Wait times for veterans seeking mental health treatment programs in the U.S. in 2021

Note: Veterans can access a variety of healthcare services at the VHA medical center, which consists of numerous healthcare institutions, including community-based outpatient clinics, in a certain geographic area. GAO's assessments used the following definition of rurality in the healthcare system. More than 50% of veterans who were enrolled in the program resided in rural, extremely rural, or insular island areas. Some rural enrollees: 10,000 or more of these enrollees lived in a rural location, while only 50% or less of registered veterans lived in a rural, very rural, or insular island area. Few rural registrants: Fewer than 10,000 participants lived in a rural location, and 50% or fewer of registered veterans were from rural, very rural, or insular island areas.

*The average wait time for each healthcare system is tracked by VHA. The GAO added up the average wait times across all healthcare systems and divided them by the total number of healthcare systems in each grouping—healthcare systems with predominantly, some, and few rural veterans—to arrive at the average wait time across all healthcare systems.