VA pushes external providers to adopt tech streamlining veteran specialist appointments

The Department of Veterans Affairs is encouraging outside providers to enable the External Provider Scheduling, or EPS, system which lets VA staff directly book specialist appointments for veterans with those providers.

The EPS platform is meant to save VA staff the hassle of booking specialist appointments with non-VA providers through faxes and phone calls. All VA facilities implemented the EPS system in late 2025, and the system has 27,000 participating non-VA providers covering 78 specialties, according to a March 2026 press release.

“We’re really cooking with grease and being able to schedule veterans much faster,” Howard Manuel, VA deputy senior advisor, told Nextgov/FCW in a recent interview.

Manuel will tout the scheduling platform during an Open@Epic conference panel on Thursday alongside representatives of Deaconess Health System — which became an early adopter of the EPS system in February — as part of the VA’s effort to push more non-VA providers to enable the technology.

Because of that adoption, Marion VA Medical Center staff can schedule specialty appointments at Deaconess Illinois, a part of the broader health system.

Andrew Beck, system director of business development for Deaconess Health System, told Nextgov/FCW that 688 veterans have been successfully booked to Deaconess Illinois through the EPS system. At one point this year, veteran appointment times at Deaconess Illinois averaged under five minutes, which is significantly lower than the time it would take to book them through phone calls, he added.

Deaconess Illinois has seen a nearly 30% increase in year-over-year VA patient encounters, which William Davis, its regional president, says is the result of improving veterans’ access to care.

Veterans who have received care through the Deaconess Health System have their medical information shared back to the VA through the EpicCare Link system, Beck said.

Deaconess Health System is now planning to give VA staff visibility into radiologist appointments in Illinois and expand the EPS system to other locations beyond the state, he noted.

Deaconess Health System has enabled the scheduling system by integrating its Epic electronic health records with the WellHive technology that underpins the EPS program. But providers using non-Epic electronic health records can share specialist appointment information through the EPS system, according to a VA fact sheet.

WellHive is working to allow VA staff to easily see specialist appointments for VA and non-VA providers on its platform, Chris Faraji, the health technology company’s president, told Nextgov/FCW. VA awarded WellHive a contract for the EPS system in 2023.

Faraji added that the company is working to enable the EPS program for health systems around the country. Beyond Deaconess Health System, WellHive is already working with the Medical University of South Carolina, University of Arkansas Medical School, Allegheny Health Network and West Virginia University on the EPS system, he said.

“The momentum is there. It's really starting to pick up,” Faraji said.

At the beginning of the second Trump administration, Rep. Tom Barrett, R-Mich., pressed VA to rapidly expand the adoption of the EPS system and blamed the Biden administration for the technology’s slow rollout. Secretary Doug Collins later told lawmakers in June 2025 that the VA is doing “everything we possibly can” to boost the scheduling system.

VA’s focus is now to “open up the door to other health systems to join us in this partnership,” Manuel told Nextgov/FCW.