John Plahovinsak
On October 19, 2023, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) established a new partnership with the Department of Defense (DoD) to increase surgical care for over 37,000 Gulf-Coast area veterans.
Many of our Ohio veterans spend a portion of their time, each year, residing in the Gulf-Coast area of Florida.
Under this new agreement, all veterans will be able to receive same-day, outpatient surgical care at a new VA Clinic at the Pensacola Naval Hospital, a local DoD Hospital.
Veterans do not have to change their normal processes to access this medical care. The VA will simply schedule their surgical procedures at the new VA Clinic at the Naval Hospital.
Prior to the new agreement, veterans had to travel to the Biloxi VA Medical Center (in Mississippi) or receive their medical care from community providers for these surgical procedures. Now veterans can receive their ambulatory surgical care from residing VA clinicians at the Pensacola Naval Hospital.
The first veterans started receiving medical care at the Pensacola facility on October 16, 2023. The VA has started planning to expand surgery access for veterans at the Pensacola Hospital by adding services, such as orthopedics; podiatry; ophthalmology; ear, nose, and throat; and urology.
“Establishing partnerships like this is an efficient and often cost-effective method for VA to increase veteran access to care, while helping to modernize the veterans’ health care experience,” said VA Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal.
“This partnership will help VA provide more care, more quickly, to more Gulf Coast veterans – as close to their homes as possible,” concluded the Under Secretary Elnahal. “We are proud to work with the DoD to better serve our nation’s heroes!”
The new partnership is a key part of the VA’s comprehensive strategy to modernize the VA health care system nationwide.
The VA is aggressively working to expand the amount of available space to meet veteran demand for VA health care services and address the challenges associated with its’ aging facilities.
“Partnering with the local DoD hospital increases veteran access to VA care, helping us meet the needs of the growing number of veterans in our area who entrust VA with their health care,” commented Stephanie Repasky, Director of the Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System.
In another partnership-associated area, the VA has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Penn Medicine to join forces, while improving the infrastructure for veterans’ health care at the Coatesville VAMC in southeastern Pennsylvania.
With the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center campus in Philadelphia serving the area, plus the Southern New Jersey service area, more than 100,000 disabled veterans are impacted by this MOU.
U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan said that the private/public partnership with the VA is the first of its kind as allowed by last year’s Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act. The Act provides additional health care benefits for veterans who were exposed to toxic substances, including burn bits and Agent Orange.
The partnership is allowed as the PACT Act calls for the VA to work with academic affiliates. The VA MOU calls for Penn Medicine and the VA to work to modernize aging VA facilities, and infrastructure, with much built in the 1930s, and collaborate with staff, to improve clinical and research partnerships.
“Caring for veterans of our nation’s military is a sacred responsibility,” said University of Pennsylvania Health System CEO Kevin B. Mahoney. “The PACT Act allows for great synergy between Penn Medicine and the VA, and we hope to leverage this new model to set the standard for how our nation approaches military medicine.”
My Opinion: The private/public partnership with the VA and Penn Medicine is the first of its kind as allowed by the PACT Act. It requires the VA to work with academic medical institutions to improve clinical and research partnerships.
Over 137,000 veterans will be benefiting from the two (2) partnerships at the Pensacola Naval and Coatesville VAMC Hospitals. This was a good idea and it took the enactment of the PACT Act in order for it to succeed.
The VA has an excellent opportunity to expand these partnerships in the future and the disabled veterans will be the direct beneficiaries of the VA’s actions!
BioSketch: John Plahovinsak is a retired 32-year Army veteran who served from 1967 to 1999. He is the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Department of Ohio’s Hospital Chairman. He can be contacted at:
plahovinsak@msn.com.