Congresswoman Louise Slaughter says she's secured an audit of a veterans health care program that just isn't working as it was intended.
Legislation in 2014 created the Veterans Choice Program, run by third party administrators Health Net and Tri-West, which were awarded a $9 billion dollar contract.
The program aims to ease access to health care by allowing veterans to receive care from a local non-VA provider of their choosing if they would otherwise face a wait of over 30 days or are forced to travel more than 40 miles for care.
But Slaughter says there have been numerous complaints about the the program, which is designed to ease access to care.
"It has been heart breaking, that so many people with serious and critical issues were shunted aside, couldn't get calls back, were not able to make the appointments, were really treated dreadfully, and we were paying $9 billion dollars for a good service for the people who served us. We're most unhappy about it."
Slaughter says Congress was trying to solve a veterans claims backlog problem, but made it worse.
She says the audit, conducted by the General Accountability Office, will determine why.
Executive Director for the Veterans Outreach Center, Todd Baxter, says he hopes the review leads to a better business model that the Veterans Choice Program can implement.