When the VA cannot provide the services a veteran needs or the wait times are too long, the community care network takes over, and the VA healthcare system stops. The CCN covers five regions.

VA Community Care program under fire as vets wait for appointments, providers wait for payments The program will cost taxpayers $42 billion this fiscal year, and lawmakers are seeking more oversight.

VA spokesman Curt Cashour did not confirm the new VA community care program will follow TriCare's HMO model. But at a congressional briefing in late December—a few months after lawmakers ...

The VA’s new and improved Community Care Network contracts were supposed to be in place by then. But the agency repeatedly missed deadlines for these new contracts and has yet to award them.

Under new Community Care rules, veterans who drive more than 30 minutes to a local VA facility or must wait more than 20 days for a primary care or mental health appointment may be eligible for ...

Dr. Joe Jacobs, staff radiologist at the G.V. Sonny Montgomery Medical Center in Jackson, Miss., demonstrates new medical software in May 2013. VA announced a new contractor for outside health ...

As the current framework around community care continues to create barriers for veterans, it’s time for lawmakers to step up and safeguard their access to timely, quality health care.

VA officials say that’s not true, noting that community care referrals were up about 12 percent last month compared to 2019 levels (September 2020 levels were down about 6 percent, but VA ...

Providers are supposed to be excluded from participating in the VA community care program if they have been removed from VA employment, are under investigation by their state licensing boards or ...

Under the proposal released Wednesday, the VA wants to set a 30-minute average drive time standard, or a 20-day wait-time standard, for primary care, mental health and non-institutional extended care.