Quote Originally Posted by Mike P View Post
As I said I've had 2 experiences with the program. When you get referred and contact them the people on the phone are nice enough but it is a bureaucracy, and after you get off the phone it's a crap shoot if they will actually do what they said they would (actually your information is put into a computer system and the action itself will be handled by someone else).

I fortunately have been pretty lucky and overall all I’m in pretty good health so I haven’t had to have a lot of medical care. As I don't even know what Dr(s)/clinics are in the area I just let the Choice Program assign me one. In both cases when I was put on the Choice Program I was asked if I had a preference on which Dr I wanted to see. I think that was my biggest mistake. Winding my way thru the bureaucracy was doable but the quality of the Dr/ Clinics Choice assigned me to left a lot to be desired. If god forbid I end up on the Choice program sometime in the future I will check around and get my own recommendations on which Dr I want to see.

I’ve heard the horror stories about some peoples experiences in various VA facilities. My experience with VA in Tucson and the local clinic has been positive overall. Fortunately they now have a new Dr in the local clinic and I am back in the VA system. After a quick review of the physical that was done by the Choice assigned provider, the VA Clinic has decided to redo the physical and I have an appointment with them in a couple of weeks. Basically our tax dollars spent on the Choice provider for my “care” were simply wasted.



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I used the Choice system for some therapy to get back in some kind of shape after my last pneumonia experience, it's a 50 mile drive to the VA but the Choice system got me with our local hospital and I used their facility and staff. It sure did help the recovery and being able to go a few blocks to the local hospital beat the heck out of the 100 mile round trip to the VA! I've also heard all the VA horror stories, I guess I'm very fortunate in that the VA facility is IMO really first rate! I've been a "client" there since 1972 and have seen a lot of changes over the years with all of them being positive improvements!