Hudson Assembles Meeting with VA Officials, NC Delegation

WASHINGTON, D.C.– Yesterday, U.S. Representative Richard Hudson (NC-08), the representative of Fort Bragg, held a meeting with Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Officials and members of the North Carolina Congressional Delegation following the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) report on issues with access to VA care at Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 6, which includes VA medical facilities in North Carolina.

As the voice for North Carolina’s veterans, Rep. Hudson held a meeting at the U.S. Capitol with members of the North Carolina Congressional Delegation and VA Representatives: Dr. Steven Lieberman, ADUSH for Access to Care; Dr. Mark Shelhorse, Acting VISN 6 Director; Dr. Kameron Matthews, Deputy Executive Director, Provider Relations and Services, Office of Community Care; Dr. Michael Davies, Senior Medical Advisor, Office of Veterans Access to Care; and Andy Bartlett, Health System Specialist. In addition to Rep. Hudson, Reps. Alma Adams (NC-12), Ted Budd (13), George Holding (NC-02), Robert Pittenger (NC-09), David Price (NC-04), and David Rouzer (NC-07) attended the meeting and Veterans Affairs staffers from the offices of Reps. G. K. Butterfield (NC-01), Virginia Foxx (NC-05), Walter Jones (NC-03), Patrick McHenry (NC-10), Mark Meadows (NC-11), Mark Walker (NC-06) and Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis were in attendance.

During the meeting, representatives from the VA briefed members on their efforts to introduce more accountability, including new training programs for efficient use of the scheduling program, new auditing procedures for scheduling appointments, and a trigger system to alert local VA leadership if scheduling problems occur for veterans. Rep. Hudson asked if these new procedures would guarantee that, moving forward, mistakes would not be made and wait times would be reduced for our veterans. The VA would not commit that these changes would lead to the outcomes Rep. Hudson detailed, but were confident they would make improvements.

Last week, Rep. Hudson sent VA Secretary David Shulkin a letter demanding answers to questions raised by the VA OIG report, including:

Rep. Hudson has been a staunch advocate for fixing the VA by first allowing veterans with service-connected disabilities to choose care from private providers in their local communities and having the VA pay for it. As he’s said before, the only way we’re going to get veterans the care they deserve is to break the bureaucratic stronghold at the VA. The first step to do that is allowing all Tier I veterans the option of seeking private care in their own communities and having the VA pay for it, and his legislation, the Care Veterans Deserve Act(H.R. 1152), will do just that. In addition, earlier this month, Rep. Hudson voted for the VA Accountability First Act of 2017(H.R. 1259) to make it easier to fire Veterans Affairs (VA) employees for poor performance or misconduct and to establish whistleblower protections.

North Carolina is fortunate to be home to more than 700,000 veterans, and taking care of these retired service members and their families is one of Rep. Hudson’s top responsibilities. As always, Rep. Hudson’s office stands ready to assist every veteran in our district with problems they are having with the VA or a federal agency. If a veteran in the 8^th district needs assistance, please contact our office in Concord at (704) 786-1612 or our office in Fayetteville at (910) 997-2070.