VA has touted appointment wait time reductions, but new data shows a more mixed reality

The Trump administration has frequently said that appointment wait times at the Veterans Affairs Department are improving despite widespread cuts to its workforce, but internal data reveal a varied picture of how long patients are waiting for health care in some facilities and specialties.

Many VA facilities are struggling to provide veterans with timely access to care in areas like neurology, post-traumatic stress disorder treatment and oncology, according to data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Some facilities and some specialties have fared better, allowing veterans to access appointments more quickly, but the data does not show consistent, comprehensive progress toward faster care for new patients. 

“Our wait times were going up,” VA Secretary Doug Collins told lawmakers at a House hearing in February. “So we decided to do something a little unique in this town, we decided to do something about it. We've actually seen over the past year our wait times stabilize or go down.”

The reality of the situation is more complicated. 

VA provided wait time data to American Bridge, a Democratic group that gave the raw data to Government Executive. 

That data included information from 134 of VA’s 170 medical centers across 10 key specialties with significant data, which collectively make up the bulk of appointments out of dozens of specialties—primary care, mental health treatment individually and in a group setting, substance abuse treatment, PTSD, neurology, physical therapy, pulmonary, oncology and urology. 

Government Executive analyzed average wait times for new patients in the first four months of fiscal 2026, October 2025 to January 2026, and compared it to the same period of fiscal 2025, which marked the final four months of the Biden administration. The data did not include appointment volume, which VA does not publish publicly, but instead illustrates how the department is performing on a facility-by-facility basis across different lines of care. The focus of this report is on how the surge of veterans newly seeking VA care are faring given the changes it is undergoing.

VA itself maintains an access standard for how long veterans should wait for direct care conducted by VA itself—20 days for primary and mental health care, and 28 days for specialty treatment—after which point veterans are eligible to seek care outside the VA on the government’s dime.

At the start of fiscal 2026, five of the 10 practice areas saw a majority of facilities met that standard. That’s the same number as a year prior.

For three specialties—physical therapy, substance use disorder and oncology—the number of facilities meeting the VA’s standard actually declined from the previous year, although for seven others, the number of facilities meeting the standard increased.

For neurology, just 7% of facilities met the goal to get veterans an appointment within 28 days, which actually marked a slight improvement from the prior year. Wait times for neurology appointments in the VA’s medical center in Omaha saw the biggest increase, from an average of 27 days to 127 days. In Dallas, wait times jumped from 87 days to 130. 

Quinn Slaven, a VA spokesperson, disputed Government Executive’s analysis, saying it relied on incomplete data that fails to account for all of the department’s areas of care and the volume of appointments at each facility, “regardless of whether they serve a few patients or thousands.” VA did not make that data available. 

The information at the basis of this report shows how department facilities in the dataset are performing around the country. Slaven also took issue with the focus on new patient data, noting existing patients “make up more than 80% of patients seen by VA staff, and that for this group, average wait times are lower now than they were in FY2024 for primary care, specialty care and mental health care." 

In Trump’s second term, Slaven said, “average patient wait times have fallen in four of six major categories of care, after they rose in five of six categories under Biden.” The six broad categories are primary, mental health and specialty care for both new patients, and the same for existing patients. He did not say which categories changed or provide data on those changes. 

Collins has consistently beat the drum to highlight improvements in VA wait times. In February he told Fox News that “by better focusing our resources…our wait times in hospitals are improving.” In March he tweeted “it’s a new day at VA” and the department is “slashing wait times.” This week he told Newsmax that he changed the culture at VA to focus on veterans, which led to a “great transformation” and bringing down wait times. 

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle told Government Executive, however, the data showed VA has yet to make the consistent strides that department officials have suggested it has already achieved. 

“While it is encouraging to see wait times improve in certain specialty areas at the Department of Veterans Affairs, there is still more work to be done,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., who chairs the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. “No veteran, especially those facing cancer, addiction or mental health conditions, should have to wait days, weeks or months to receive the care they have earned through their service.”

Progress on wait times is mixed across different specialties. Although about 36% of locations taking new urology patients saw improvements in average wait times, the wait times at half of the VHA’s locations in the dataset got worse. Wait times for the remainder were stable. 

Half of the locations offering oncology appointments also saw worsening wait times, with only 31% improving. 

For VHA locations offering treatment for substance use, PTSD and neurology, about 48% of facilities saw deterioration in wait times, with only 35%, 45% and 44% seeing improvements, respectively. 

Staffing changes

Collins last year put forward a plan to slash VA by 80,000 employees through layoffs and various incentives, but pared back the plan after it received bipartisan pushback. He boasted that VA successfully reached his stated goal of shedding 30,000 employees in fiscal 2025.

As of February, VHA had lost a net 18,626 employees since Trump took office, when accounting for hiring, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management. VA has seen a net loss of around 1,100 physicians and nearly 3,000 nurses, as well as 800 medical support assistants who handle appointment scheduling.

One senior VHA official who spoke to Government Executive on the condition of anonymity to openly evaluate the data, said it showed the department may have been getting ahead of itself in flaunting its accomplishments. 

“I also think there is a danger in celebrating too soon or overreacting too soon,” the official said. “There really is a lot of movement based on normal change in the organization.”   

Across each specialty at all 134 facilities, VA saw 486 specialties experience worsening average wait times of at least two days. The department saw 427 specialties with wait times improving by at least two days. The remainder stayed fairly stable. 

In total, about 42% of specialties on a per facility basis saw patients waiting longer for an appointment, while 37% saw improvements.

Among those with wait time changes of more than two days in either direction, eight specialties saw more facilities with increased wait times rather than decreases. Primary and pulmonary care were the only areas that saw more facilities demonstrate significant improvement.

The data did not offer insights into overall average wait times on a per specialty or department-wide basis.

Dr. Steven Braverman, who led multiple VA medical centers and regional offices before becoming the VHA chief operating officer from late 2024 through September 2025, said that “it is clear from these data that there is a mixed picture of improvement and worsening despite VHA’s efforts toward improvement across the board.”  

He noted that larger facilities are facing more difficulties in meeting primary and mental health care standards and are more vulnerable to increases in demand for basic services. Smaller facilities, meanwhile, struggled to keep pace with specialty wait time standards and are particularly vulnerable to the departure of staff in those fields.

Without personnel data and veteran enrollment data, it can be difficult to assign causation for changing wait times, said Braverman, who previously served for nearly 30 years in various Army medical roles.

That said, “very few facilities currently failing to meet wait time standards demonstrated improvement over the past year,” Braverman said. “That suggests a demand versus capacity mismatch that won’t be fixed by efficiency or productivity improvements. That requires increase in hiring or clinical infrastructure to meet growing demand.”

Strains on capacity

Capacity has become a more acute concern after Biden signed the PACT Act into law in 2022, which made millions of veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxins newly eligible for care and precipitated the hiring surge VHA oversaw in the previous administration. The law has both boosted enrollment of new patients and made existing patients eligible for increased level of care. 

VA has noted it delivered more appointments than ever before in fiscal 2025 and earlier this month highlighted that 100,000 veterans have newly signed up for health care through VA in 2026, with signups happening at a faster clip than in recent years. 

“In FY2025, VA completed 82,083,918 direct care appointments, up 4.1% from FY2024. This overall improvement in average wait times has occurred even as VA is making more direct care appointments than ever,” Slaven said. VA did not provide any data on overall wait times. 

The department has highlighted that it has opened 34 new health care facilities across the country since Trump took office, much of which was authorized and funded by the PACT Act. It has allowed for more flexible appointment scheduling at off hours, which it said has led to improved service. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the veterans panel, said that staffing cuts are leading to worse outcomes at VA. 

“These findings contradict the Trump Administration’s continued claims that its draconian workforce cuts and hemorrhaging of frontline VA staff have no impact on veterans’ care,” Blumenthal said. “The resulting harm is visible in the increased wait times at many VA facilities nationwide.”

The senator noted VHA has implemented new restrictions on hiring, with special permission required to cross established staffing ceilings, and eliminated many vacant roles. He also called on VA to tap into its statutory authority to pay some doctors more than the $400,000 salaries at which they are currently capped.

Wait times at VA are a longstanding area of concern and they received particular attention in 2014 following a nationwide scandal in which the department was found to have been manipulating its data. That led to widespread reforms, including two efforts to boost veterans’ ability to receive private sector care on the government dime. The Trump administration has sought to boost the use of “community care” after saying its predecessors made the process overly onerous. Moran and others are looking to codify those changes.

VA officials recently told lawmakers that veterans are waiting between four and 54 days for an appointment when referred out to the private sector, depending on where they are and what service they are seeking.

In a January Senate hearing, some lawmakers accused Collins of bringing chaos to VA. The secretary told senators the results spoke for themselves.

“It’s amazing to me that we’ve actually lowered wait times,” said Collins. “It’s amazing to me that through this process we’ve made it easier for our veterans to get this healthcare service they need. If that’s chaos, maybe we’re in the right direction.”