Hi there. I'm actually an employee at this clinic and have been for a while. I'd say this clinic overall has a fairly positive reputation. We are constantly expanding because of the wide range of patients that are waitlisted to enroll at this clinic due to its location. With expansion comes growing pains, ie: hiring new staff who are unfamiliar with the VA and its processes. I will try to explain our side of things that patients aren't aware of:

1. Most of the providers' patient panels are capped, but because of the high demand of patients enrolling/transferring to this clinic they are adding new patients. This decision is being made by the higher-ups and is out of any of the clinic staff's hands.
2. Your experience at the clinic depends on the team you are assigned to. Your provider has an RN, LVN, and MA assigned to you for continuity of care. Most of the time, if you call in for any reason, you will interact with your assigned RN/LVN over the phone unless they are out for any reason. I will say, having worked with the providers at this clinic -- the majority of them truly care about the Veterans and will do whatever they can to assist you. The majority of the nursing staff also care about our vets.
3. 99% of the time, we are working on your requests and trying to follow up on them as best we can. We, like you, are waiting for the VA to come up with an answer to our questions (whatever that may be).
4. The New Braunfels clinic is ONLY a primary care clinic with a small lab onsite. We unfortunately don't have x-rays, CT, MRI, or pharmacy. The closest location to us that provides all of those needs is the North Central Federal Clinic. Therefore, if you need something it most likely has to be a consult placed by your primary care provider wherein you, as well as us, have to wait for the specialty clinic to approve or discontinue for whatever reason.
5. Primary care providers do not evaluate patients for new or increasing disability claims. If you come to us for back pain and, two years later, want to increase your service connection for back pain...the VA does not look at your primary care providers' previous progress notes to make that decision. We have to place a consult for a physician at Audie Murphy to evaluate you regarding that specific request. Again, not our rules.
6. I could go on and on. With that said, just by your description of your provider, I feel like I may have an idea and who you're referring to but I don't want to assume. Please know that we (most of us) do everything we can to help our patients. If you are unhappy with the care you received or feel like you did not get anything accomplished with your current provider you can always call the clinic to request a different provider. You will then receive a phone call from the RN to inquire further and she will then forward the message to the manager to transfer you to another panel.
7. Most of the interactions at this clinic are done by phone or secure message (MyHealthyVet). We try to encourage our patients to sign up for secure message to message us directly because our phone lines are constantly being utilized.
8. We get yelled at a lot for situations that are out of our hands, but we still try to assist our patients the best way possible. There are a lot of rules on the VA side that prevent us from moving further on certain issues. You want a chiropractor consult but your BMI is too high? too bad, the system won't even let the provider continue ordering the consult. You get a chiropractor consult...great...the VA only approves 12 visits per year and rarely approve more than that.
9. This is a lot, but know that we try to help our patients the best way possible with the limited resources we have.