By Freddy Groves
Things are going to be different in 2025. If there’s one thing I hope, it’s that the Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General isn’t hit with any budget or staffing reductions. As time goes on, we need them more than ever to dig out, investigate, and expose all the problems in the VA.
The PACT Act of 2022, for example, required screenings for toxic exposures—as well as training for the VA medical staff to do those screenings. Within a short time, screenings had been done on 4 million veterans out of the 9 million who were enrolled in VA health care. That’s approximately 45% of the total. Training for staff, however, didn’t come close. When additional training was required, only 21.4% of staff completed it, which means that a lot of veterans were screened by staff who hadn’t done all of their training.
Then there is the matter of communication that the VA OIG exposed: A ”package manager” computer program at the VA bundles up the documents for a veteran’s claims and then sends them off to a printer. The VA OIG discovered that, because nobody was paying attention to the problem, over 2 million packages weren’t printed… because nobody hit the ”send” button. The veterans, therefore, did not receive the communications from the VA, which might have been asking for more evidence for a claim to be processed or notification about a claim decision and information about options for responding to that decision.
Equally valuable are the frauds that the OIG nails. A recent scam involved a pharmaceutical company that offered a particular test kit, claiming that the kit could diagnose a certain condition. Then they were able to push the very expensive therapy drug they produced for that condition. Kickbacks were involved, of course. The company ended up paying $47 million for their scam.
Keep your fingers crossed. In a perfect world, the VA OIG will maintain an adequate budget and staffing. Doubling it would be better.
(c) 2024 King Features Synd., Inc.
