08/09/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 08/09/2024 11:07
WASHINGTON - Today, on the eve of the second anniversary of President Biden signing the PACT Act into law, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs released a new dashboard highlighting the impact of this historic law for Veterans and their survivors. Partly due to the PACT Act, VA is delivering more care and more benefits to more Veterans than ever before. Key results for toxic-exposed Veterans and their survivors to date include:
VA and the entire Biden-Harris administration continue to encourage all eligible Veterans and survivors to visit VA.gov/PACT or call 1-800-MYVA411 to learn more about the PACT Act and apply today.
"Thanks to President Biden, millions of Veterans are now getting the health care and benefits they've earned for their heroic service and selfless sacrifices," said VA Secretary Denis McDonough. "For decades, these Veterans bravely served our country while exposing themselves to hazards like burn pits or Agent Orange - and many got sick as a result. We want all of these heroes - and their survivors - to come to VA for the health care and benefits they earned and so rightly deserve."
VA continues to conduct an all-hands-on-deck outreach campaign to bring Veterans to VA. In addition to hosting thousands of events since the passage of the PACT Act, VA has also sent millions of letters and emails, launched a nationwide advertising campaign, and enacted the first-ever text messaging campaign to reach eligible Veterans.
Veteran trust in VA has never been higher, increasing 25% to an all-time high of 80.4% since VA began administering the "VSignals" survey in 2016. Additionally, Veterans' trust in outpatient health care has increased to 91.8%, also an all-time high.
With the increase in enrollments under the PACT Act, VA is on track to deliver over 127 million health care appointments in 2024, representing a 6% increase over last year's all-time record number of appointments. Average wait times for new patient appointments have decreased by 8% in primary care and 9% in mental health compared to the previous year. Additionally, VA has processed 400,000 more priority group upgrades for enrolled Veterans since the signing of PACT Act compared to the two years prior. This includes more than 800,000 Veterans who were in priority groups 7 and 8 who received upgrades, meaning they are now eligible for more VA services without copays.
For more information about how two years of the PACT Act has helped Veterans, including state-level data, visit VA's PACT Year-in-Review Dashboard. This dashboard is a special highlight edition of VA's regular PACT Act dashboard, which is published monthly to document the implementation of this landmark legislation and demonstrate its continued impact on Veterans and survivors.