Veterans who need mental-health treatment are not getting it from the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a report to Congress prepared by the agency’s inspector general. The full report is available online at http://www.va.gov/oig/pubs/VAOIG-12-00900-168.pdf. Among the findings:
* The Veterans Health Administration (VHA), which manages VA’s mental-health activities, does not have a reliable method of determining whether veterans are getting mental-health services;
* The VHA claim that 95 percent of all first-time patients received full mental-health evaluations within 14 days is meaningless and misleading;
* VHA overstated the efficacy of providing veterans with treatment within 14 days.