AUGUSTA, ME – During a tour and roundtable discussion at the Maine VA Medical Center at Togus today, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) urged top officials from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to improve the implementation of the Choice Program in Maine to provide veterans with timely and accessible health care. In late January 2016, it was revealed to members of Maine’s Congressional Delegation that, due to poor implementation of the program, more than half of eligible veterans were not receiving timely care.

“Maine veterans shouldn’t have to wait long periods of time for the care and health services they need, plain and simple. And while the well-intended Choice Program was meant to address past issues at the VA nationwide, its implementation here in Maine has had a rocky start,” Senator King said. “One of the issues has been a lack of familiarity with Maine from the national contractor that’s administering this program for the VA, and the concern was that the people answering the phones and communicating with Maine veterans weren’t here in the state. But we learned today that, after hearing from the Maine Delegation, the contractor is going to have a person here in Maine within the next six weeks. And I think that speaks to the whole idea behind today’s discussion, which is to make it simpler and more straight forward for our veterans to receive the care they need. That’s the goal, and though we’ve got a long way to go, we’ve identified a lot of the problems and are working on solutions.”   

Today, VA Under Secretary for Health, Dr. David Shulkin, and VA Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for Health for Community Care, Dr. Baligh Yehia, joined Senator King and VA Togus leadership for a tour and roundtable discussion with members of Maine’s Veteran Service Organizations focused on improving the implementation of the Choice Program. The visit came in response to a February letter from the Maine Congressional Delegation to VA Secretary Robert MacDonald urging him to improve the implementation of the Choice Program after it was revealed in late January that its implementation has been deeply flawed, leading to more than half of eligible veterans not receiving the care they need and deserve.

During the discussion, VA officials heard from veterans about the difficulty they have had in accessing care, and pledged to continue to work with Health Net Federal Services, the contractor charged with setting up appointments for veterans in Maine, to improve its services. Health Net is currently in the process of embedding staff at Togus to help localize their knowledge of  Maine's veteran community and provider network, a move requested by Senator King and the rest of the Maine Congressional Delegation in their February letter.

The Choice Program, which was established in 2014 by legislation that reformed the Department of Veterans Affairs, aims to allow veterans to receive care within their communities based on wait times or distance from a VA medical facility.

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