The first article published of the three (CITE THE ARTICLE SOURCE AND DATE), which takes place a little under a year before the other two articles, is a notice from the Office of the Federal Register regarding their wait times and their aim for “transparency.” (this isn’t a news story. it’s a government publication) The article implies that the VA is devoted to the health and wellbeing of their patients and illustrates this to be their main objective for posting the wait times. The second article(CITE THE ARTICLE SOURCE AND DATE),is the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ reply to the revelation of their publishing of fraudulent wait times, in which they deny the allegation. They give a reason as to why the false wait times were ever published at all, claiming that the data is not accurate to the actual times that the appointments took place, simply to the way the schedule was planned. The third article, published by USA Today (DATE), further expands on the veracity of the falsified wait times, describing the situations of the waiting veterans and giving examples of times that these long waits sometimes ended with the deaths of veterans while they waited. USA Today claims that supervisors were known to have been instructing employees to submit the inaccurate information.
Slack, D. (2016, April 8). VA bosses falsified veterans’ wait times; Recently released reports detail extent of problems at U.S. medical centers. USA Today, p. 1A. Retrieved September 13, 2017, from http://0-www.lexisnexis.com.library.uark.edu/lnacui2api/api/version1/getDocCui?oc=00240&hnsd=f&hgn=t&lni=5JGM-1B81-DYRR-93DX&hns=t&perma=true&hv=t&hl=t&csi=270944%2C270077%2C11059%2C8411&secondRedirectIndicator=true
Washington: VA update on data and wait times. (2016, April 6). Newswire. Retrieved September 13, 2017, from http://0-www.lexisnexis.com.library.uark.edu/lnacui2api/auth/checkbrowser.do?ipcounter=1&cookieState=0&rand=0.027155121602499666&bhcp=1
FEDERAL REGISTER: Publication of Wait-Times for the Department for the Veterans Choice Program. (2015, May 4). Newswire. Retrieved September 13, 2017, from http://0-www.lexisnexis.com.library.uark.edu/lnacui2api/api/version1/getDocCui?oc=00240&hnsd=f&hgn=t&lni=5FX6-H0W1-DXCW-D14J&hns=t&perma=true&hv=t&hl=t&csi=270944%2C270077%2C11059%2C8411&secondRedirectIndicator=true
Questions:
- How did anyone ever notice the falsified wait times?
- Would this still be happening if they hadn’t figured out what the VA was doing?
The Federal Register is a government publication, not a news agency. I was asking for news stories, not government publications.
The first question would be answered by reading a little bit more in depth about the source of the VA controversy in 2014.