Don't expect a call back from the doctor: how to get a response from your loved one's medical team
I'm a medical social worker, and I have to say that one of the things I hear over and over again from caregivers and patients is: "I never got a call back." From their doctors, or their care-recipient's doctor or other provider. (A lot of primary care providers are physicians assistants or family nurse practitioners, especially in rural areas.) I've worked in hospital settings, as a home hospice social worker, in outpatient clinics for cancer and neurology, and after 6 years as a mental health provider in a rural outpatient primary care clinic, I'm an oncology social worker once again in a medium sized city. Let me tell you how to get the response you need.
If you have a question about the medication that was newly prescribed, do exactly what the prescriber told you to do. If s/he said call, then call, and call twice a day until you get a human who can respond.
If you need a hospital bed or a wheelchair, make an appointment to see the provider in person, or by telehealth (phone, video). Because the provider needs to assess what makes those things a necessity, and then has to fill out a form to justify having insurance pay for it. If you need a bedside commode or a shower chair or walker, consider calling the area thrift stores, or a local hospice and see if you can get one for free or for $25, because every thrift store seems to have these in piles, and when a patient dies at home in hospice, they get donated to the hospice.
If you are waiting on a confirmation that a prior authorization has been given for a visit to a specialist or for a test like an MRI, find out who does that job and keep in touch with them. Don't harass them with daily calls: be super nice. Just find out when they'll know and then call. Don't wait passively to be called by the specialist's office or the radiology department (for CTs and MRIs). Apparently, the VA was taking weeks to get back to prior auth workers, and that's not their fault. But you have a right to know. Just know that the 'system', such as it is, barely works, and being angry does not help: it's no one person's fault. Everyone is doing the best they can, truly.
For anything the remotest bit complicated, make an appointment. Doctors are some of the busiest working humans in our world, and they can't focus on more than a couple things at a time. If you call with a new symptom, someone has to look up your chart, review your meds, maybe look up something.... when they barely have time to eat and go to the bathroom. Go in to see them. Be organized. and help them to focus on just you.
Good luck.