If your practice is near Fort Bragg, a meaningful share of your prospective patients are veterans, and a meaningful share of their care is delivered by civilian providers, not inside a VA facility. Cumberland County is North Carolina's largest veteran county, with roughly 59,290 veterans (VA VetPop 2023). When the local VA cannot see a veteran within its access standards, that care is referred out to community providers through the VA Community Care Network (CCN). This guide walks a small practice through joining that network in North Carolina.
This is an administrative and business guide for provider offices, not medical or legal advice.
What the VA Community Care Network is
Community Care is how the VA pays for eligible veterans to be seen by civilian providers when the VA cannot deliver the care itself. It has grown from about 1.1 million users in 2014 to roughly 2.8 million in 2023 (Congressional Budget Office; Government Accountability Office). For a local practice, it is a real and growing channel, with one important boundary described below.
The country is divided into CCN regions. North Carolina is in CCN Region 1, currently administered by Optum on the VA's behalf. (The VA is re-procuring these contracts, so the administrator's name can change at a future award. The steps below stay the same even if the administrator does.)
Why Fayetteville-area practices see referral demand
VA facilities refer certain kinds of care out far more often than others. A national survey of VA facility directors found the most commonly referred-out services were physical therapy (about 70 percent of facilities), chiropractic care (about 56 percent), orthopedics (about 46 percent), ophthalmology (about 39 percent), and acupuncture (about 38 percent) (Mattocks et al., Medical Care, 2021). Behavioral health is a large channel in its own right: about 224,741 veterans used VA referrals for community behavioral health between fiscal years 2021 and 2023 (Government Accountability Office).
If your practice sits in one of those categories near Fort Bragg, referred veterans are a natural part of your patient mix. If it does not, CCN participation is still worth understanding, but the referral volume will be smaller.
The one boundary to understand first: the referral gate
Being in the network does not mean veterans can walk in and have the VA pay for routine care. For routine services, a veteran must first be found eligible and receive a VA referral and authorization before the care is covered. Urgent care through an in-network provider is the main exception that does not require a prior referral, and emergency care is handled separately.
So joining CCN will not, by itself, produce walk-in VA-paid patients. What it does do is make your practice eligible to receive those referrals, and here is the part that matters for a directory: once a veteran has an approved referral, the VA lets them search for and schedule with an in-network provider of their choice (VA.gov). A veteran who has just been told they can see a community physical therapist will look one up. Being easy to find, with accurate information, is how you become the one they pick.
How to join
There are two paths, depending on your situation.
Join the CCN network directly. Enroll through the network administrator for Region 1. You can start the process at vacommunitycare.com/provider or by calling the Region 1 provider line at 888-901-7407. You will provide your practice information, credentials, and the services you offer.
Use a Veterans Care Agreement to fill a gap. When a network contract is not in place for a specific need, the VA can use a Veterans Care Agreement (VCA) with an individual provider. This is a narrower, case-by-case route rather than full network participation, and the VA generally prefers network providers first.
Payment under CCN is anchored to roughly Medicare rates by statute (Congressional Budget Office). By 2020, about 1.7 million providers nationally had joined CCN networks, so you would be in wide company.
The honest part: friction is real
It would be dishonest to pitch this as free money. Providers in some areas have declined or dropped VA work over slow payments and administrative load. In the same facility-director survey, about 86 percent of directors reported at least one local provider who had refused VA work because of past billing problems (Mattocks et al., 2021). Requirements around documentation, timely records, and quality reporting are real administrative weight for a small office.
The picture is improving. Reforms in 2025 and 2026 (including longer, yearlong authorizations and a new scheduling system) are aimed squarely at the payment-timing and referral-friction complaints. They are shrinking the problem, not erasing it. Go in with realistic expectations: participation is a good fit for a practice that can absorb some paperwork in exchange for a steady referral channel, and a poor fit for one that cannot.
How referred veterans actually find you
Two things decide whether a referred veteran chooses your practice: whether you appear where they look, and whether what they see is accurate and current. The VA's own provider directory is documented to carry stale and inaccurate entries (Government Accountability Office), which means a fresher, well-maintained local listing genuinely stands out.
On ProviderQuoHealth, a claimed practice can turn on a free, self-reported Accepts VA Community Care signal (the same way practices mark the insurance and TRICARE coverage they accept). It appears as a badge on your profile and lets veterans filter the directory to practices that participate. It is free on every listing tier, it is your own statement rather than something we verify, and it sits right next to the rest of the information a veteran uses to choose: your specialties, location, hours, and whether you are accepting new patients.
For the veteran-facing side of this (eligibility, access standards, and how referrals work), we keep a plain-language set of guides in the veterans and VA care section.
Where to go from here
If you want referred veterans near Fort Bragg to find your practice, claim or build your ProviderQuoHealth listing at /listings/new, then mark the coverage you accept, including VA Community Care, on your profile. A complete, current listing is what turns a referral a veteran already has into a booked appointment at your office.
To see how patients experience the directory, browse the main provider directory.
Important note
This article is for general information and is not medical advice, and it is not legal advice. It is not a substitute for professional care from a licensed clinician. If you have a medical concern, talk to a healthcare provider. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911 (in the U.S.) or your local emergency number.
Coverage rules, network contracts, and enrollment steps change; confirm current requirements directly with the VA and the Region 1 network administrator before making decisions for your practice. ProviderQuoHealth is an independent directory and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs or Optum.