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WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs repeatedly understated wait times for injured veterans seeking medical care and in many serious cases forced them to wait more than 30 days, counter to department policy, an internal investigation shows.

The review by the VA Inspector General's Office, released Monday, examined 700 outpatient appointments for primary and specialty care scheduled in October 2006 at 10 VA medical centers.

It found that the Veterans Health Administration in recent months falsely reported to Congress that nearly all of its appointments — about 95 percent — were scheduled within 30 days of a patient's requested date. In fact, only three in four veterans — 75 percent — received such timely appointments.

Of the veterans kept waiting more than 30 days, 27 percent had more serious service-connected disabilities, such as amputees and those with chronic problems, including frequent panic attacks. Under VHA policy, such veterans must be scheduled for care within 30 days of their desired appointment date.

In addition, despite warnings by the IG in 2005 to more accurately report wait times, department officials last year also may have understated the number of veterans on their electronic waiting lists by more than 53,000.

"While waiting time inaccuracies and omissions from electronic waiting lists can be caused by a lack of training and data entry errors, we also found that schedulers at some facilities were interpreting the guidance from their managers to reduce waiting times as instruction never to put patients on the electronic waiting list," VA investigators wrote.

"This seems to have resulted in some 'gaming' of the scheduling process," the 34-page report said.

Responding, VA Undersecretary for Health Michael Kussman partly agreed that the agency should take additional steps to improve scheduling with better training and procedures and better accounting of records.

But he insisted the VA in most cases was doing the best it could and challenged the IG report's methodology, citing patient satisfaction surveys showing roughly 85 percent of veterans were getting appointments when they needed them.

In recent weeks, injured Iraq war veterans have filed suit against the VA alleging undue delays in health care.