Overall VA Wait Times Are Getting Worse Since DOGE, New Vet Voice Foundation Report Finds

Press Releases
Six-month analysis of 21 VA Medical Centers shows a mixed bag, site-to-site, but overall picture shows wait times rose at 71% of sites; oncology, neurology, pulmonology, mental and women’s health among the hardest hit
Findings released alongside new data visualization at VAWaitTimes.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As DOGE-driven workforce cuts continue to ripple through the Department of Veterans Affairs, veterans are waiting longer to see VA doctors, and the VA is failing to meet its own standards for timely access at most facilities and in most specialties, according to a new white paper released today by the Vet Voice Foundation.

The report can be viewed here: https://vawaittimes.org/trending-in-the-wrong-direction-wait-times-at-select-department-of-veterans-affairs-medical-centers-increasing-in-recent-months/

The report, Trending in the Wrong Direction: Wait Times at Select Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers Increasing in Recent Months, authored by veteran and former VA Assistant Secretary Kayla M. Williams, analyzes six months of daily wait time data scraped from VA’s own Access to Care website at 21 VA Medical Centers spanning 13 of 18 Veterans Integrated Service Networks and all four U.S. Census regions.

Key findings include:

  • Wait times increased at 15 of 21 sites (71.4%) when averaged across specialties, and decreased at only six.
  • Wait times rose in 16 of 25 specialties (64%) when averaged across all sites.
  • The VA is violating its own standards for timely access in many specialties at most locations.
  • Wait times grew in oncology, neurology, pulmonology, and women’s health — specialties critical for post-9/11 veterans facing toxic exposures, blast injuries, and elevated cancer risk.
  • Mental health group therapy, PTSD-specific care, and substance use disorder wait times all increased, even as individual mental health appointment wait times stayed roughly flat.
  • VA primary care wait times have grown steadily longer since 2017.
  • “Secret-shopper” calls revealed significant gaps between the wait times VA posts online and what veterans are actually told when they try to book appointments.

The findings come as the current administration has reduced the VA workforce for the first time in two decades, including the loss of roughly 500 psychologists and psychiatrists in a single year, alongside the elimination of thousands of unfilled medical positions. VA leadership has repeatedly told Congress and the public that these cuts have not harmed access to care.

The data say otherwise.

“The numbers don’t back up what VA leadership keeps telling the public,” said report author Kayla M. Williams. “Our study suggests that wait times are getting worse across the country, and they’re getting worse in exactly the specialties our newest generation of veterans needs most — cancer care, brain and lung care, women’s health, and mental health beyond a single individual appointment. When you shrink the workforce, leave clinical positions vacant, and push more veterans into a community care system that doesn’t have the capacity or the expertise to absorb them, this is the result. Continued cuts will make it worse, not better.”

The report also pushes back on the argument that community care is a fix. Private sector wait times are climbing across major metropolitan markets amid a worsening physician shortage, and the U.S. faces a nationwide shortfall of mental health providers. Meanwhile, expanded community care referrals are draining the VA budget, adding pressure to the very direct care system that vulnerable veterans, including those with blast injuries, toxic exposures, military sexual trauma, and spinal cord injuries, depend on.

“This is what it looks like when you cut care and then tell veterans nothing has changed,” said Janessa Goldbeck, Marine Corps veteran and CEO of Vet Voice Foundation. “Secretary Doug Collins can say these cuts don’t impact care, but veterans are already waiting longer. The data proves it. You cannot cut clinicians, leave jobs empty, and expect the system to hold. Veterans are paying the price, and we deserve the truth.”

To make these trends visible to veterans, advocates, journalists, and policymakers, the Vet Voice Foundation today also launched VAWaitTimes.org, a site that visualizes key findings about the changes in wait times over this period. Because VA publishes daily data, but does not publish historical wait time data, the site fills a critical oversight gap.

“Veterans, their families, and the people who advocate for them deserve to see what’s actually happening, not just what they’re being told,” Williams said. “Without sustained oversight, the harm to the VA direct care system could become irreparable.”

The full white paper is available at VAWaitTimes.org.