Audit of VA Incomplete Compensation and Pension Medical Examinations

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an audit to identify opportunities for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) to increase the number of completed compensation and pension medical examinations (C&P exams). The audit also focused on identifying some of the causes of canceled C&P exams through a review of randomly sampled incomplete C&P exam requests. C&P exams are necessary for VBA personnel to make decisions on veterans’ disability claims. Reducing the number of canceled exams would enable VA to provide veterans C&P benefits more timely, reduce unnecessary work for VA personnel, and provide veterans with better customer service. In order to increase the number of completed C&P exams, VHA needs to improve their procedures for scheduling C&P exam appointments, and VBA needs to improve the quality of C&P exam requests submitted to VA HCFs. Additionally, CPEP needs to expand their quality assurance review coverage to include incomplete C&P exam requests in order to identify issues and causes that contribute to incomplete C&P exam requests. If VA does not accomplish this, veterans will likely continue to experience delays in receiving their entitled disability benefits, and VA will miss opportunities to improve the service provided to veterans. The Acting Under Secretary for Health and the Under Secretary for Benefits agreed with the report’s findings and recommendations. We consider the planned actions acceptable, and we will follow up on their implementation. We will close the recommendations when VHA, VBA, and CPEP complete all planned actions.