New VA dental patients face waits of 2 months for appointments – Task & Purpose

New VA dental patients face waits of 2 months for appointments  Task & Purpose

Veterans seeking to begin dental care with the VA wait an average of 51 days for initial appointments, far longer than established patients. Veterans looking to find a dentist through Department of Veterans Affairs health clinics waited nearly two months for a first appointment, according to new figures provided by the VA to Task & Purpose. That delay is about three times as long as the typical time a returning patient can expect to get dental care in the VA system. Established patients, who accounted for more than 90% of VA dental appointments, wait an average of 14 days, VA officials told Task & Purpose, compared with an average wait of 51 days for new patients.

VA calculates the 14-day average wait for established patients from the date the veteran and provider agree that follow-up care is appropriate to when care was delivered. The VA did not say why the wait times for new patients were so much greater than for returning patients. But officials said reducing wait times for appointments is one of the goals of a $30 billion,10-year contract awarded Sept. 30 that will transition the VA’s community dental care system to a nationwide network run by a private company, Optum Serve. “VA’s contract with Optum will transition the current regional network structure to a single national dental