10.24 – Reavis In-Class Work

While 92 percent of veterans who request an appointment at a VA in the U.S. have been scheduled for care within 30 days of the request, 98 percent have been scheduled for care within 30 days at the Fayetteville, Arkansas VA hospital in 2017. For about 8 percent of veterans who have requested appointments in 2017, U.S. VA hospitals are unable to schedule them for care until at least 30 days after their request, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The Fayetteville VA has taken 30 days or more with 2 percent of its clients so far in 2017, down from nearly 4 percent in 2016, 5 percent in 2015 and 7 percent in 2014. While the percentage of appointment scheduling longer than 30 days is on the decline at the Fayetteville VA, other VAs in the area have seen more sporadic shifts. The Little Rock VA’s percentage of appointments that take over 30 days to schedule has decreased by half a percentage point since 2014, while Fayetteville’s has dropped by five percentage points. In the same time period, the Memphis VA’s percentage has risen by 1.6 percentage points, and the Shreveport VA’s has risen by 2.5 percentage points. The Fayetteville VA is also the only one among the four to only decrease year-by-year, with each of the other reported VAs seeing at least one increase in percentage between 2014 and 2017.