2026-03-11T15:51:04.412Z / CNN政治版
作者：布赖恩·托德
11分钟前
发布时间：2026年3月11日，美国东部时间上午11:51
相关话题： 联邦机构、退伍军人
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华盛顿讯 – 2024年11月24日，美国退伍军人事务部总部位于华盛顿特区。候任总统唐纳德·特朗普选择前众议员道格·柯林斯（Doug Collins）担任退伍军人事务部部长。（迈克尔·A·麦考伊/《华盛顿邮报》供图 via盖蒂图片社）
迈克尔·A·麦考伊/《华盛顿邮报》/盖蒂图片社
一位退伍军人的妻子因担心丈夫的癌症可能已经扩散，希望对其进行评估，并于去年向退伍军人事务部（VA）寻求放射科预约。
根据退伍军人事务部监察长办公室的调查，她“多次致电但均转至语音信箱”，并且“在承诺的24小时内未得到跟进”。
这一事件只是监察人员记录的众多案例之一，他们正在调查美国退伍军人长期以来的投诉：他们无法通过电话联系到医疗服务提供者。
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退伍军人事务部监察机构还发现其他案例：当退伍军人无法联系到VA工作人员预约或更改预约时，他们被迫“亲自前往医疗机构寻求答案”。事实上，监察长办公室在佛罗里达州迈阿密和华盛顿特区的VA医疗机构现场访问时“亲眼目睹”了这一情况，退伍军人向VA工作人员讲述了他们的经历。
但还有另一个问题——美国退伍军人事务部难以确定问题的范围。
监察长办公室在一份新的初步咨询报告中指出，他们抽样调查的15家VA医疗机构中，有13家缺乏关键的患者来电追踪数据。
报告显示，在截至2025年7月31日的12个月内，在寻求专科医疗服务的210万次来电中，有近100万次来电的后续情况未被追踪——这段时间涵盖了拜登和特朗普两届政府时期。
许多未被追踪的来电发生在VA诊所，患者寻求放射科和心理健康护理。报告指出，这些患者“面临不良健康结果的高风险”。
报告称，在这些机构寻求医疗服务的退伍军人“报告称他们面临延误、不确定性和沮丧感”。
多个退伍军人权益倡导组织呼吁VA解决这一问题。
“退伍军人事务部必须确保退伍军人能够可靠且及时地直接联系专科诊所，获得明确指导并获得所需的医疗服务，”美国伤残退伍军人协会（Disabled American Veterans）国家立法主任乔恩·雷泽（Jon Retzer）表示。
当被要求置评时，VA新闻秘书彼得·卡斯佩罗维奇（Peter Kasperowicz）在给CNN的声明中说：“我们感谢监察长的审查，该审查突出了自2024年7月拜登政府时期以来存在的问题。”
卡斯佩罗维奇称，在特朗普政府时期，VA减少了等待福利的退伍军人积压问题，并补充道：“我们期待与监察长合作，大幅改善VA的电话客服，并更好地追踪这些努力的成效。”
根据监察机构报告，这些机构未追踪有多少来电被接听，或有多少来电者在有人接听前挂断，也没有平均等待时间的信息。
报告称，未能追踪这些来电使得“难以确定退伍军人是否能够快速且轻松地联系到专科诊所”。
监察机构表示，其审计重点是选定医疗机构中六个专科（听力、牙科、心理健康、验光、足病学和放射科）的呼叫运营情况。
报告指出，这些13家机构的领导层“对其78家诊所中的49家的呼叫服务表现没有进行监督”。
伊拉克和阿富汗退伍军人协会（Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America）首席执行官凯尔安妮·亨特（Kyleanne Hunter）呼吁加强追踪和提高透明度。“追踪数据是VA改进流程的方式，以确保退伍军人的需求得到及时满足，”她说。
VA监察机构在发布完整报告和建议之前发布了这份咨询报告，预计将于今年夏天发布。
监察长办公室在给CNN的声明中表示：“这些信息旨在提高VA对各机构在专科呼叫方面存在不一致情况的认识。”
2023年，VA试图更全面地衡量其呼叫响应表现，指示其医疗机构持续收集和分析这些数据。它设定了一个标准：至少80%的呼叫应在30秒内得到应答，且在呼叫者挂断前未接来电不超过5%。
目前尚不清楚VA是否达到了这些目标，因为报告称该机构缺乏衡量其表现所需的工具。
监察长报告称，“VA信息技术办公室的一位官员证实，VA缺乏一个系统来捕获使用个人或共享电话线的专科诊所的呼叫表现数据”，并且在许多情况下没有计划修复这些系统，初步报告称这“可能阻碍领导层发现问题或采取纠正措施，以确保及时、无缝的医疗服务”。
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VA watchdog finds nearly a million calls from vets seeking care had key tracking data missing
2026-03-11T15:51:04.412Z / CNN Politics
By Brian Todd
11 min ago
PUBLISHED Mar 11, 2026, 11:51 AM ET
Federal agencies Veterans
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WASHINGTON, US- NOVEMBER 24: The United States Department of Veteran Affairs Headquarters on November 24, 2024 in Washington, D.C. President Elect Donald Trump chooses Former Rep. Doug Collins to become the next Secretary of the Department of Veteran Affairs. (Michael A. McCoy/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Michael A. McCoy/For The Washington Post/Getty Images
The wife of one veteran wanted her husband to be evaluated, fearing his cancer may have spread, and sought a radiology appointment last year with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
She made “multiple phone calls that went to voicemail,” last March and received “no follow-up within the promised 24 hours,” according to the VA’s chief watchdog.
That incident is just one documented by investigators with the VA’s inspector general’s office who are trying to get to the bottom of a longstanding complaint from the nation’s veterans: They can’t get through to their health care providers on the phone.
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The VA watchdog also discovered other cases when veterans were forced “to drive to facilities in person” for answers when they could not reach VA staff to schedule or change appointments. In fact, the inspector general’s office observed this “firsthand during site visits at VA facilities in Miami, Florida and Washington, D.C., where veterans told VA staff about their experiences.”
But there’s another problem – the Department of Veterans Affairs has a hard time of determining the scope of the problem.
The inspector general’s office, in a new preliminary advisory report, says it found that 13 of 15 VA medical facilities it sampled didn’t have key data tracking patient calls.
The report found the 13 facilities didn’t track what happened with nearly 1 million of the 2.1 million call attempts by veterans seeking specialized care over a 12-month period ending on July 31, 2025 – a time period that spans the Biden and Trump administrations.
Many of the untracked calls were at VA clinics where patients seek radiology and mental health care. The report noted that those are patients who “are at high risk of adverse health outcomes.”
Veterans trying to access care at those facilities “reported that they faced delays, uncertainty and frustration,” the report says.
Several veteran advocacy groups called for the VA to address the issue.
“The VA must ensure veterans can reliably and promptly make direct contact with specialty care clinics, receive clear guidance and secure the care they need,” said Jon Retzer, national legislative director for the group Disabled American Veterans.
When asked for comment, VA press secretary Peter Kasperowicz said in a statement to CNN: “We appreciate the inspector general’s review, which highlights issues dating back to July 2024 during the Biden administration.”
Kasperowicz said the VA under the Trump administration it has reduced the backlog of veterans waiting for benefits, adding, “We look forward to working with the inspector general to vastly improve VA’s phone-based customer service and better track these efforts.”
According to the watchdog report, the facilities didn’t track how many calls were answered or how many callers hung up before anyone answered, and they didn’t have information on average wait times.
The failure to track those calls makes it “difficult to determine whether veterans reached specialty care clinics quickly and easily,” the report said.
The watchdog said its audit focused on call operations for six specialties — audiology, dental, mental health, optometry, podiatry, and radiology — at the selected facilities.
Leaders at those 13 facilities “had no oversight of call performance for 49 of their 78 clinics,” according to the report.
Kyleanne Hunter, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, called for better tracking and more transparency. “Tracking data is how the VA improves its processes to ensure veterans’ needs are met in a timely manner,” she said.
The VA watchdog issued the advisory ahead of its full report with recommendations, which it expects to release by this summer.
The inspector general’s office told CNN in a statement that “this information is meant to increase the VA’s awareness of inconsistencies across facilities with respect to specialty care calls.”
In 2023, the VA sought to get a more comprehensive measure of its call response performance, directing its medical facilities to collect and analyze that data on an ongoing basis. It set a standard of answering at least 80% of calls within 30 seconds and allowing only 5% or fewer calls to go unanswered before callers hung up.
It’s unclear whether the VA is meeting those goals because the report says the agency lacks the tools necessary to measure its performance.
The inspector general’s report says “a VA Office of Information and Technology official confirmed that VA lacks a system to capture call performance data for specialty clinics that use individual or shared phone lines,” and in many cases has no plans to fix the systems, something the preliminary report says “may prevent leaders from identifying problems or taking corrective action to ensure timely, seamless care.”
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