After years of ignoring warnings that its decentralized police force resulted in inconsistent standards and lax security at hospitals, VA announced it will be overhauling the force, raising pay rates and creating a unified chain of command that it hopes will solve its long-running issues.
Veterans’ Service Organizations Split Over How Medical Disability Is Calculated
A massive VA omnibus bill is facing unexpected hurdles in Congress and has split veterans service organizations, with some saying it sets a dangerous precedent for how medical disability is calculated, while others argue that its current benefits outweigh future dangers.
TRICARE’S Pharmacy Contract with Express Scripts Under Fire at Senate Hearing
Lawmakers are calling for an independent audit of TRICARE’s pharmacy program amid concerns that the contractor tasked with managing the program is pushing servicemembers toward its own pharmacies and driving out smaller retailers.
VA Whole Health Team Approach Outperforms CBT, Usual Care for Chronic Pain
A large, multisite randomized trial has delivered the first rigorous test of the VA’s Whole Health approach to chronic pain, finding that an interdisciplinary whole-health team modestly outperformed both cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and usual care in reducing how much pain interferes with veterans’ daily lives.
Capillaroscopy Is Critical in African-American Evaluations of Raynaud’s Phenomenon
Nailfold capillaroscopy (NFC) is a crucial tool for assessing diagnostic microvascular abnormalities in patients with Raynaud’s phenomenon (RP). A recent study sought to determine whether skin pigmentation affects the interpretability of nailfold evaluation.
Frailty Can Predict Incident Osteoporotic Fractures in Veterans with RA
While rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is known to be associated with an increased risk of frailty and osteoporosis, the relationship between frailty and incident osteoporotic fractures in RA has been less clear, according to a recent study.
Care for Pregnant Veterans With RA ‘Fragmented’
Although they receive strong support from maternity care coordinators (MCCs), pregnant women veterans with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) experience fragmented care across systems, according to a new review.
New Score Might Help Identify High-Risk Pulmonary Hypertension Subtype Earlier
A new scoring system might help physicians identify pulmonary veno-occlusive disease/pulmonary capillary hemangiomatosis (PVOD/PCH), a rare but particularly dangerous subtype of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), allowing for more appropriate treatment and earlier referral for lung transplantation.
Delayed Anticoagulant Therapy for Pulmonary Embolism Patients Linked to Greater Mortality
In patients who seek medical care for intermediate- or high-risk pulmonary embolism (PE), delaying the start of anticoagulant therapy is associated with increased odds of PE-related mortality, according to a recent study.
2026 Dyslipidemia Guideline Expanded Statin Recommendations to Another 21.5 Million Americans
The 2026 dyslipidemia guideline significantly expanded the U.S. population recommended for primary prevention statin therapy, especially in adults at lower risk.
Clinicians Question DoD’s Testosterone Screening Mandate
Beyond the political fight over the DoD’s new testosterone screening mandate remains a clinical question: Does population-level screening of a mostly asymptomatic, young military population offer significant benefit or simply raise risk?
GLP-1RAs Don’t Work Better Than Oral Agents to Enable Insulin Discontinuation in T2D
With all of the hype surrounding glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) for Type 2 diabetes, some proponents have questioned whether patients using the drugs could eventually discontinue their use of insulin for glucose control.
Million Veterans Database Used in Large-Scale Analysis for Cardiometabolic Traits
Noting that studies linking mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) with complex traits are often limited by small sample sizes or focused on specific phenotypes in clinically selected cohorts, researchers recently reported data from more than 600,000 participants in the Million Veteran Program (MVP) to perform a multiancestry analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation and cardiometabolic phenotypes across European (EUR), African (AFR), Admixed American (AMR) and East Asian (EAS) populations.
Problematic Alcohol Use, Anxiety Disorders Appear to Share Genetic Architecture
While it is understood that problematic alcohol use (PAU) and anxiety disorders (ANX) often co-occur, suggesting some type of shared genetic and neurobiological foundations, the directionality of potential causal relationships and the specific mechanisms have remained unclear.
Somatic Tumor Risk Assessment Predicts Prostate Cancer Overall Survival
Even though tumor comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) has revolutionized the care of many cancers and identifies patients for biomarker-specific therapy, it had not been available for all variations.
In VA EDs, Female Physician Slightly More Likely to Order Scans, Tests and Admit Patients
Female and male physicians have different practice patterns, according to past studies mainly focused on primary care.
Military Health System Sees Signs of Renewed Surgical Disparities Following COVID-19
The Military Health System (MHS) is often cited as a model for reducing healthcare disparities because every beneficiary is covered by the same insurance.
Postoperative Hypertension Treatment Only Recommended for Symptomatic Inpatients
Using medication to lower asymptomatic postoperative hypertension, a common clinical condition in admitted surgical patients, can have adverse outcomes, so postoperative hypertension should only be treated in inpatient surgical patients when it’s symptomatic, according to a recent review article.
VA Payments for Community Care Continue to Increase Substantially
The VA recently announced that it had made more than $36 billion in payments to local healthcare providers across the country in fiscal year 2025 as part of the VA MISSION Act.
Call for Testosterone Screening of Many Servicemembers Draws Criticism from Legislators
When Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced last month that the military will begin screening male servicemembers for low testosterone, the new policy drew criticism and questions from Democrats. But, the proclamation also fell into line behind a larger effort by current public health officials to loosen rules around testosterone therapy.
Blast Exposure Linked to Higher Risk of Anger, Aggression Among Veterans
Veterans who served in military occupations with repeated blast overpressure exposure were significantly more likely to have evidence of anger, aggression and violence documented in their medical records than veterans in lower-risk occupations, according to a new study led by researchers at the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System and the University of Utah.
Binge Drinking Declined in Some Veterans, While Heavy Drinking Increased in Midlife Veterans, Study Finds
Binge drinking declined from 2016 to 2024 in younger and older age groups among U.S. veterans, but, at the same time, heavy drinking increased significantly in midlife veterans, according to a recent study.
AI Helps VA Decrease Claims Backlogs; GAO Warns of ‘Unintended Consequences’
VA announced recently that its disability claims backlog fell below 70,000 for the first time since February 2020. That success has been partially attributed to technology modernization, which includes the use of AI in early stages of the benefits process.
‘As Physicians, We Owe Our Patients Two Things—Only Two Things—Our Time and Our Skill.
My wife and I have had the good fortune to spend the United States’ semiquincentennial (July 4, 2026), the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the 13 United States of America, with a rare gathering of our entire clan at the Maine family camp. Like many Americans, I have used this landmark July 4 celebration to reflect on myriad positive aspects of being born and raised in this country. Of late, the 24-hour news deluge of graft, corruption, war and disaster that consumes American media can challenge the patriotism of the most ardent United States citizen.
Very Low Percentages of Veterans Have Received Contraception Information from Providers
In U.S. veterans of reproductive age, having greater healthcare engagement and more reliance on providers as trusted sources of contraceptive information could improve their knowledge, according to a recent study.
Which Veterans With Cancer Are Most Likely to Attempt Suicide?
In recent years, the conventional wisdom has been that patients at risk for suicide after being diagnosed with cancer usually were older white males with advanced or poor-prognosis cases.
Many Female Veterans Unaware They Can Get Menopause Symptom Care at VA
Nearly half of women veterans who receive VA healthcare are at an age when menopause is most likely to occur. But, while VA offers care for menopause symptoms, like hot flashes and issues with memory, mood and sleep, an investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that the majority of women veterans are unaware those services exist.
OIG Report: VA’s Aggressive Deployment of AI in the Clinical Field Considered ‘Risky’
VA policy to minimize the barriers preventing employee use of artificial intelligence (AI ) might be resulting in higher risks for veterans, according to a recent VA Office of the Inspector General report. An investigation found that the agency failed to acknowledge the extent to which providers are using AI chat tools in patient care.
VA Community Care Vascular Costs Surge as PAD Referrals Triple, New Data Show
Referrals for vascular surgery through the VA Community Care program nearly tripled over five years, driven overwhelmingly by endovascular interventions for peripheral artery disease, according to a comprehensive cost analysis presented at the Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM26) in Boston, June 10–13.
Concerns Raised Over New Limitations for SAMHSA Grants; Federal Group Also Has Faced Severe Staff Cuts
New limitations on how Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) grant can be used has sparked confusion and concern, as has a campaign by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. urging providers to limit psychiatric medications which have been proven effective in combatting depression and preventing suicide.