WHITE CITY — Vexed veterans no longer need swear like drill sergeants for being put on hold seemingly forever when calling the former domiciliary’s outpatient clinic.

The new Primary Care Call Center which opened Monday at the Department of Veterans Affairs Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center and Clinics here is expected to make life easier for the nearly 11,000 outpatients now using the clinic.

"We weren’t getting every call, and we were getting a lot of complaints about that," explained John Bidwell, medical administrative officer at the center.

"We anticipate being able to answer every call every time with this new system," he said.

Outpatients who call the vets’ center toll-free at 800-809-8725 or locally at 826-2111 will be guided by an automated attendant to the call center which has a bank of seven phones.

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The public is invited to a ribbon-cutting ceremony beginning at 11:30 a.m. Monday in the outpatient clinic in Building 201.

The mushrooming patient load forced the change, Bidwell said, noting that a process improvement team recommended the change last year.

"Every year we are growing at least 10 percent," Bidwell said of the patient load. "Veterans are moving to this valley in droves and they are all knocking at our door because of the cost of prescriptions."

The outpatient veterans coming in are from the World War II era to those returning from the current conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan, he said.

With the growing demand, the facility’s current budget of some $54 million is expected to increase with the 2007 budget beginning Oct. 1, noted spokeswoman Anna Diehl.

In another move to improve the growing outpatient load, the center has moved to an open-access scheduling system, Bidwell said.

"Instead of scheduling a patient six months out, we put them in a reminder clinic and send them a letter saying, ‘The doctor wants to see you back. Give us a call,’ " he said. An appointment is then scheduled within 48 hours.

"The veterans get appointments when it is convenient for them," he said. "But in order to do that we had to improve our phone services. Too many calls were going unanswered or people had to stay on hold for too long."

The problem, he said, was that the vast number of outpatients simply overwhelmed the old system.

An Army veteran, Bidwell knows that veterans aren’t too fond of red tape, medical or otherwise.

"Our biggest complaint was ‘I can’t get through!’ " he said. "We had to change it."

In addition to creating the call center, the administration has centralized the clerical support, he said.

"It’s now one-stop shopping for the vets," he said. "They now have one central place to check in. There is less confusion for them."

Veterans with an outpatient appointment check in at the front desk. A nurse checks their vitals, then passes them on to the doctor, he said, noting that an electronic medical record-keeping system helps streamline the process.

"It cuts down on confusion and the time the vets have to spend on the administrative part of their day," he said.

The outpatient care currently consists of seven full-time primary care teams, five part-time primary care teams and eight specialty clinics.

"We anticipate hiring more medical providers this year to keep up with growth," Bidwell said.

Reach reporter Paul Fattigat 776-4496 or e-mail him at pfattig@mailtribune.com.