All Reports

The Under Secretary for Health assesses the feasibility of the 7-day appointment scheduling requirement for Care in the Community consults and considers stratifying the time frame requirement according to risk.

The VA Maryland Health Care System Director develops and implements an education plan to address incomplete Care in the Community consult submissions and monitors efficacy of the plan.

The VA Maryland Health Care System Director implements Care in the Community consult management process improvements, focusing on consult completion.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director assists system leaders with completing corrective actions to improve Care in the Community performance.

The VA Maryland Health Care System Director ensures system Care in the Community staff create and use care coordination plan notes for documenting all care coordination activities for consults with an assigned level of care other than basic and monitors for compliance.

The VA Maryland Health Care System Director ensures full implementation of Veterans Health Administration’s enhanced Referral Coordination Initiative as required and monitors for compliance.

The VA Maryland Health Care System Director ensures Care in the Community Patient Advocate Tracking System data is analyzed for use in service-level quality and process improvement and monitors for compliance.

The OIG recommends facility leaders develop and implement a plan to resolve infrastructure issues that affect patient care.

The OIG recommends facility leaders develop and implement a plan to resolve veterans’ unanswered phone calls and inability to reach staff.

The OIG recommends facility leaders replace the emergency call boxes in the parking garage to ensure they are active and functioning.

The OIG recommends facility leaders update local policies and memorandums related to communication of test results.

The OIG recommends the Director ensures the Chief of Staff conducts institutional disclosures for applicable adverse events.

The OIG recommends facility leaders take additional actions to obtain manageable panel sizes per VHA guidelines and ensure patients have access to high-quality care.

The OIG recommends facility leaders evaluate and improve processes for medical clearance of veterans who participate in the Compensated Work Therapy program.

The VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System Director ensures the chief of primary care reviews, strengthens, and implements system Patient Aligned Care Team processes for tracking and following up on community care consults ordered, particularly diagnostic consults, to verify patients receive care and to review and act upon consult results, as clinically indicated.

The VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System Director reviews institutional disclosures conducted by the system over the past 12 months, including the patient’s institutional disclosure, and ensures these disclosures fully adhere to Veterans Health Administration Directive 1004.08, Disclosure of Adverse Events to Patients, October 31, 2018, including documenting the details of the adverse event and discussion points of the disclosure, and takes action needed to remediate disclosures that do not meet these standards.

The VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System Director ensures community care staff make the required three attempts to obtain patients’ community care records within 90 days of completed appointments, and monitors for compliance.

The VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System Director collaborates with the Kansas City VA Medical Center Director to review the frequency and circumstances of community care records being sent to the incorrect VA facility, develops, and implements a process for ensuring community care records are delivered to the correct ordering VA facility, educates staff on the process, and monitors for compliance.

The Under Secretary for Health establishes and monitors compliance with a process that ensures the Veterans Health Administration ordering provider receives urgent non-life-threatening abnormal test results from care obtained in the community, such as the diagnostic positron emission tomography scan results described in this report, within a time frame that allows timely attention and appropriate action to be taken.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with the Veterans Health Administration National Center for Lung Cancer Screening Program Office, evaluates the VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System’s Lung Cancer Screening Program to ensure operational adherence to the Lung Cancer Screening Program requirements, and takes action as needed.

Evaluate its Veteran Self-Scheduling training and identify improvements if they are needed.

Make certain that staff who are involved in the Veteran Self-Scheduling process are trained on how to assess eligibility for the scheduling option, communicate key information to veterans on the option, and conduct appropriate consult follow-up procedures.

Ensure all guidance related to the Veteran Self-Scheduling process is clear, consistent, and disseminated to all VA medical facilities.

Establish a mechanism to effectively track and monitor each VA medical facility’s challenges with implementation of the Veteran Self-Scheduling process and then develop a plan to address reported issues.

Develop best practices and lessons learned for implementing the Veteran Self‑Scheduling process and disseminate them to all VA medical facilities.

Develop controls to ensure VA medical facility staff have the tools in place to identify instances of potential inappropriate processing or inappropriate use of Veteran Self-Scheduling consults.

Direct facilities to conduct routine reviews of Veteran Self-Scheduling consults to identify potential inappropriate processing or use of the Veteran Self-Scheduling option and notify VHA’s Office of Integrated Veteran Care of instances of inappropriate use.

Develop a plan to accurately assess whether the Veteran Self‑Scheduling process is meeting its intended goals.

The Montana VA Healthcare System Director assesses the timeliness of appointment setting for direct and community care referrals and ensures facility staff establish appointments within required time frames.

The Montana VA Healthcare System Director assesses the timeliness of completion of community care appointments within 90 days of requested date and acts on identified opportunities for improvement.

The Montana VA Healthcare System Director reviews consult management practices and ensures receiving staff document scheduled appointment dates for VA direct care referrals.

The Montana VA Healthcare System Director reviews appointment wait times and acts on identified opportunities for improvement.

The Montana VA Healthcare System Director ensures community care providers utilized by the system are designated as eligible in the Provider Profile Management System and acts on identified opportunities to improve the accuracy of eligibility designations.

The VA Northern Indiana Healthcare System Director evaluates the system clinic cancellation policy and Chief of Staff notification of urgent clinic cancellations and takes action as appropriate.

The VA Northern Indiana Healthcare System Director reviews short-notice clinical cancellations for social work mental health clinics, including the provider’s clinic, to evaluate patient impact and take actions as appropriate.

Use up-to-date contact center data and the recommended Veterans Health Administration call center staffing model to ensure the clinical contact center is operating within indicated target staffing goals.

Evaluate call center staffing and call data for clinical contact center staff based at the Atlanta facility to identify possible operational inefficiencies related to scheduling, handle time, and availability for calls, and address inefficiencies as needed.

Periodically evaluate the performance of health administration services staff who answer specialty care clinic calls at the Atlanta facility to ensure they meet Veterans Health Administration call center performance standards.

Evaluate call data to ensure health administration services staff at the Atlanta facility who answer calls for the mental health and specialty care clinics meet Veterans Health Administration call center performance standards for timeliness and abandonment rate.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with facility directors, ensures community care oversight councils function according to their charters and meet the required number of times per fiscal year.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with facility directors, ensures facility community care staff enter community care patient safety events into the Joint Patient Safety Reporting system.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with facility directors, ensures patient safety managers or designees brief community care patient safety event trends, lessons learned, and corrective actions at community care oversight council meetings.

The Veteran Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with facility directors, ensures facility staff scan all community care documents into the patient’s electronic health record within five business days of receipt.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with facility directors, requires facility community care staff to use the significant findings alert to notify the ordering provider of abnormal diagnostic imaging results.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with facility directors, ensures facility community care staff confirm patients attended their appointments and attempt to obtain medical documentation prior to administratively closing consults.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with facility directors, ensures facility community care staff make two additional attempts to obtain community providers’ medical documentation within 90 days of the appointment following administrative closure of consults that are not low risk.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with facility directors, ensures facility community care staff process community care providers’ requests for additional services within three business days of receipt.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with facility directors, ensures facility community care staff send approval or denial letters to community providers for requests for additional services.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with facility directors, ensures facility community care staff send approval or denial letters to patients for requests for additional services.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with facility directors, ensures facility community care staff schedule patients for community care appointments within seven days of consult entry or receipt in the department.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with facility directors, ensures facility community care staff confirm patients attended scheduled community care appointments and received care.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with facility directors, ensures facility community care staff use the Community Care–Care Coordination Plan note to document all care coordination activities for consults with an assigned level of care other than basic.

The Ralph H. Johnson VA Health Care System Director ensures optimal mental health clinic utilization at the Hinesville VA Clinic.

The Ralph H. Johnson VA Health Care System Director ensures that mental health Hinesville VA Clinic staff are using accurate current procedural terminology codes to document services provided to patients in the electronic medical record.

The Ralph H. Johnson VA Health Care System Director confirms evaluation of administrative processes to include consult management and patient scheduling within the mental health service at the Hinesville VA Clinic and takes action as necessary to optimize patient access and experience.

The Ralph H. Johnson VA Health Care System Director completes a review of the patients identified by the Office of Inspector General to have experienced a median wait time of at least three weeks between individual therapy sessions and takes action to resolve any patient care concerns identified during the review.

The Ralph H. Johnson VA Health Care System Director considers evaluating the Choose My Therapy program at other system sites for clinic practice management deficiencies and takes action as appropriate.

The Ralph H. Johnson VA Health Care System Director ensures that all patients listed in the electronic spreadsheet have received mental health follow-up care.

The New York/New Jersey VA Health Care Network Director conducts a review of system leaders’ responses to repeated concerns regarding delayed community care consult scheduling for patients with serious health conditions to determine whether leaders’ actions were in alignment with patient safety and high reliability organizational principles, and take action as warranted.

The New York/New Jersey VA Health Care Network Director ensures VA Western New York Health Care System Director develops community care consult practices and procedures for managing consults deemed high-risk or complex, implements an effective process to ensure consistency with processing consults within Veterans Health Administration timeliness requirements, and audits for compliance.

The VA Western New York Health Care System Director ensures system community care leaders develop and implement standardized operating procedures for consult management consistent with Veterans Health Administration standards, provide training to community care staff, monitor compliance, and evaluate effectiveness.

The VA Western New York Health Care System Director ensures all efforts to conduct an institutional disclosure to Patient A’s family are made and that the disclosure is documented in the patient’s electronic health record, as required.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director conducts a full review of care provided to the patient by clinical staff, consults with Human Resources and General Counsel Offices, and takes action as needed.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director strengthens processes to ensure that providers provide patient education about applicable boxed warnings when prescribing psychiatric medication, and monitors compliance.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director ensures mental health staff conduct suicide risk screenings and assessments as required by the Veterans Health Administration, and monitors compliance.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director evaluates outpatient mental health clinic scheduling procedures; identifies barriers to timely appointment scheduling, including staffing levels; and takes action as warranted.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director strengthens processes to ensure adequate lethal means assessment and lethal means safety counseling with patients.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director reviews posttraumatic stress disorder clinic processes to consult with a patient’s prescriber following worsening of a patient’s mental health symptoms.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director ensures posttraumatic stress disorder clinic consult and documentation procedures align with Veterans Health Administration requirements.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director conducts a review of the supervisory oversight of the social worker and other clinicians in the posttraumatic stress disorder clinic to ensure the identification and follow-up of clinical concerns for patients with complex mental health needs.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director strengthens processes to ensure adherence to Veterans Health Administration and facility traumatic brain injury screening and consult requirements, and monitors compliance.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director evaluates the root cause analysis processes regarding reporting of incomplete action items in accordance with Veterans Health Administration requirements, takes action as needed, and monitors compliance.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director evaluates the Peer Review Committee processes on addressing identified system issues in accordance with Veterans Health Administration requirements, takes action as needed, and monitors compliance.

The Under Secretary for Health considers establishing written guidance regarding the Behavioral Health Autopsy Program family interview process, including suicide prevention program staff’s consultation, to ensure that the decision to not outreach a family member is based on the best interest of the family.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director ensures compliance with the Behavioral Health Autopsy Program including completion of the Family Interview Tool-Contact Form.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director evaluates the care provided to the patient, determines if an institutional disclosure is warranted, and takes action as indicated.

Ensure all community dentists who provide dental care to veteran patients are notified and periodically reminded of the preauthorization requirements for any changes to treatment plans.

Conduct expanded postpayment reviews to identify and recover payments for unauthorized dental procedures.

Monitor VA dentists to make sure they include required dental procedure codes, not only general descriptions or Standardized Episodes of Care, on referrals to identify the procedures community dentists are authorized to perform.

Review the current contract language and determine if there is a need to clarify the third-party administrators’ claims adjudication responsibilities in its contracts to include the identification of unauthorized dental procedures and adjudication of possible denials of payment or implement controls within VA that will perform this adjudication function for dental claims.

Enable the Office of Finance’s automated payment system to deny payment for community dental services if the procedure codes on the dental claims do not fall within the Standardized Episodes of Care on the referral.

The VA Houston Health Care System Director evaluates the efficiency of evidence-based psychotherapy consult management procedures; identifies barriers to timely appointment scheduling, including scheduling processes and staffing needs; and takes action as warranted.

The VA Houston Health Care System Director ensures that administrative support staff document scheduling efforts in patients’ electronic health records, as required by the Veterans Health Administration.

The VA Houston Health Care System Director ensures that staff document offering VA-issued devices for participation in virtual mental health appointments in patients’ electronic health records.

The VA Houston Health Care System Director conducts a review of providers’ lethal means safety assessment and planning with the patient, identifies barriers to effective lethal means safety discussions, and takes action as warranted.

The Under Secretary for Health clarifies the expectations and requirements for homeless program staff’s completion of suicide risk assessments and updates or reviews of safety plans for high risk for suicide patients.

The El Paso VA Health Care System Director ensures Behavioral Health Service policies and guidance are in alignment with federal laws and Texas and New Mexico state laws specific to the system’s emergency detention orders, and educates behavioral health licensed independent practitioners on the policies, as needed.

Ensure that personal information of veterans who have passed away while waiting for community care consults to be scheduled is only shared with staff who need to know for specific work assignments.

Conduct a strategic business evaluation of the community care department’s workflow processes to determine if there are alternatives that could improve consult processing and scheduling efficiency and timeliness.

Continue to increase specialty provider availability in VA and the community for veterans assigned to the Martinsburg VA medical facility.

Ensure that the performance plan of the chief of community care has standards related to the metrics for community care.

The Under Secretary for Health, in conjunction with the National Oncology Program and Veterans Integrated Service Network directors, ensure facility leaders and staff are aware of the services offered to veterans diagnosed with breast cancer through the Women’s Oncology System of Excellence.

The Under Secretary for Health and National Oncology Program staff offer a range of services for patients diagnosed with breast cancer, including rehabilitative services, through the Women’s Oncology System of Excellence.

The Under Secretary for Health, Veterans Integrated Service Network directors, and facility leaders ensure staff enter data into the local cancer registry database in a timely manner.

The VA Loma Linda Healthcare System Director confirms that a mechanism is in place to monitor primary care patient aligned care team staffing and panel sizes at the non-VHA-operated clinics to ensure staff are available to care for enrolled patients.

The VA Loma Linda Healthcare System Director directs a review be done of VA Loma Linda Healthcare System adherence to Veterans Health Administration metrics for the processing and scheduling of community care consults and, if not met, determines the reasons for noncompliance, creates an action plan to address deficiencies, and monitors for compliance.

The VA Loma Linda Healthcare System Director conducts an assessment of the community- based outpatient clinic steering committee to ensure consistent oversight of quality of care and staffing levels for all of the VA Loma Linda Healthcare System’s VA outpatient clinics.

The Oklahoma City VA Health Care System Director, in conjunction with Behavioral Health Service leaders, reviews the community care consult management and appointment scheduling processes, identifies deficiencies, and takes action as warranted.

The Under Secretary for Health, in conjunction with Veterans Integrated Service Network directors, ensures staff document veterans’ care coordination needs within the Community Care Coordination Plan note for consults assigned a level of care coordination above basic.

The Under Secretary for Health, in conjunction with Veterans Integrated Service Network directors, ensures staff act on consults no later than two business days after receipt and document accordingly.

The Under Secretary for Health, in conjunction with Veterans Integrated Service Network directors, ensures staff schedule community care appointments in a timely manner.

The Under Secretary for Health, in conjunction with Veterans Integrated Service Network directors, ensures staff make three attempts to retrieve medical documentation from non-VA providers.

The Under Secretary for Health, in conjunction with Veterans Integrated Service Network directors, ensures patients in the home dialysis program receive initial and annual home visits.

The Under Secretary for Health, in conjunction with Veterans Integrated Service Network directors, ensures staff implement and sustain processes to monitor the delivery of non-VA home dialysis.

The Under Secretary for Health, in conjunction with Veterans Integrated Service Network directors, ensures each Veterans Integrated Service Network establishes a dialysis council.

The under secretary for health to make sure all scheduling guidance and other materials correctly refer to the date that should be used to determine wait-time eligibility for community care.

The under secretary for health to make sure the Office of Integrated Veteran Care provides ongoing oversight to ensure all facilities are using nationally approved scheduling tools.

The under secretary for health to develop an oversight process to verify that schedulers are using the correct dates to calculate wait-time eligibility for community care.

The under secretary for health to develop a mechanism to notify schedulers when it is appropriate to consider wait-time eligibility for community care regardless of which scheduling system schedulers are using.