Sixty-two House Democrats have given the Department of Veterans Affairs until Aug. 14 to produce detailed data on mental health vacancies, provider departures, and how long veterans are waiting for appointments. The letter to Secretary Doug Collins, led by Rep. Judy Chu of California, the only psychologist currently serving in Congress, poses 13 specific questions the agency has not previously answered publicly.
The request is unusually granular. It asks for authorized positions, onboarded employees, vacancies, and vacancy rates for psychiatrists, psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, mental health counselors, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners, peer support specialists, and other direct care behavioral health staff, broken out by regional network and individual facility, with equivalent figures as of Jan. 1, 2025. It also asks how many veterans are currently awaiting outpatient mental health services and how long they have been waiting.
For the nearly 9 million veterans the VA serves and the families who help them navigate it, the answers would determine something concrete: whether appointment delays reported at individual facilities reflect isolated problems or a system-wide pattern. The letter notes that 31% of veterans enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration have a confirmed mental health diagnosis, compared with 23.1% of U.S. adults with any mental illness, and that 6,398 veterans died by suicide in 2023.
The Staffing Figures Cited in the Letter
The lawmakers cite VA's own workforce data. According to those figures, the department has lost more than 300 psychologists and 700 social workers, some of whom also provide mental health counseling, since the start of the current administration. The letter reports that the department lost about 200 psychiatrists in 2025 alone.
A separate finding comes from the VA Office of Inspector General. Its fiscal year 2025 determination of severe occupational staffing shortages found that 57% of facilities reported severe psychology staffing shortages, making psychology the most frequently understaffed clinical occupation across the system.
The letter also raises a question about the alternative. When VA cannot provide care directly, veterans are referred to community providers. A Government Accountability Office review found that only 2% of community behavioral health providers receiving VA referrals had completed any of VA's core training courses in areas such as suicide prevention, opioid safety, and other veteran-centered topics.
Separating Documented Staffing Changes from Claims About Care
The workforce numbers and the OIG shortage designation are documented. The effect of those changes on individual patient care is contested, and the letter is a request for evidence rather than a finding.
The lawmakers describe consequences reported by clinicians and veterans: longer waits, cancelled appointments, interrupted treatment, and patients switching therapists repeatedly. Those descriptions draw substantially from a ProPublica investigation published in March, which reported that a psychologist at an Arizona VA described schedulers replacing some individual sessions with online group sessions that included as many as 35 veterans, and remaining individual sessions sometimes cut to as little as 16 minutes.
VA disputes the characterization. Agency spokesperson Quinn Slaven told ProPublica in its follow-up report that "The Trump Administration is solely focused on measuring VA's success by how well it serves Veterans," and said the approach has produced dramatic improvements for veterans, families, caregivers, and survivors. Slaven said VA completed a record number of mental health appointments in the past fiscal year while lowering wait times. VA spokesperson Peter Kasperowicz had previously accused the outlet of cherry-picking issues limited to a handful of sites.
Both claims can be partly true at once. Total appointment volume can rise while continuity of care declines, and average wait times can fall while specific facilities deteriorate. That is precisely the gap the letter's facility-level questions are designed to close.
The Continuity Problem Behind the Numbers
Independent clinicians point to a distinct issue that headcount alone does not capture. Russell Lemle, former chief psychologist for the San Francisco VA Health Care System and a senior policy analyst at the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute, told ProPublica that "VA psychologists are best in class," adding that when they are lost, veterans are the ones who pay the price.
Trauma-focused therapy depends on a sustained therapeutic relationship. Evidence-based protocols such as Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure run over a defined course of weekly sessions. A veteran who is reassigned midway through a protocol generally restarts, and each restart requires recounting the traumatic history to a new clinician.
The letter notes that VHA mental health professionals have expertise community providers often lack: military culture, lethal means safety, combat-related trauma, and the effect of physical conditions such as traumatic brain injury or amputation on mental health. Those are the specific competencies the GAO training figure calls into question for the referral network.
The Questions the VA Has Not Yet Answered
Several of the letter's requests target information the department has not published. It asks for the number and percentage of veterans who waited more than 20, 30, 60, and 90 days for an initial individual mental health appointment during fiscal years 2025 and 2026 to date. It asks how many veterans experienced interruption or termination of treatment because a provider left or a position stayed vacant. It asks whether VA has conducted internal evaluations of how workforce shortages affect access and outcomes, and requests copies.
The letter is endorsed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Union Veterans Council, Common Defense, and AMVETS. Whether the department responds by the deadline, and how completely, will determine whether this inquiry produces usable data or another round of general assurances.
Veterans experiencing appointment delays can ask their VA facility about same-day mental health services, which most VA medical centers offer, and can request a community care referral if access standards are not met. Veterans and family members in crisis can dial 988 and press 1, text 838255, or use the chat function at VeteransCrisisLine.net. The line is free and staffed around the clock by trained responders. MedicalDaily has previously reported on seasonal crisis periods for veterans with PTSD.
Key Questions Answered
What exactly did the lawmakers ask for? Facility-level vacancy and staffing data for every mental health occupation, the number of providers who have separated since January 2025, average and median wait times for initial and follow-up appointments, and any internal VA evaluations of how shortages affect care. Responses were requested by Aug. 14.
How many mental health staff has the VA lost? Citing VA workforce data, the letter reports more than 300 psychologists and 700 social workers have left since the start of the current administration, and about 200 psychiatrists in 2025. The VA Inspector General separately found 57% of facilities reported severe psychology staffing shortages in fiscal 2025.
Has anyone shown that veterans are being harmed? Not in a systematic, published way. Reporting has documented individual accounts of longer waits, group sessions replacing individual therapy, and treatment interruptions. VA says appointment volume reached a record while wait times fell. The letter seeks the data that would settle it.
Why does losing a therapist matter more than losing another kind of provider? Trauma-focused therapies run as structured multi-week protocols that depend on continuity. Veterans reassigned partway through often restart and must recount their history to a new clinician.
Can veterans get care outside the VA? Yes, through community care referrals when access standards are not met. A GAO review found only 2% of community behavioral health providers receiving VA referrals had completed VA core training courses in areas like suicide prevention.
What should a veteran do about a long wait right now? Ask the facility about same-day mental health services, which most VA medical centers provide, and ask whether a community care referral applies. Do not stop prescribed medication while waiting for an appointment.
Where can a veteran or family member get immediate support? Dial 988 and press 1, text 838255, or use the chat at VeteransCrisisLine.net. Support is available around the clock and does not require VA enrollment.
