WHEN A VETERAN FINALLY SAYS, “I'M READY FOR HELP,” DON'T MAKE THE NEXT WORD “WAIT.”

A Veteran can be ready for mental health care today and still have a long process ahead before ongoing VA Community Care is actually authorized and ready.

$75 FUNDS ONE REAL THERAPY SESSION.

Bridge the Wait helps fund mental health therapy for Veterans who are ready to begin care while they work through the VA Community Care referral and authorization pathway.

These are real therapy sessions with licensed clinicians.

We fund care in the gap.

THE 20-DAY NUMBER DOESN'T TELL THE WHOLE HUMAN STORY.

VA publicly uses a 20-day wait-time standard for primary care and mental health when determining certain Community Care eligibility.

But getting to ongoing community care can involve more than waiting for one appointment. Often times, they wrap this process up in multiple other referrals and redundant processes that are meant purely to delay the care, under pretense of following policy.

A real story from a veteran client who reached out to the VA for mental healthcare:

Told that he needed to see his primary care in-person to get a Behavioral Health referral (~2 weeks to see them)
After PCP visit, they put in a Behavioral Health referral and he had to to see them (~3 weeks)
The first Behavioral Health visit was just a consultation to see if he really needed it, then told he was being referred for continuous care
Now he needed to reach out to multiple VA clinics and do an intake before they could tell him if they had availability, before they could do a VACCN referral. These took between 2-4 weeks to do each of them. And all of them were backlogged for at least 4 months. (~4 weeks)
Veteran again asked for VA Community Care referral and the VA set him up with an appointment in 2 weeks. But it was just for a specialist who did only one visit. (~2 weeks)
The VA referred him to another provider at the VA that was supposed to offer continual care. But it was just 4 visits. (~2 weeks)
Finally, they provided the referral to VA Community Care and it took a week to get him seen by us.

Every step of the process was less than the 20 day limit. And each one claimed procedural correctness. But the result was that the veteran had to spend over 3 months without the care he needed and had to redo his Intake and explain the problems to 7 different providers who couldn't help.

THIS STORY IS WITH THE SUPPORT AND GUIDANCE OF VALORWELL

This was a client we received. He wanted to quit every step of the way. But thankfully we were able to coach him through this process and re-assure him continually.

I kept thinking about the Veteran who doesn't have that.
The Veteran who doesn't know which words to use.
The Veteran who assumes another scheduled appointment means there is nothing else they can do.
The Veteran who gets tired of calling.
The Veteran who finally says, “I need help,” runs into another process, and quietly goes back to handling it alone.

Bridge the Wait exists for that gap.

HERE'S WHAT YOUR SUPPORT DOES.

$75 funds one Bridge the Wait therapy session.

$150 funds two sessions.

$300 funds four sessions.

$900 funds twelve sessions.

Our first goal is simple:

FUND 100 THERAPY SESSIONS.

That's $7,500.

Not an abstract $50,000 thermometer.

One hundred real sessions of mental health care for Veterans caught in the gap between being ready for help and having the longer-term care pathway ready.

THE VETERAN IS READY. THE AUTHORIZATION ISN'T.

We can keep explaining why the system takes time.

Or we can build something for the human being living inside that time.

$75 funds one therapy session.

Help us fund the first 100.

Bridge the Wait.

Bridge the Wait: Therapy for Veterans Ready for Care