Clinical Pharmacists Provide Veterans Primary Care

Veterans Affairs is now using clinical pharmacists to handle up to one-quarter of primary care appointments to combat wait times at some medical centers.

Last year, VA implemented changes that allowed clinical pharmacists to handle primary care for many veterans at select facilities. The push is reportedly in an effort not to increase healthcare quality but instead to decrease wait times as cheaply as possible.

The cost of a clinical pharmacist is almost half that of a medical doctor, and VA seeks to double its usage of such pharmacists over that of doctors in the near future.