IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A veteran getting care at the VA hospital in Iowa City is about twice as likely to have to wait more than a month for an appointment as a vet who goes to the VA hospital in Des Moines. Government data show that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical center in Iowa City had more than 2,700 appointments in a recent six-month span that took longer than 30 days to complete.

That amounted to 3 percent of the appointments the hospital completed between Sept. 1 and Feb. 28. The VA hospital in Des Moines reported that 1.5 percent of its appointments missed the goal of having patients wait no longer than 30 days for non-emergency care. About one in 33 appointments in Iowa City didn’t meet the standard compared to one in 64 in Des Moines.

In Nebraska, less than 1 percent of appointments at the Omaha VA Medical Center, Nebraska’s largest such facility, failed to meet a federal timeliness goal of 30 days or less. That’s according to an Associated Press examination of waiting times at 940 VA hospitals and outpatient clinics from Sept. 1 to Feb. 28, done in the wake of last year’s scandal over delays in veterans’ care and cover-up attempts.

Overall, Nebraska’s veterans are more likely to see doctors and other health care providers quickly at the state’s 10 VA facilities than their counterparts around the country. Eileen Kingston is associate director for patient care for the VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System. She says the system’s managers participate in a weekly meeting dedicated to improving access to care for veterans.