Dayton VA Medical Center Director Glenn Costie will temporarily take over the troubled Phoenix VA while the federal health agency searches for a permanent replacement.
Costie will become the top executive in Phoenix in July for up to four months, the Dayton Daily News confirmed Thursday night with officials from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Phoenix VA has been the epicenter of national outrage over delayed appointments for veterans. The Arizona medical facility allegedly kept a “secret” waiting list to avoid disclosing actual wait times for veterans, some of whom reportedly died while waiting for medical care.
The scandal led to the resignation of former VA Director Eric Shinseki, the removal of top leadership at the Phoenix VA and a broad inquiry into the health agency’s appointment practices.
Congressional lawmakers have pushed legislative changes to reform the VA in the wake of the investigative findings.
Dayton VA Associate Director Mark Murdock will likely stand in for Costie, who is expected to return to his senior executive post in Dayton when his tenure in Phoenix ends.
The Dayton VA has a $322 million budget and treated more than 38,000 veterans in southwest Ohio at its main medical center campus and four outpatient clinics in Springfield, Middletown, Lima and Richmond, Ind.
The Dayton VA fared better than the national average in scheduling patient appointments in a recent audit, but it fell short of agency goals. The audit found further investigation is needed of the Richmond clinic, though didn’t say why.
Costie is no stranger to scandal. He was named director of the Dayton VA in December 2011 to restore the community’s trust in the hospital after the public learned that a dentist there had not properly changed gloves or sterilized equipment between patients for nearly 20 years.
“People feel like they express concerns about care, or express concerns about what they see other employees doing, and it falls on deaf ears,” Costie told the Dayton Daily News at the time. “I want to try to create an environment where people are rewarded for bringing up what can be uncomfortable topics sometimes.”
The dental scandal forced out then-director Guy Richardson, who was transferred to a headquarters job and later promoted after being exonerated by an internal investigation.
After Richardson, the VA brought storied VA director William Montague out of retirement in March 2011 as an interim director. Montague handed the reins to Costie in December 2011 and later pleaded guilty to corruption charges stemming from his tenure at the Cleveland VA. Montague is still awaiting sentencing, according to federal court records.
Costie’s career with the VA spans 30 years at medical centers across the country.
A Virginia native, Costie earned an engineering degree from Virginia Tech. His career with the VA started in 1984 with a training program at the medical center in Martinsburg, W.Va. He worked his way up at VA medical centers in Chicago and Connecticut, then Cleveland.
Costie worked 15 years in Cleveland, managing $750 million in construction projects.
Costie came to Dayton from the John J. Pershing VA Medical Center in Poplar Bluff, Mo. Prior to that, he was associate medical center director for operations in Maryland.
