A whistleblower working for two Va hospitals says he was “coached” on how to cook the books to hide long wait time for patients. In addition, staffers in two states have now revealed that they were aware of records manipulation to hide wait times. Brian Turner, a Army medic who became a scheduling clerk told NBC news that he was told how to cook the books.
Dr. Samuel Foote who worked in an Arizona VA hospital also said that he had a secret paper wait list in addition to his electronic wait list so he could hide the length of time patients go without care and he said that as many as 40 may have died due to delays.
The Veterans Health Administration runs 150 hospitals serving over 5.69 million patients in 2013. The program costs the tax payers $150.7 billion about 3.9% of the federal budget.
Congress is investigating the VA facilities nation-wide now.
