Danbury VA Primary Care Clinic Serves Area Veterans

By Andrew Gorosko

US veterans in the Danbury area now have broader access to primary medical care, with the new Veterans Administration’s (VA) primary care clinic at 7 Germantown Road having expanded its schedule.

The clinic, which is on the top floor of a modern office building, is now open five days a week. It has hours of 8 am to 4:30 pm on Mondays through Fridays. Until recently, the facility had only been open two days per week. The clinic’s telephone number is 798-8422.

Kenneth Cohen, MD, who is the director of emergency and community medicine for the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, helped establish the VA’s six primary care clinics which, besides Danbury, are located in Stamford, Waterbury, Winsted, Windham, and New London.

The VA operates a 200-bed hospital with 16 doctors in West Haven, and also has an outpatient facility in Newington, which formerly was a VA hospital.

Dr Cohen said the Danbury clinic, which is called a “community-based outpatient clinic” by the VA, is the most recent of the six clinics that the VA has opened in Connecticut. The Danbury clinic opened in February 2002. It went to a five-day-a-week schedule last January. The New London clinic was the first such community clinic, having opened in 1994.

The VA’s goal in having primary care clinics scattered across the state is to provide primary health care to veterans that is no more than a 30-minute drive, or 30 miles, from their homes, Dr Cohen said.

“I think things are going well in Danbury,” the doctor said.

Before a clinic was available in Danbury, veterans seeking health care had the option of going to the VA’s hospital in West Haven or to VA facilities in New York State, he said.

As an increasing number of veterans seek primary health care in Danbury, the Danbury clinic may expand by adding a nurse practitioner and a second physician to its staff.

Patrick Waldron, who is Danbury’s director of veteran affairs, said that when the clinic was only open two days per week, it had developed a large backlog of veterans who were seeking health care. Now that the facility is open five days a week, that backlog is diminishing, he said.

“It seems to be operating very effectively,” Mr Waldron said of the clinic.

Mr Waldron said he believes the presence of the VA clinic in Danbury has made life simpler for veterans, especially elderly veterans, seeking medical care.

Mr Waldron said his agency arranges free transportation for veterans who must travel to the VA hospital in West Haven for health care. Newtown is among the towns in that transportation coverage area. Veterans seeking rides to West Haven may contact Mr Waldron at 797-4620. Appointments for transportation should be made at least one week in advance.

Clinic Director

Paul A Drost, MD, is the Danbury VA clinic’s director. Dr Drost is a primary care physician with a specialty in internal medicine. Dr Drost formerly worked at the VA’s Waterbury clinic.

Dr Cohen said he recruited Dr Drost to work for the VA about two years ago. Dr Drost formerly worked in a private medical practice in New Milford. 

Currently, besides Dr Drost, the Danbury VA clinic is staffed by a registered nurse and by a health technician. The clinic has four examination rooms.

Dr Drost said the Danbury clinic is functioning as had been expected, with its patient list now at about 700 veterans. He said he expects the patient list will reach 1,200 people in less than one year.

The clinic draws its patients from greater Danbury, including the area extending northward to New Milford, southward to Ridgefield, eastward to Southbury, and westward to the New York State border. So far, the VA has not advertised the presence of its Danbury clinic, with publicity on the facility having come through news coverage, Dr Cohen said.

Dr Drost provides health care including physicals and treating sick patients who visit the clinic. Blood analysis, electrocardiograms, and some types of X-rays are offered by the clinic. Typical conditions treated there include high blood pressure, diabetes, high blood cholesterol, and chronic lung disease. Some of the maladies treated at the clinic stem from veterans’ service in the military. About 95 percent of the clinic’s patients are male. Patient ages range from the 20s to the elderly.

Some clinic patients use VA medical services for the treatment of certain health problems, and also use private physicians for other health problems, Dr Drost said. About one-half of the patients whom he sees at the clinic use him as their primary doctor, he said.

The clinic also has educational patient visits, which provide patients with information on managing their health problems.

“We try to adapt to what the community needs,” Dr Drost said.

For many of the veterans who use the Danbury clinic, services are provided free of charge as one of their veteran’s benefits. For other veterans, some co-pay charges are required, Dr Drost said.

About 50 percent of veterans using the clinic are subject to co-pay requirements for their medical visits; about 75 percent of patients are subject to co-pay requirements for prescription medications, he said.

The Danbury clinic’s proximity to other medical facilities in the Germantown Road area has been an asset, Dr Drost said.

A typical waiting period for a first medical visit by a new patient at the Danbury VA clinic ranges from four to five months, Dr Drost said. After becoming an established, active patient, however, a veteran essentially has no wait for successive visits, he added.

Mick Dillon, a VA registered nurse, is the head nurse for the VA’s six primary care clinics in Connecticut.

Mr Dillon said the Danbury clinic reviews patient satisfaction surveys to gauge how well the facility is providing medical services. Those surveys have shown that the veterans using the clinic like receiving their primary care in their home area, preferring not having to travel out of the area to other VA facilities for medical care, Mr Dillon said.

The clinic treats a broad range of patients, from those with low incomes to people with good-paying jobs, Mr Dillon said.