The VA released its own damning report this week about wait times for veterans to get appointments at their hospitals and clinics. It pretty much confirms what most of us have seen in practice. But most vets have a highly skeptical view of government reports — particularly VA reports – so it’s good that acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson has also ordered an independent, external audit of the scandal.

It will be interesting to see whether the situation worsens when outside auditors examine the VA health care system. But frankly, it’s hard to believe the system could be any worse than the VA has acknowledged.

According to the VA’s inspector general, 100,000 vets are experiencing excessive wait times for current medical appointments, and many others have fallen through the cracks without having been scheduled for appointments.

“On May 15, 2014, VHA had over 6 million appointments scheduled across the system,” according to the audit. “Nationwide, there are roughly 57,436 veterans who are waiting to be scheduled for care and another 63,869 who over the past 10 years have enrolled in our healthcare system and have not been seen for an appointment. VA is moving aggressively to contact these veterans through the Accelerating Access to Care Initiative.”

About 70 percent of the 731 facilities reviewed were using alternatives to wait-list procedures to make the wait-list times appear shorter, the audit found, and more than 10 percent of the 4,000 employees interviewed said they had been instructed in how to falsify wait-list data.

At a House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs hearing Monday evening, Richard Griffin, the VA’s acting inspector general, said his office is reviewing 69 VA medical facilities and is coordinating with the Justice Department when inspectors identify potential criminal violations, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“The issue of manipulation of wait lists is not new to VA,” Griffin told the WSJ. “And since 2005 the [inspector general] has issued 18 reports that identified at both the national and local level deficiencies in scheduling, resulting in lengthy wait times and in negative impact on patient care.”

Accompanying the release of the VA’s review data Monday morning, Gibson announced a hiring freeze among senior positions at the VA and said the VA will “trigger administrative procedures” against senior leaders in charge of problem facilities.

And he said he had ordered an outside audit of VA health care facilities to confirm the VA’s OIG report.