Data from the US Department of Veterans Affairs show veterans seeking health care in Middle Tennessee face the longest delays in the nation.
At the VA's Nashville and Murfreesboro hospitals, veterans wait an average of 65 days to see a physician. That’s in spite of the VA’s 14-day target window for seeing veterans. The national average wait time was 27.4 days.
During the six months ending March 31st, 4,752 veterans in Nashville and Murfreesboro sought care for the first time. Of those, 1,405 received care in the 14-day window: about 29.6%. Nationwide, just over 40% of veterans seeking care for the first time saw a physician within 14 days.
The VA has been under fire nationwide over those wait times. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned last week after an audit found VA staffers around the country manipulated records to hide the delays.
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