American Lake VA Medical Center — Local services in DuPont

Feel that they are trying now, more than before for two decades downward spiral I believe we have been going through. Now have a good doctor there. A more cooperative association with my social worker. That is the good news. The harder things are still there. Lack of quality medical testing equipment is a problem for many. Lack of timely care and enough time to address all medical issues,it’s still so inadequate for my needs as a 100% service connected retired disabled veteran. I perceive a lack of choice of providers. I believe having choice in medical equipment would work better for all involved. It would be better if we could have a choice of medications that would better solve an issues like allergies, which I have, my allergy medication doesn’t work very long. My doctor, if I’m understanding her correctly, can not do better, I’ve had better medications throughout most of my years in the VA system. Not now though. I don’t want to push it but I need better control over my allergies than I’m able to get. Must soon set up a civilian doctor. Over 31/2 years as an homeless veteran on top of the medical system have left me shaking and scared at times. I believe for the last 20 years I’ve actually received poor care at several VA facilities in Colorado and here in Washington State. Must include Oregon as well. My claims attorney told me that written statements in my medical records were false, some statements like I’m incompetent were written in the records. I’m not by the way. I believe that was . Someone else wrote I was Bipolar. I’m also not that. No one said these things to my face. So without testing or appropriate assessments those statements have been there for over a decade in my medical records. In the records department for the 4th or 5th time I’ve handed over my most recent mental health diagnosis to the VA from a qualified Doctor. The can’t seem to get this in the records system. Glad I carry it with me. Okay. Long story of over 35 years in the VA system made short. You have to be persistent . I hope better days are coming for us all in the...

Out of all the years I’ve been in the VA system the WA state/Seattle/American lake VA is hands down THE WORST VA I have ever been to. I have been receiving “care” from here since 2017 and I’ve never submitted a review until now. I have only ever had 1 doctor that I felt was worth a dam and that was my dermatologist. He ended up leaving the VA system to start his own practice (good for him). The Mental Health Program here is an absolute joke. The Doctors there don’t even follow the current DSMR and are stuck back in the 90’s. Physical therapy ended up making my injuries worse, community care consults either are never scheduled, scheduled out of sequence from the procedures necessary, or when they are scheduled the VA refuses to pay the Community Care facility which sticks the Veterans with the bill. Dental…. OH MY GOD DENTAL… I have never seen a VA dental office with grumpier front desk staff. NEVER EVER, EVER answer their phones (I have had to call audiology before as their desk faces the dental desk to even see if someone is there. I had my wife call the dental line while I was on the line with audiology and the audiology desk told me directly that the dental desk had no patients and was straight ignoring their phone) getting a dental appointment is like pulling teeth… pun intended and when you go out for community dental care, the recommendation of not one, not 2 but 3 separate dental professionals were disregarded by the VA dental office. I had to appeal directly the Seattle department head just to get a procedure approved. By then it was a year later and the issue had become exceptionally worse. Their reasoning was they didn’t want to spend the money, but now that the issue was worse they would approve the procedure (which now cost more than the original procedure that they denied) I literally can’t make this stuff up. I could go on and on and on, but yeah. This is absolutely THE WORST VA. I don’t know if it’s corruption, negligence, Apathy, or if they are literally trying to give veterans a second chance to die for...

Female Veteran here. The women’s clinic is not a place I’d recommend for female veterans. The provider retention rate is more active than any revolving door anywhere. You might get lucky and have a decent provider for a very short period of time; then all of a sudden your appointments get cancelled and you get notified by email that your appointments are cancelled, with no explanation as to why; you run out of your life saving medications for both physical and mental health (because mental health never gets you in in a timely manner so your provider has to help with those meds too), and no one calls to follow up with you or to make sure that you are set up with a different provider and set with your medications. They wait for you to be in a crisis and/or try to access them over and over and over to no avail. After months of waiting, you get set up with a new provider; and this new female provider Britney Greer has zero compassion or understanding of the fact you’ve been out of medications for months, and if you ask why she can’t help you like your previous provider did since mental health can’t help in a timely manner, she will instead accuse you of being a drug addict for needing clonazepam and accuse you of pressuring her for anxiety medications that you need because you have panic attacks every single day due to PTSD. She will also tell you that is only for crisis situations….and what do you think this is? I’ve been out of my medications for months! How is that not a crisis situation?! Why do you think my previous provider did this for me? Because having panic attacks EVERY SINGLE DAY is in fact a CRISIS situation. This was literally my very first appointment with her. Regardless of what she can or can’t do, she definitely should have gone about it a different way, she doesn’t know me or my story and she just started and already seems like she is burnt out. Go elsewhere is my only advice if you are needing continuous and consistent and reliable care, because you won’t...