VA: High-Quality Health Care At Low Cost

(CBS)  Eighty-eight-year-old George Sack can go anywhere he wants for health care, but he chooses to go to the VA, CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports. That's right, the Veterans Administration.

If his choice surprises you, it doesn't surprise health care experts. In studies, including one by Harvard, and in six straight years of patient satisfaction surveys, the VA earned the highest health care quality rating in the country. It's also the least expensive.

It's a remarkable turnaround from the old VA, the uncaring place once derided in movies like "Born on the Fourth of July."

Today's VA looks like the future. It has thrown out the medical paperwork and put everything about its patients in the computer.

During Sack's exam, his medications, his diabetes and blood tests are all electronic records. In the radiology lab, there's no more x-ray film. Futuristic 3-D scans of patients are simply entered electronically. Sack can go to any VA clinic in the country and a computer will tell his doctor everything — from when his shots are due to when he hasn't taken his medicine.

"This computer keeps me honest," Sack says.

The VA is also a bargain for taxpayers, and not just because of the computers. Doctors are salaried employees, which saves on labor. Drugs are cheaper because of negotiated discounts. Even with its older population, VA care overall costs 30 percent less than the national average.

Dr. Ken Kizer, the former VA official who spearheaded the turnaround, says the rest of the health care system should be taking notes.

"What was done there works. Much of it is transferable to the private sector," Kizer says.

This doesn't that mean VA care is perfect. There are often long waits to see specialists, and some veterans just back from Iraq complain of inadequate counseling for war-related stress.

"I've come to grips with the fact that the system has failed me," says Chad Best, an Iraq war veteran. "And either I put up with it, or I shut up."

Still, Sack is pleased. Sixty-two years ago, then-Sgt. Sack risked everything to storm the beach at Normandy. Today, by delivering the most high-tech medical care anywhere, his country is paying him back.

[olgreyghost]

Yes, everything was moved to computers so now the doctors spend more time talking to the computer screens instead of the patients in their offices. Appointment notices are sent out through the mail in a system almost guaranteed to show up an hour and a half after the appointment was supposed to be and since the veteran didn't show up for an appointment he didn't know about he's tagged as a "no-show" and the specialty clinic then refuses to ever see him.

How appropriate this article should be in the news, again, this time of the year. Sounds like a perfect snow job...

The VA will only see us retired guys if you do not have any health care already, I had a family plan after retirement and was told that I could not be seen because I had insurance, was I to drop my families health care to be seen?, I'd rather die than have my family go without

[everet3]

No it does not work, the transplant center ordered that all my teeth be pulled, so for a while I talked with a slurr the in clinic pharmacist said I was over taking my medications, and I also suffer from something called neomyacin toxcity which takes away your hearing. So he puts it in the computer that I have to give the phone to my daughter because I am so high that I cannot understand what he is saying. My primary care doctor says she can't take it off only he could and he won't. So now it looks like I'm some kind'ave drug addict. I have written to my Congressman about this but haven heard a word from him as of yet and it's been over a year ago.

[davidwyllie]

The San Francisco VA Medical Center quite literally saved my life. The level of care that veterans receive is, in my opinion, far superior to anything they could reasonably expect elsewhere. Is the VA perfect? Of course not! But how many veterans, like me, are only alive today because of the care they received there?

[gbalpha33]

Drugs may be cheaper for the VA, but co payments are higher for the veteran. You could die waiting for a primary care appointment. They actively discourage retired military, especially on Medicare, from coming, like they told me for ENT care and eye care, "Don't call us, we'll call you". For eye care they haven't. For audio care, for which I am service connected, I had to first be interviewed by a staff doctor, then was allowed an appointment this year. No futuer appointments are scheduled. They scheduled primary care appointments, didn't tell me, sent me "no-show" letters, then dropped me. I cannot hear on a phone so cannot call and straighten things out. Remember, VA mishandled our computer records when the employee took them home.

[revdr72741-2009]

Will someone please advise me WHERE ARE these so-called excellent VA medical facilities? I have been treated in 5 Va medical centers, from Florida, Georgia, and Oklahoma, with the level of care and diagnosis being remarkably similar, very bad!!
For 7 years, I have been treated, diagnosed, sent to specialists, with very little improvement of my symptoms as well as my general health conditions. Trying to explain my conditions, as well as attempting to convince the doctors that I am suffering from a chronic ailment for which there is no definitive cure, has been the most difficult thing I've had to cope with, given the facts that seem to indicate that no one is interested in my particular case, or ailment.
Given the great news of such improved care, causes me to wonder just where are these facilities, for I am at the point of moving to wherever one of these facilities are, just to get the proper treatment, in order to enjoy the rest of my life.

[mochapman522]

The VA health care system is great, but I, as a disabled veteran, find it almost impossible to be seen. The system is underfunded and oversubscribed.