>> in my capacity as a woc appointment within the va, i have had to deal almost nothing with veterans choice act personally. it's purely administrative by other departments. >> i did want to say with the veterans choice act it has been interpreted to not include physician assistance by some facilities. if you want to talk about increasing recruitment, the jobs aren't even posted, physician assistants aren't able to apply for those jobs. that's not going to increase access for care for veterans. >> it isn't really hard to figure out your needs when you just call the people scheduling the appointments and find out you have a six-month wait. it ain't rocket science. i've been doing it for four decades and you find out and all of you there know, if you have a long waiting list for patients to come in, you need to hire people to take care of waiting lists or make the shop more efficient. it's not complicated. i did it for years. and i mean, the way i learned if i needed advice, i would go to church and somebody say i can't get an appointment for six months. figure hey, maybe we better hire

>> in my capacity as a woc appointment within the va, i have had to deal almost nothing with veterans choice act personally. it's purely administrative by other departments. >> i did want to say with the veterans choice act it has been interpreted to not include physician assistance by some facilities. if you want to talk about increasing recruitment, the jobs aren't even posted physician assistants aren't able to apply for those jobs. that's not going to increase access for care for veterans. >> it isn't really hard to figure out your needs when you just call the people scheduling the appointments and find out you have a six-month wait. it ain't rocket science. i've been doing it for four decades and you find out and all fl you there know, if you have a long waiting list for patients to come in you need to hire people to take care of waiting lists or make the shop more efficient. it's not complicated. i did it for years. and i mean, the way i learned if i needed advice, i would go to church and somebody say i can't get an appointment for six months. and that's what i see there. my ti

i've had two woc positions since i started my current position with apma. one took me 11 months and other one surprisingly took me five. it is an excessive burdensome process when you factor in vet pro and you factor in the application process alone with all the forms and the various hr levels and committees that everything has to be completed. so it is extremely excessively burdensome. >> thank you very much for your testimony. i yield back. >> thank you to our chair and vice chair for holding this hearing. i apologize to all of you that we have flights that we have to catch. i appreciate you being here and look forward to perhaps another time we could bring dr. lynch back so that more of us could hear. i want to focus in -- i had the opportunity just recently to visit the white river junction vermont hospital which is the va hospital that serves the folks many of the folks in my district. >> i think they are very focused in veteran centric care. they've had good results from the choice act in hiring just recently. in fact, they were focused on getting nur

i've had two woc positions since i started my current position, one took me 11 months and other one surprisingly took me five. it is an excessive burdensome process when you factor in vet pro and the application process alone with all of the forms and the various hr levels and committees that everything has to be completed. so it is extremely excessively burdensome. >> thank you very much for your testimony. i yield back. >> thank you to our chair and vice chair for holding this hearing. i apologize that we have flights we have have to catch but i appreciate you being here and look forward to perhaps another time we could bring dr. lynch back so that more of us could hear. i want to focus in -- i had the opportunity just recently to visit the white river junction vermont hospital which is the va hospital that serves the folks many of the folks in my district. >> i think they are very focused in veteran centric care. they've had good results from the choice act in hiring just recently. in fact, they were focused on getting nurse practitioners into our c box so in the rural communities they would