ATLANTA — For the first time, federal hospital ratings include veterans hospitals and the Atlanta VA Medical Center rated poorly.

Channel 2 Action News Investigative reporter Justin Gray learned the Atlanta VA Medical Center scored only two of five stars in the U.S. government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Servicer hospital quality of care ratings.

The ratings are designed to help patients locate a top-performing facility.

CMS uses five categories, mortality, safety of care, readmission, patient experience and timely and effective care, to award a quality rating for each hospital. The more stars, the better a hospital performed on the available quality measures.

The VA touted its performance in the ratings nationwide in a press release noting that 67% of VA hospitals scored four or five stars. The VA wrote that the ratings show “the effectiveness of VA health care compared to non-VA health care.”

It was a different story at the Atlanta VA. Atlanta also rated at the bottom of the eight VA hospitals in the southeast region, along with Augusta.

“It makes me sick, but it doesn’t surprise me,” said Georgia veteran James Yarbrough.

We first introduced you to the Air Force veteran back in 2021 when he waited months for the Atlanta VA to provide the paperwork to refill the morphine pump for his injured back.

This year, after years of frustration with Atlanta VA, he switched his care to Tennessee.

“We didn’t move our homes. We just moved our care. Because of care. Because of the lack of care. The lack of attention,” Yarbrough said.

The Chattanooga VA clinic treating Yarbrough is tied to the Nashville VA hospital which scored a four out of five rating.

“It’s like a new world is what it is,” Yarbrough said.

While VA leadership put out a press release celebrating the results of the new ratings, local Atlanta VA administrators claim out of date data is responsible for the hospital’s poor performance.

The Atlanta VA provided Channel 2 Action News with a statement saying “We are laser-focused on improving the level of care throughout the Atlanta VA Health Care System (VAHCS). The recently released CMS hospital ratings were not up to our standards, and relied on data from 2018 to 2021, but do not reflect recent improvements made by the Atlanta VAHCS.”

Atlanta VA said, “We are encouraged by positive data trends from the past year” and says those improvements are not reflected in the ratings. Channel 2 Action News did not choose the time period or the dates of the data. These are the most recent ratings just unveiled on July 26, 2023, by the federal government.

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