Transforming Veteran Access to Care: An Overview of External Provider Scheduling (W6017)-Transforming Veteran Access to Care: An Overview of External Provider Scheduling Presentation

Transforming Veteran Access to Care: An Overview of External Provider Scheduling Presentation

Pdf Summary

The document introduces the VA Office of Integrated Veteran Care’s External Provider Scheduling (EPS), a veteran-centric initiative designed to improve community care coordination by enabling VA schedulers to book appointments directly within external providers’ scheduling systems. VA leaders from the Atlanta VA Medical Center and the Office of Integrated Veteran Care welcome participants and frame EPS as a major step toward streamlined, efficient scheduling for Veterans.<br /><br />EPS is positioned as a solution to common scheduling friction—reducing repeated phone calls and faxes—while ensuring providers maintain full control over their availability. The program highlights proven benefits, including fewer “no-shows,” stronger collaboration between the VA, Veterans, and community providers, and simpler care coordination through smoother authorizations and bi-directional information sharing. EPS also emphasizes ease of adoption, noting integration with approximately 150 scheduling systems without requiring providers to change their existing platforms.<br /><br />The presentation includes testimonials and value perspectives from community care leaders across Georgia VA Medical Centers, as well as a quoted endorsement describing reduced consult delays, increased transparency, empowered schedulers, shorter wait times, and improved outcomes when community specialists are integrated into VA scheduling workflows.<br /><br />Georgia referral data is shared to illustrate scale and opportunity: 224,125 VA referrals over the past 12 months (data as of March 2026). The top referring VA medical centers are Atlanta (120,259), Augusta (56,358), and Dublin (47,508). The top categories of care include Dental, Physical Therapy, Orthopedic, Radiology Mammogram, Complementary and Integrative Health, Gastroenterology, Cardiology, Dermatology, Radiology CT Scan, and Urology.<br /><br />The session agenda includes a live EPS demo and an open discussion, with follow-up resources provided via email (EPSProvider@va.gov) and a VA webpage, plus a QR-code questionnaire for those interested in learning more.

Keywords

VA External Provider Scheduling

Office of Integrated Veteran Care

community care coordination

direct appointment booking

provider scheduling system integration

reduced no-shows

bi-directional information sharing

VA referral data Georgia

Atlanta VA Medical Center

consult delay reduction