The health care needs of women veterans.

Although women veterans accounted for 4.1 percent of all veterans in 1983, they accounted for only 1.5 percent of all discharges from Veterans Administration hospitals in that year. These data suggest that women veterans are not utilizing their health care benefits as often as male veterans do, possibly because they are choosing to receive health care in non-VA facilities. Furthermore, the patterns of utilization for women veterans suggest a selective use of VA hospitals for serious illnesses that require protracted care. The author explores some possible explanations for this phenomenon and emphasizes the need for the VA health care system to incorporate such information in the planning of health care services for women veterans.