VA bosses in 7 states manipulated vets' wait times for care

how do these people sleep at night?

I say this every time I see a story about how the VA is failing. The fix is pretty wild, but I'm positive I can fix it!

This entire idea is going to sound outrageous, but I ask that you continue reading with an open mind.

No secret that the VA is in shambles. It's great on some areas, with some fantastic workers, but the core is rotten which has seemingly spread throughout. Clinics are often understaffed, under supplied, and patient to provider impanelment ratio is far to large to ever be fixed

Fix the VA-
I've planned this but I'll try to keep it short.

The VA Medicine and Veteran care should be rolled directly into AMEDD. Talks are in the air from what I can tell to push veteran care to the civilian world which simply cannot happen. Civilian medicine is years behind where the army is and years behind understanding where the army is and more and more veterans will be failed.

What I mean.
The Army has good hospitals all around the country and world. Top of the line facilities. Also the army has perfected the "super clinic" models with TMCs. We have the benefit of being under the feres doctrine have the force multiplier of medics.

My plan simply would be to roll the VA Med(and it's fund) it's clinics, and it's hospitals into AMEDD. Replace the heads the VA healthcare with military leadership like the Army all the way down the chain. like how it is for our active service members VA Clinics would be staffed with military OIC and NCOIC a small medic team as well as civilian DOD healthcare workers. This would ensure responsibility for care and standards are kept.

Now- here is where it gets a bit more strange. Veterans deciding to utilize veteran care must accept a "terms and conditions" similar to that of the Feres doctrine that protects healthcare providers in active duty. The primary purpose for that is it opens up Army Medics to be utilized further in care, doing what we do best, and filling in the holes for staff. We are a force multiplier.

Similar ideas of this has been played with in the past, successfully, but the portion mentioned above is the key part I believe that was missing.

How would the set up be?
Tricare would remain as is -4 regions. Hopital MEDDAC units woulda take accountability for a mapped area of surrounding clinics and be ultimately responsible for maintaining those clinics. Veteran care clinics should then be upgraded slowly to the standard we have now within our armed forces "super clinics". One stop shop for medical, dental, physical therapy, lab, X-ray, Once again- checks and balances teired levels of accountability.

Medical records; next it should be a full commitment over to the Army and Airforces current software "Altha". No longer does a veteran need to leave service with a big packet of medical records, everything stored on altha servers means if he serves in GA but goes home to Alaska all he previous issues and care can be looked right up. It's a phenomenal program. we are not can utilizing it's full potential right now.

This is just a brief break down. I know it sounds mad and daunting but the current situation with veterans seeking care is absolutely outrageous so only an equally outrageous sounding plan will be a proper fix
If only I knew someone to listen.

I am currently a United States soldier, a health care provider, and am willing to stand behind every word I said. I've crunched this idea many different ways, mapped the regions, and ran the numbers as best as I could. It is doable.

String them all up, or just dock their pay for the next 2-3 yrs. .