VA-Delivered or VA-Purchased Care: Important Factors for Veterans Navigating Care Decisions.

Current VA-purchased care eligibility determinations focus on common access metrics (e.g., wait times, distance to care). Yet, Veterans discussed other important factors for navigating care decisions, including patient-provider relationship quality and the larger healthcare environment (e.g., interactions with staff and other Veterans). Our findings point to the need for health systems to collect and provide information on these aspects of care to ensure care decisions reflect what is important to Veterans when navigating where to receive care.