All Reports

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.

Make sure the Office of Integrated Veteran Care develops contract language and/or maximum allowable rates to limit reimbursements that do not have a Medicare or VA fee schedule rate for Community Care Network claims.

Ensure the Office of Integrated Veteran Care improves oversight of healthcare claim payments to prevent, identify, and recover overpayments in a more timely manner.

Ensure the Office of Integrated Veteran Care and the Office of Acquisition, Logistics, and Construction, collaborate to extend the contracting officer’s representatives’ designated responsibilities to include monitoring of healthcare invoices.

Make sure the Office of Integrated Veteran Care considers including dental contract reimbursement language in the current and/or future contracts that is consistent with other contract healthcare reimbursement methodology to limit dental contract reimbursements, not to exceed the amount the third-party administrators pay the providers.

Make certain the Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics develops sufficient oversight and internal controls over the contract modification process to prevent program overpayments.

Require the Office of Veteran Integrated Care and the Office of Acquisition, Logistics, and Construction to collaborate to explore potential recovery of dental payments to Optum.

Ensure the Office of Integrated Veteran Care and the Office of Acquisition, Logistics, and Construction collaborate to establish oversight and internal controls for dental services provided through Community Care Network to prevent excessive reimbursements.

Establish Veterans Benefits Management System–Fiduciary records for the 311 identified beneficiaries within the Veterans Benefits Management System.

Start or resume required oversight activities, such as field examinations, to assess the well-being and protection of VA funds for the 311 identified beneficiaries.

Implement controls to identify when beneficiaries deemed incompetent do not have electronic fiduciary records and to ensure records are established in the required system(s).

Complete level 1 summary reports for the Pension and Fiduciary Service fiscal year 2023 PACT Act training courses and provide feedback from the reports to training staff.

Establish a plan to conduct all four levels of evaluation for PACT Act training and provide feedback to training staff.

Establish deadlines in training evaluation plans for the creation of summary reports.

The Under Secretary for Health ensures that required suicide risk and intervention training includes suicide risk identification screening and evaluation requirements, procedures, and instruction.

The Under Secretary for Health considers establishing benchmarks for suicide risk screening and evaluation that reflect the clinical importance of suicide risk identification requirements and takes action as warranted.

The Under Secretary for Health ensures monitoring of adherence to suicide risk identification screening and evaluation setting-specific requirements.

The Under Secretary for Health ensures actions taken to address barriers to completing suicide risk screening and evaluation are effective to increase adherence to annual and setting-specific requirements in all clinical settings.

The Under Secretary for Health ensures non-mental health clinical specialty leaders are aware of and adherent to the suicide risk identification screening and evaluation requirements.

The Under Secretary for Health ensures clearly identified responsibilities for suicide risk identification screening and evaluation adherence monitoring and oversight.

The Under Secretary for Health monitors inpatient mental health unit adherence to suicide risk identification processes and identifies and addresses barriers.

The Under Secretary for Health ensures inpatient mental health unit staff complete suicide prevention safety plans as expected, and monitors compliance.

The Under Secretary for Health clarifies requirements for facility-level written guidance regarding the processes for mental health treatment coordinator identification, assignment, and care coordination, and monitors compliance.

The Under Secretary for Health ensures accurate and timely mental health treatment coordinator assignment, including patient centered management module entry and notification for the assigned staff and applicable patient.

The Under Secretary for Health evaluates the effectiveness of dedicated mental health treatment coordinators in enhancing patient engagement in outpatient mental health care following discharge from an inpatient mental health unit, and takes action as appropriate.

The Under Secretary for Health considers establishing written guidance regarding expectations for mental health unit staff to schedule patients’ post-discharge mental health care appointments.

The Under Secretary for Health determines supportive factors that contribute to patients’ attendance at outpatient mental health appointments following discharge from an inpatient mental health unit, including self-motivation enhancement and family and friend involvement, and takes action to integrate such factors into discharge planning procedures.

The Under Secretary for Health considers establishing a process for patient orientation to the behavioral health interdisciplinary team to facilitate patient awareness of, and accessibility to, team members, and takes action as appropriate.

The Under Secretary for Health works with the Women’s Program Office to gain an understanding of barriers to osteoporosis clinical reminder use and based on results, implement action as needed.

Update VA’s Adjudication Procedures Manual on when personnel should request medical disability examinations and opinions.

Reduce examination and medical opinion overdevelopment by establishing a plan to continue the development of examination request tools and evaluate the effectiveness of these efforts for any future enhancements.

Correct the two errors involving prematurely denied Dependency and Indemnity Compensation claims.

Conduct a file review of the reopened Dependency and Indemnity Compensation claims granted under the PACT Act from January 1 through August 31, 2023, and take appropriate actions to ensure monetary benefits and notification letters are accurate.

Consider whether modifications could be made to the reevaluation request process consistent with the PACT Act and related regulations and, should this result in a policy change, consult with the VA Office of General Counsel.

The Under Secretary for Health ensures Veterans Health Administration leaders assess reasons for noncompliance with training requirements and takes action as warranted.

The Under Secretary for Health evaluates whether toxic exposure screening is negatively affecting primary care workload and takes action to mitigate as needed.

Implement and periodically monitor the effectiveness of a plan to provide oversight for unsent packages in the Package Manager application.

Implement a plan to address existing unsent packages in the Package Manager application.

Improve vulnerability management processes to ensure all vulnerabilities are identified and that plans of action and milestones are created for vulnerabilities that cannot be mitigated by VA deadlines.

Implement a more effective system life-cycle process to ensure network devices are running authorized software and operating systems that are configured to approved baselines and free of vulnerabilities.

Ensure all file systems holding veteran information are encrypted in accordance with NIST and VA policy requirements.

Maintain an accurate inventory of personnel with key access to the facility.

Enable improved audit logging capability to monitor administrator access to sensitive information hosted on the Workload Reporting and Productivity Assessing file server.

Execute the compliance plan for the Veterans Benefits Administration’s personnel suitability program.

Ensure the Veteran Benefits Administration’s personnel suitability program oversight verifies background investigations are initiated and adjudicated within prescribed timelines and that documentation is filed as required.

Establish a plan to ensure robust oversight of the National Cemetery Administration’s personnel suitability program that includes verifying background investigations are initiated and adjudicated within prescribed timelines and that documentation is filed as required.

Evaluate resource requirements for the personnel suitability program to ensure that all personnel suitability requirements are being met.

Establish and implement guidance for quality assurance measures over the data used to develop and justify the ambulatory care budget estimate.

Ensure the deputy under secretary for health provides oversight and holds the Office of Finance accountable for developing, documenting, and implementing standard operating procedures to include defining roles and responsibilities and requirements for oversight and quality assurance for development of the ambulatory care budget estimate.

Implement the Veterans Health Administration Data Governance Council, to include developing policies and processes for data management across the Veterans Health Administration.

Ensure the Veterans Health Administration Data Governance Council identifies authoritative data sources and nominates data stewards for approval by the VA Data Governance Council.

Assess electronic health record major performance incident data needs and contractually commit to real-time data sharing that will provide greater awareness of system operations.

Develop a formal procedure for verifying performance metrics and associated credits to ensure the department receives the remedies it is due under the contract.

Update the process for prioritizing major performance incidents to ensure that notification and resolution occur in a consistent manner.

Develop effective notification and resolution metrics that consistently capture results for all major performance incidents, regardless of the owner, and enforce them.

Identify the information needed in post-resolution reports, such as corrective and preventative actions, and require the contractor to consistently collect, verify, and report that information as a contract deliverable.

Develop a plan to ensure all clinicians are familiar with the national downtime procedures.

Identify the appropriate backup system and develop a training strategy to ensure clinicians can use the system during downtime.

Assess facilities’ patient safety reports identified during this audit to determine if additional actions need to be taken and, if so, provide an action plan.

Develop a mechanism to better identify major performance incidents and negative patient outcomes and provide a plan to prioritize and address their causes.