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The VHA completed 6.9 million consultations in house and paid for an additional 869 000 consultations in the community for cardiology, gastroenterology, orthopedics, and urology from January 2013 to December 2019. The study sample consisted of 3 135 530 veterans, with mean (SD) age 62.0 (13.4) years; 2 873 521 (91.6%) were men. Mean wait times for VHA appointments declined during this period (Figure ), but the declines began before VCP implementation. Orthopedics experienced the largest decline in mean (SD) wait times, from 53.0 (22.4) days to 30.0 (14.7) days. Lesser declines were observed for urology (42.0 18.5 days vs 34.0 11.7 days) and gastroenterology (58.0 23.3 days vs 51.0 22.9 days). Cardiology wait times did not differ over time.
Griffith et al. (Wed,) studied this question.