Roughly 80% of mental health appointments made in the Veterans Affairs\u2019 Community Care Program are scheduled within the department\u2019s 30-day wait-time standard, but VA schedulers still struggle to meet the seven-day requirement for making these appointments, the VA Office of Inspector General has found.<\/p>\n
The VA\u2019s watchdog evaluated mental health referrals for community care at 133 VA medical systems and found that just five met the seven-day metric for scheduling the appointments.<\/p>\n
But the inspectors also found that despite those delays, 80% of the referrals received appointments within 30 days.<\/p>\n
Of those that didn\u2019t meet the requirement, the average wait time for an appointment was 56 days.<\/p>\n
In the report released Monday,<\/a> OIG inspectors said the scheduling issues contributed to the delays in care, with staff often relying on telephone calls and postal mail to communicate with veterans. <\/p>\n Other roadblocks to timely referrals included providers not being available for the types of appointments veterans wanted and issues reaching providers, according to the report.<\/p>\n Delays in mental health consults are a problem because veterans who need the care may pose a risk to themselves and others without treatment, said Larry Reinkemeyer, assistant inspector general for audits and evaluation.<\/p>\n \u201cProcess improvements are needed to enable VA to meet its scheduling and appointment timeliness standards for mental health consults. Veterans who receive community care services for mental health consults represent a vulnerable group,\u201d Reinkemeyer wrote in the report.<\/p>\n For the analysis, the OIG reviewed community care consults for mental health services from Oct. 1, 2024, through Sept. 30, 2025. More than 825,000 veterans received mental health treatment during that period, either directly from the VA \u2014 with more than 1 million consults to VA facilities \u2014 or 198,000 referrals for community care. <\/p>\n The analysts found that when an appointment did not meet the 30-day metric, scheduling delays consumed much of that window.<\/p>\n Community care is the VA\u2019s program for veterans to receive medical services in the private sector with the cost covered by the VA. <\/p>\n By law, the VA must refer veterans to community care if the wait time for a primary or mental health care appointment at a VA facility is more than 20 days or the drive time is longer than 30 minutes.<\/p>\n Also by law, appointments must occur within 30 days to ensure patients have access to care. <\/p>\n