The Obama administration knew since at least 2010 about allegations of the VA’s secret wait lists. The smoking gun: a 2010 VA Inspector General report obtained by The Daily Caller which shows that Gen. Shinseki conducted an investigation in 2010 into “unauthorized wait lists” and “scheduling problems” at the Portland VA Medical Center.

The August 17, 2010 VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) report, entitled “Review of Alleged Use of Unauthorized Wait Lists at the Portland VA Medical Center,” was conducted between March and June 2010. Here is an via The DC:

We conducted this review to determine the validity of an allegation that senior officials in Veterans Integrated Service Network 20 (VISN) instructed employees at the Portland VA Medical Center to use unauthorized wait lists to hide access and scheduling problems.

OIG has reported problems since 2005 with schedulers not following established procedures for making or recording medical appointments. This practice has resulted in data integrity weaknesses that impacted the reliability of patient waiting times and facility waiting lists.

The OIG received an anonymous e-mail alleging the use of unauthorized paper wait lists, and that the eye clinics had over 3,500 patients waiting more than 30 days for appointments.

Though the report states that they “did not substantiate the allegation” about the wait lists, they did find that some of the staff failed to notify more than 2,000 patients about follow-up appointments.