The VA

I'm glad to hear about the medical record thing. I hope it works both ways. One of the big issues people were having getting initial VA appointments was that the VA couldn't see DoD medical records. It didn't help treatment either, especially for stuff like PTSF and traumatic brain injury. Also glad to hear about St. Mary's records being loaded into your VA record. One of the problem with Kaiser's EMR had been that they didn't try to load all the stuff in the paper MR into the EMR, so especially at first you had to send for old paper charts that were in storage at the north pole or someplace as hard to access. It's been long enough that the old records are less relevant now but it still would be nice to have all that in the EMR.

I didn't know about VA docs also working in private hospitals. It wasn't that way at any of the VA's I worked at but that was a long time ago. I wonder if it's a local thing or if the VA is doing that across the board. Back when VA problems were in the news one of the issues was not enough docs--maybe they decided to hire private docs to work part time to increase staffing, or maybe they decided to let VA docs moonlight in private hospitals to make the job more financially appealing to improve hiring. (The military does that.) Either way, from your experience it sounds like the access problems are improved. (I wouldn't mind having a Brazilian woman doc.)

Whatever, vets deserve the best.

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Originally Posted by Peruvian

So your saying that federally operated medical facilities are fast, efficient, and generally well liked?

But Fox News said that was socialism.

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Funny story about that:

Few weeks ago I suffered a tear in my ear drum. I was in a lot of pain and had to go to the Tripler ER. For those that don't know, Triple is a Army hospital on Oahu and the main healthcare provider for most active military on island.

I arrive and walk to the front desk. The clerk behind the counter points at a sign. It says please go to check in station. I walk over there and no one is there. So I walk back and he just stares at me before saying to wait at the check in station. I walk back over and a nurse comes out to take my info then tells me to walk back to the original clerk. He then points at the person next to him without saying anything. I shuffle over two feet and she starts asking for my information. She quickly grows annoyed at me because I keep asking her to repeat everything. I had to explain to her that I can't hear out of my left ear. That's why I'm here. I eventually get told to sit down and wait.

I sit and wait for two hours. No one is getting called back for treatment. The check in nurse could see that I was growing agitated and says she will check to see why I'm not being seen. A new LPN comes out and calls for someone named LT xxxx with xxxx being my first name. I ask do you mean me? He's says no LT xxxx. I say ok and he walks back behind the doors. Comes out 5 minutes later and is like "oh my bad sir I meant LT insertlastname" and he takes me back.

The PA comes over to assist and apologizes for the wait. Turns out the IT system shut down. lol. I can't escape the military dysfunction and incompetence even at the ER.

The treatment was great though. The PA even called down to ENT and was able to get me seen right away. I came back to see the PA to check out and she had to handwrite my discharge paperwork on a piece of paper. Fun times.

FWIW the VA and the military health care system are completely separate. But VA, military, university, Kaiser--when the IT goes down it is no fun for anyone. One downside (one of the few) of the electronic medical record.
In a swanky private hospital someone might have told you sooner what was going on.

A guy I worked with was an ex AF doc. Pilot comes into the ER with a pretty sick kid and the NCO at the desk are giving him shit. My friend comes out, takes the pilot back, takes care of the kid right away. Turns out the pilot flew medical transport flights and would often go to places like Hawaii, Italy, etc. and usually laid over there a few days before returning with the patient. And every time he flew someplace nice he took my friend with him as "flight surgeon".