Experience making appointments / getting referrals via VA in San Antonio

Does everyone wait for 30 minutes on the phone to make an appointment and get hung up on? I’m shocked at the extends my boyfriend is going through with the VA in SATX just to get a hold of someone. Be it mental health or specialists. CC staff are passing their admin responsibilities to patients - “you need to send this referral to xyz yourself”, “you need to ask them to call us” etc - literally putting the patient to work. It’s baffling and confusing. Apparently only way to make an appointment is to make a phone call that rarely gets answered after 30+ minutes of waiting and call gets dropped. Extremely frustrating. No website or messaging service to make appointments. How are you veterans in SA managing this? He has lived across many diff states and reports SATX being the worst and most frustrating by far. Not sure if I am looking for validation or solutions. I’ll take both lol