Washington’s 8th District congresswoman, Kim Schrier, M.D., has heard the stories from countless veterans who are frustrated with the processes surrounding the use of Wenatchee’s VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC). Now she is taking action.
For the past few months, Dr. Shrier and her office have been collecting stories and investigating the issues Veterans in our region have been having accessing and using our local VA Clinic. Ranging from phone calls being bounced around or unanswered to appointments being canceled, from difficulties navigating the online portal to extreme wait times to get a referral and appointment for community care. For these reasons, and more, a lot of our veterans are either electing to drop out of the VA system, or avoiding connecting to it, and their benefits, at all. Unfortunately, if a regional clinic doesn’t get much use, the higher ups may think it is not needed. In our case, that’s exactly the opposite – MORE veterans in our area need these services, but are disenfranchised with the current system. If our clinic and the process of utilizing our VA healthcare benefits in our local area were easier on all of us veterans, we would be glad to use it.
So now Dr. Schrier is taking it up the chain, trying to find ways to improve what we have, making it easier for veterans already in the system to use it, as well as encouraging more veterans in the area to sign up for local VA services. Might be a new phone system, might be more helpful information on using the electronic records system, or it might even be staffing changes at the clinic itself. Whatever it takes, she wants to find a viable solution.
Dr. Schrier recently visited the Spokane VA hospital (Mann-Grandstaff, which oversees our local clinic) and the Wenatchee CBOC to speak with employees and area veterans. She also wrote a letter to VA Secretary Denis McDonough addressing and outlining her concerns. The Wenatchee World, NCW Life, and iFiberone have all covered Dr. Schrier’s concerns and actions about this as well.
This is something we’ll want to keep watching and stay involved in. Questions, comments, concerns, stories and more can be directed to Kelli Scott at Dr. Shrier’s Wenatchee office:
301 Yakima Street, Room 329 | Wenatchee, WA 98801
Cell: (509) 850-5340 | FAX: (425) 392-4729
Be sure to keep an eye on Facebook and Dr. Schrier’s website for updates.
