Socialized Medicine At It's Prime Example Of Inefficiency and Lack Of Attention....
For all those whom believe in their infinite wisdom that medical care is a human right and the government should regulate and socialize the medical environment have clearly never been a part of socialized health care.
Any time a bureaucracy is in charge of a thing be sure lots of forms, and any way they can get out of treating you will be fully explored.
When a private healthcare company is involved they get paid for treatments, procedures and anything they do for you... Government facilities need to cut corners and save costs. Government facilities find ways to exclude procedures and seem to make it so difficult to navigate that they expect you to just go away.
Getting appointments is at times nearly impossible. Many times my appointments are 2-3 months out so no sense of urgency there. In fairness it seems the VA hospital is so overcrowded with patients that even with the really awesome new parking garage it is nearly impossible to find parking after a 30 minute parking lot expedition...
There are some stellar people working at the VA that are patriotic and appreciative. There are also some that don't seem to care about any patients at all.
I had the worst emergency room experience ever a few years back when I thought I was having a heart attack and when to the ER. I had chest pains, shortness of breath, left arm went numb and I could barely breathe. I went to the ER and was told to wait... Wait I did for more than 4 HOURS!!! That's right, 4 hours before anyone asked about me, took vitals or waited to see if I was dying... A man collapsed while I was there and had a seizure on the floor and I pounded on the nurses station glass to get him help and they yelled at me to sit down. It took more than 10 minutes for any staff to attend to that man... I don't know if he lived or died, but wow!
All in all if you can afford private insurance, DO IT AND STAY AWAY FROM HERE!
I will probably receive accidentally mislabeled medications and die suspiciously, or experience an uncharacteristic suicide after writing this post... lol....