Start online to make the most of your health care visit

When you show up for an appointment with your health care specialist – face-to-face or virtually – time is critical. You want to talk about what’s on your mind, not spend valuable minutes answering a bunch of basic questions. That’s where the award-winning eScreening tool comes in.

Now, you can answer those general – but important – questions before your visit and put that time with your provider to good use. Veterans receive a unique link that leads to a series of standard questions a health care specialist would ask at a typical annual visit. Health facilities can customize questions with your care in mind.

Early results show Veterans can save anywhere from 15 to 50 minutes by filling out some forms with eScreening before an appointment. Your health care provider saves time, too, so everyone benefits from a more streamlined, meaningful visit.

“I feel like the eScreening process saves a lot of time at my appointments and I can focus on what is important to my care. It was easy, intuitive, and not at all complicated,” said a Veteran who completed the eScreening assessment. This was done before their first appointment at an outpatient mental health facility at the VA Eastern Colorado Healthcare System. “I was very pleased with this process and the efficiency of getting this done before seeing my new provider.”

Created with Veterans in mind by VA’s Office of Information and Technology (OIT), in collaboration with the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Center of Excellence for Stress and Mental Health, eScreening continues to make refinements and improvements. These efforts clear potential hurdles for you and your fellow Veterans, improve efficiency for health care staff, and result in better care.

Veterans do not actively sign up for eScreening. Rather, if a Veteran’s VA health care facility offers the service, the Veteran will receive an automated email with a unique link to access eScreening – as well as a text message if a mobile phone number is on file with VA. Veterans can edit their phone number by signing into VA.gov and editing their VA Profile. Ask at your facility if they have eScreening.

Where available, Veterans receive an automated email with a unique link to access eScreening. Those with a mobile phone number on file will eventually be sent a text message as well. A staff member will follow up to ensure receipt of the link, explain what eScreening is and its purpose, and to request the Veteran complete the forms before the virtual or in-person visit with the clinician. The forms can be completed on a computer, tablet or smartphone.

With eScreening, your health care specialist can come to your appointment well prepared. Even better, you can spend more of your valuable time talking about what matters most to you. This tool is another way that shows VA is working hard to provide you with the best care and service available.

*This post was edited on 6/16/22 with additional information in the third to last paragraph.