VA: SAME-DAY CARE PROMISED NATIONWIDE!

Seeking to end years of scandal over patient treatment delays, the Department of Veterans Affairs is working to offer its patients same-day care at each of its medical centers by year's end.

The goal is part of a nine-point list of initiatives announced Friday, which is being implemented at clinics and hospitals across the nation to better care for veterans in the embattled health system.

Already, 34 facilities offer that same-day primary and mental health care. Colorado Springs is not on that list, though the capability is expected to expand, said Dr. David Shulkin, the VA's undersecretary for health, during a conference for health care journalists in Cleveland.

"This is not only possible - we're doing it today," Shulkin said. "What we need to do is to consistently do it across our 168 member centers."

The VA also plans to roll out an app across the nation that allows patients to schedule their own appointments. And the health care system is implementing a new, easier-to-use scheduling system for its staff, Shulkin said.

The initiative, called a "declaration of access" comes as the agency continues to face withering criticism over the falsification of appointment records across the nation - including at Colorado Springs' clinic at Centennial Boulevard and Fillmore Street.

A recent report by the agency's inspector general found 11.5 percent of veteran appointments for care in Colorado Springs were delayed by 30 days or more. The figure is nearly four times the national rate, and it's up 7 percent from before the new 76,000-square-foot clinic first opened.

The report also found that local clinic workers delayed adding scores of veterans to a list for the "Veterans Choice" program, which would have allowed them to seek private care. It impacted 229 of 450 cases reviewed, the report said.

The new goals are meant to help the VA move past those issues, Shulkin said.

"That is not what we believe represents the current VA today," said Shulkin, of treatment delays that first gained notoriety two years ago. "We've now moved beyond that, reaffirmed our values and making sure we're putting systems in place that work for veterans."

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Senators Threaten VA Confirmations Unless C-123 Exposure Issues Resolved!

Two Democratic senators are holding up a confirmation vote on President Barack Obama's nominee for Veterans Affairs' top health post, citing the department's delay in extending disability benefits to Air Force reservists possibly exposed to Agent Orange.

Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Ron Wyden of Oregon said Thursday they will block a vote on Dr. David Shulkin's nomination in the full Senate until the Department of Veterans Affairs provides a fuller update on its efforts to help roughly 1,500 to 2,100 reservists who served from 1972 to 1982 at military bases in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

Brown, Wyden and five other senators requested such feedback in a letter to the VA in April, with no adequate response to date, they said.

Any senator can anonymously place a hold on a nominee for any reason, preventing a vote.

"These veterans have waited too long to receive the health care and disability benefits they deserve," Brown told The Associated Press. "Dr. Shulkin is extremely qualified, but we can't move forward to confirm an undersecretary for health at the VA until this pressing veterans' health issue is addressed."

The VA did not immediately respond Thursday morning to a request for comment.

The department has been mulling a plan to grant a presumption of Agent Orange exposure to reservists who flew or worked on C-123 aircraft, many of which contained residue from the herbicide in the years after the Vietnam War. Such a move would give them easier access to disability benefits.

Since at least 2012, the VA has denied that the reservists could have been exposed to dioxin from dried Agent Orange, but it agreed to reexamine the issue after an Institute of Medicine report in January concluded many reservists were exposed and suffered higher health risks.

If confirmed, Shulkin, president of the Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey, would fill a key VA undersecretary position, managing a healthcare system responsible for 9 million military veterans in more than 1,700 facilities. His task would include working to improve wait times for medical care following last year's scandal involving long waits at the Phoenix VA medical center.

Dr. Carolyn Clancy, who had been appointed an assistant deputy undersecretary, has been serving as interim undersecretary for health. The previous undersecretary, Dr. Robert Petzel, stepped down in May 2014 in the wake of the Phoenix scandal.

Shulkin's nomination is awaiting final confirmation after a Senate panel approved it Tuesday by voice vote.