified significant, resulting in unreliable patient wait times."

The report's revelations incensed legislators and veterans advocates, including local veterans who have complained about difficulties getting treatment in the Houston facilities.

"They're manipulating the system to make it seem these wait lists are not as bad as they are," said Cody McGregor, national outreach director at Concerned Veterans for America and an outspoken critic of the VA. "You're impacting the lives of heroes, that's the thing that's just sickening."

Local VA officials acknowledged the shortcomings found in the report but said no veterans here were harmed.

"There was no intentional manipulation at any time," said Anna Teague, associate chief of staff of ambulatory care at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center and outlying clinics. "It was just errors, and we just want to make sure those errors don't happen."

Teague said staff closely reviewed the medical records of patients affected by the errors.

"No patient harm was caused - no deaths, no nothing at all," she said. "The majority were seen within 30 to 40 days ... Very few had a longer wait time."

The investigation – prompted by an anonymous complaint – comes as part of a system-wide review following revelations in 2014 that dozens of veterans died in Arizona waiting for treatment and that VA medical staff there had manipulated wait times. The scandal triggered FBI and White House investigations and led one of President Barack Obama's deputy chiefs of staff to decry "significant and chronic system failures" and a "corrosive culture" within the VA.