VA: Veteran trust in outpatient care has increased for the past six years

Veteran trust in Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient care has increased to 91.8 percent — up from 85.6 percent in 2018, the first year since VA began conducting surveys that measure patient trust.

The finding is based on a survey of more than 480,000 veteran patients who received VA health care in the past 90 days. Within one week of using VA services, the veterans were asked whether they trusted VA for their health care needs across a variety of categories — including scheduling an appointment, health care visits, in-person pharmacy, mail-order pharmacy, labs/imaging, and veteran safety.

“Delivering world-class health care begins with trust,” said VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Shereef Elnahal in a statement.“Whenever a veteran walks into a VA facility, we want them to know that we are going to take care of them. That’s the standard to which we hold ourselves, and we’ll never settle for anything less.”

The survey mirrors the findings of recent independent studies, VA said in a statement. Medicare’s latest nationwide survey of patients found VA hospitals outperformed non-VA hospitals on all 10 core patient satisfaction metrics — including overall hospital rating, communication with doctors, communication about medication, willingness to recommend the hospital, and more. VA health care has also consistently outperformed non-VA care in peer-reviewed studies, overall quality ratings and affordability for veterans.

“We at VA work to earn the trust of veterans every day, in every part of the country, every time they come to us for their care,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “We’re proud that more than 91 percent of Veterans now trust VA health care, but we still have work to do. By measuring veteran trust, we can not only learn what we’re doing well at VA – we can also learn how to get better.”

VA has also enrolled 401,006 veterans in VA health care over the past 365 days – 30 percent more than the 307,831 it enrolled the previous year. This is the highest number of enrollees in a single year in at least the past five years at VA and nearly a 50 percent increase over pandemic-level enrollment in 2020. VA credits that increase to the PACT Act, which allowed it to expand health care and benefits to millions of veterans.

Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com .