Review of VA’s Compliance with the Payment Integrity Information Act for Fiscal Year 2023

The VA OIG conducted this review to determine whether VA complied with the requirements of the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) for FY 2023. PIIA requires federal agencies to identify and review all programs and activities they administer that may be susceptible to significant improper payments based on OMB guidance. PIIA also requires each OIG to review its agency’s improper payment reports and issue an annual report. In FY 2023, VA reported improper and unknown payment estimates totaling $3.2 billion for seven programs. Of that amount, about $1.8 billion (about 57 percent) represented a monetary loss, and about $1.4 billion (about 43 percent) was considered either a nonmonetary loss that cannot be recovered or an unknown payment. These results represent a reduction of $334 million (10 percent) from FY 2022 results. VA satisfied nine of the 10 requirements under PIIA. VA did not meet requirement 6 because VA failed to report an improper and unknown payment rate of less than 10 percent for two VA programs that had estimates in the materials accompanying their financial statements. VA satisfied the additional reporting requirements for two high priority programs with prior-year monetary losses from improper payments of more than $100 million reported in FY 2023. The OIG recommended the under secretary for benefits reduce improper and unknown payments to below 10 percent for the Pension Program and the under secretary for health reduce improper and unknown payments to below 10 percent for the Purchased Long-Term Services and Supports Program. Both are repeat recommendations that have not been implemented from the FY 2022 report.