Hospitals in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system may have canceled valid orders for radiology scans as part of an effort to clear a massive backlog of outdated imaging requests, according to an October 1 article from USA Today.
The article charges that legitimate orders for medically necessary radiology exams may have been canceled as the VA system moves to clear out a backlog of up to 250,000 radiology studies. The effort began in 2016 as part of the VA's move to eliminate incomplete and outdated orders for radiology studies.
Hospitals are supposed to try to contact patients before canceling their exams, but some sites have responded by "annihilating" orders for studies en masse, according to USA Today. The VA's Office of Inspector General is auditing cancellations at nine VA medical centers to make sure they have been managed appropriately.
The article focuses on one VA facility, the Iowa City VA Health Care System, where a radiologic technologist began collecting cancellation orders for CT, MRI, and ultrasound scans after suspecting that the exams were being canceled by administrative staff and not by doctors. The technologist claimed that VA administrators retaliated against him when he raised concerns about the cancellations.
At a VA facility in Tampa, FL, hospital staff began clearing the backlog in 2016, with as many as 10 people working on the project. Imaging exams were canceled by administrative staff without contacting patients or doctors, according to the article, with one employee estimating that "thousands" of radiology orders were killed -- in some cases orders for future studies.
The VA has been struggling for the past several years with charges of long backlogs and scheduling errors for radiology services. The most high-profile case up until now was at the Phoenix VA Health Care System, where it came to light in 2014 that the backlog for imaging studies was so bad that some veterans may have died waiting for their exams. Charges of schedule manipulation were also raised at a VA facility in Texas.
In 2016, the VA proposed letting advanced-level nurses take over some duties currently performed by radiologists, including interpreting some imaging studies. But the proposal was killed after opposition from groups representing physicians, including the American College of Radiology and the American Medical Association.
The VA said in September that its backlog of radiology studies that are overdue by two or more months had been reduced to 31,000 exams, USA Today reported.
