Will VA Privatize all Healthcare for Veterans?

[Nancy Anthracite]

I suspect going to Cerner is part of this process.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/03/25/veterans-fear-trump-administration-plans-privatize-va-health-care.html

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Nancy Anthracite

[Mike Baker]

I don't know.  I can tell you may wife and I are both veterans and live in a rural area where our closest VAs are outpatient clinics.  WHen there is a medical emergency, like a broken bone, on a weekend we were able to go to a community hospital ER and tell them we are VA patients.  It worked out fine.  I get that VA has a lot of specialized care that would be hard to duplicate in the private sector but I can tell you that being able to go to a community hospital for emergency care is much more convenient than traveling the hour and a half it would take to get to a VAMC.  I will also give you that Cerner/Oracle health was designed to capture billable events and to make a bill for the insurance company.  VISTA was designed from a different perspective and so captures information providers need to keep patients healthy.  All this to say, I don't really believe that the one thing has anything to do with the other. 

I worked for the VA for a few decades and I can tell you this fear has come up more than once, that the VA will just be like an insurance company, and just pay your bills.  Maybe that will come to pass but in general veterans including myself and my wife feel like the VA understands our problems and that there are many veteran specific problems that would not be handled as well at a private clinic.  Since I was an employee I also have private insurance, but I can tell you I prefer to go to the VA; having the flexibility to go to a private provider is nice but I really feel I am better understood by VA providers. 

Anyway, all that to say I don't really think DOD/VA and IHS moving to cerner means that VAMCs will be shutdown.  If they are, I think it will be something else driving that decision.  In fact if that happens I would think the VA would need whatever software an insurance company like BC/BS uses not an EHR.

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