Summary

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides a uniform set of health care services to eligible veterans who enroll to receive such care and seek it from VA. These services include preventive and primary health care, a full range of outpatient and inpatient services, and prescription drugs. VA provides additional services, such as nursing home and dental care and other services, as required by law for some veterans and makes these services available to other veterans on a discretionary basis as resources permit. Most of the nation's 24 million veterans are eligible for some aspect of VA's health care services if they choose to enroll. In fiscal year 2005, about 7 million veterans were enrolled to receive VA health care services. In that year, VA planned to provide health care services to about 5 million veterans based on its initial budget request of $ 30.2 billion. Funding for VA's health care program has increased substantially in recent years. Congress appropriates funds annually for VA to provide health care services to eligible veterans. Congressional budget deliberations start when the President submits his annual budget request to Congress as the Budget of the United States Government. This is soon followed by VA providing the Congress with a more detailed budget justification of the President's policy and funding proposals for its programs. In each of the President's budget requests for fiscal years 2003 through 2006, the proposals assumed implementation of management efficiency initiatives that would save money without reducing the quality of service. Indeed, over these 4 fiscal years, the President's budget proposals assumed that these initiatives reduced funding requests by billions of dollars. Since savings from management efficiencies were expected to help reduce the level of annual appropriations, Congress asked us to examine (1) VA's methodology for projecting the health care management efficiency savings that were assumed in the President's budget requests for fiscal years 2003 through 2006 and (2) VA's support for reported actual savings achieved through management efficiency initiatives during fiscal years 2003 and 2004--including the methodology and documentation used to track and report achieved savings. We also summarized prior GAO and VA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reports that have identified management inefficiencies at VA.

VA lacked a methodology for making the health care management efficiency savings assumptions reflected in the President's budget requests for fiscal years 2003 through 2006 and, therefore, was unable to provide us with any support for those estimates. VA officials told us that the management efficiency savings assumed in these requests were savings goals used to reduce requests for a higher level of annual appropriations in order to fill the gap between the cost associated with VA's projected demand for health care services and the amount the President was willing to request. Further, VA lacks adequate support for the $1.3 billion it reported as actual management efficiency savings achieved for fiscal years 2003 and 2004 because it lacked a sound methodology and adequate documentation for calculating and reporting management efficiency savings. Specifically, there was little consistency with respect to what VA's regional networks reported as management efficiency savings, how savings were calculated, and what type of documentation was available to support the savings figures reported. In addition, VA's regional networks sometimes reported savings resulting from cost-cutting measures as management efficiency savings. Although both can achieve savings, cost-cutting measures, unlike management efficiency initiatives, are not consistent with VA's objective of providing the same or higher quality and quantity of service at a lower cost. Finally, VA does not have a reliable basis for determining whether it has realized the management efficiency savings that were reflected in the President's budget requests for fiscal years 2003 and 2004. Specifically, VA's use of its savings calculation for its national procurement initiatives is misleading because VA calculates actual savings for these initiatives on a cumulative basis and compares these savings figures with savings goals that are reflected on an incremental basis. In recent years, the VA OIG and we identified management inefficiencies that, if unaddressed, could contribute to requests for higher amounts of appropriations that could otherwise have been avoided. For example, although VA has instituted a number of procurement reform initiatives aimed at leveraging its purchasing power and improving the overall effectiveness of its procurement actions, the VA OIG and we continue to identify problems with VA's procurement processes. Moreover, the VA OIG identified deficiencies in VA's procurement practices as one of the agency's most serious management challenges. For instance, recent GAO and VA OIG reports disclosed significant problems with VA's acquisitions involving Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts; procurement of health care services; VA construction; acquisition support weaknesses; and inadequate management and oversight of major system initiatives. In addition, recent GAO and VA OIG reports have identified both serious control weaknesses in the agency's inventory management and shortfalls in the agency's efforts to provide reliable cost data to accurately assess the efficiency and effectiveness of VA's programs and initiatives.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Implemented" or "Not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Recommendations for Executive Action