Does Community Outsourcing Improve Timeliness of Care for Veterans With Obstructive Sleep Apnea?

ABSTRACT:

Background

Providing timely access to care has been a long-standing priority for the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System. Recent strategies to reduce long wait times have focused on purchasing community care by a fee-for-service model. Whether outsourcing Veterans Affairs (VA) specialty care to the community improves access is unclear.

Objectives

We compared time from referral to treatment among Veterans whose care was provided by VA versus community care purchased by the VA, using obstructive sleep apnea as an example condition.

Methods

This was a retrospective cohort study of Northern California Veterans seeking sleep apnea care through the San Francisco VA Healthcare System between 2012 and 2018. We used multivariable linear regression with propensity score matching

SUBMITTER: Kaul B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7899214 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature