The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) needs to modernize the Veterans Health Administration’s system for paying non-VA providers such as hospitals, physicians, and mental health professionals, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The VA purchases care in the community for 3 main reasons: wait times for appointments at VA medical facilities are too long; specialty services, such as cardiology or orthopedics, are not available at a VA medical facility; or a veteran would have to travel too far for care at a VA medical facility, the GAO said in the report, addressed to the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee (http://1.usa.gov/20TfvY4).