Talk to the Veterans Crisis Line now
U.S. flag
An official website of the United States government
Veterans Benefits and Health Care About VA Find a VA Location

VA Health Systems Research

Go to the VA ORD website
Go to the QUERI website

HSR Citation Abstract

Search | Search by Center | Search by Source | Keywords in Title

Veterans May Be Seeing Lower-Quality Clinicians In The VHA Community Care Network.

Ma Y, Phelan J, Orav EJ, Frakt AB, Pizer SD, Garrido MM, Figueroa JF, Tsai TC. Veterans May Be Seeing Lower-Quality Clinicians In The VHA Community Care Network. Health affairs (Project Hope). 2025 Jan 1; 44(1):117-125, DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.2024.00900.

Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.

If you have VA-Intranet access, click here for more information vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/dimensions/

VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address.    Search Dimensions for VA for this citation
* Don't have VA-internal network access or a VA email address? Try searching the free-to-the-public version of Dimensions


Abstract:

With the rapid expansion of veterans'' access to community care under the Veterans Affairs Maintaining Internal Systems and Strengthening Integrated Outside Networks (VA MISSION) Act of 2018, ensuring that veterans receive high-quality community care has become a national priority. Using Veterans Health Administration (VHA) data and Medicare performance scores, we assessed how clinicians'' performance on quality measures differed between those who treated veterans within the VHA Community Care Network and those who did not. We found that in 2022, 66.0 percent of community-based clinicians treated VHA enrollees. These clinicians were more likely to be male, have less practice experience, be affiliated with group practices, and be based in rural and socially vulnerable areas compared with clinicians who did not treat VHA enrollees. Notably, clinicians in the lowest quartile of quality performance measures were 8.8 percentage points more likely to treat VHA enrollees than those in the highest quartile. This pattern was most pronounced among primary care and mental health clinicians, and it persisted across VHA Community Care Network regions. These results underscore the need for federal efforts to ensure that veterans receive care from high-performing community clinicians.




Questions about the HSR website? Email the Web Team

Any health information on this website is strictly for informational purposes and is not intended as medical advice. It should not be used to diagnose or treat any condition.
<--- --->