The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has a tech system that helps VA schedulers book veterans’ appointments directly into community providers’ scheduling systems, but lawmakers say the agency is rolling out the system too slowly.
When a veteran is referred to community care, VA staff often have to call the veteran and provider multiple times to schedule an appointment. However, the agency’s External Provider Scheduling (EPS) program is meant to fix this tedious process, giving VA schedulers direct access to providers’ appointment availability.
In 2023, the VA awarded WellHive a contract for its EPS program, and the program has already proven to be successful. The average time to schedule an appointment using EPS is seven minutes, and the VA is already seeing up to a four-fold increase in productivity for VA staff using the program.
“Spending less time scheduling each appointment means VA schedulers can be more efficient, and veterans can get their appointments faster. But here’s the problem: EPS is only active at about 20 percent of VA medical hospitals,” Rep. Tom Barrett, R-Mich., chairman of the House VA Technology Modernization Subcommittee, said during a hearing on Monday afternoon.
While the VA is adding new providers almost every day, Chairman Barrett noted that the agency will need to keep growing the number of providers in EPS “if the program is going to reach its potential.” Currently, there are about 6,000 provider services active in EPS.
“EPS is only a few years old, and I understand that it takes time to adopt new technology … but without strong leadership and commitment from the VA, I fear that this will be yet another IT project that withers on the vine with unrealized potential to improve veterans’ lives,” said Rep. Barrett.
“Despite EPS’s promising results, the Biden administration repeatedly placed roadblocks in front of the program,” he asserted. “In 2024, VA paused recruitment of community providers into EPS, deactivated sites where EPS was already up and running, and canceled plans to expand nationwide – all while blaming fake budget shortfalls.”
Nevertheless, an official from the VA said that the agency has “sped up” the deployment of the program since September of last year.
Dr. Lisa Arfons, the acting deputy assistant under secretary for integrated veteran care at the Veterans Health Administration, told lawmakers that the VA has expanded EPS from 16 sites last fall to 36 sites today.
Additionally, Dr. Arfons said the VA has scheduled 18 medical centers to go live by the end of this fiscal year – bringing the total number of sites to 54. She added that the successful deployments will allow the VA “to plan in the future for further deployment.”
“EPS is now reaching more veterans at more sites faster than ever before,” Dr. Arfons said. “We are committed to building on this momentum, expanding EPS nationally, and continuing to refine the system based on real-world feedback from veterans, VA staff, and community providers.”
When asked by the chairman if there is any plan to integrate the EPS rollout with the existing rollout of the VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program, Dr. Arfons said, “No, we certainly are open to that.”
“[We are] definitely looking at opportunities for fuller integration with our technology systems, including EHR, so we can realize the benefits of EPS,” she said.