VA Health Care:

VA Has Not Sufficiently Explored Alternatives for Optimizing Third-Party Collections

GAO-01-1157T: Published: Sep 20, 2001. Publicly Released: Sep 20, 2001.

Additional Materials:

Contact:

Stephen P. Backhus
(202) 512-7111
contact@gao.gov

 

Office of Public Affairs
(202) 512-4800
youngc1@gao.gov

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has reversed the general decline in its third-party collections for the first time since fiscal year 1995. The fiscal year 2001 increase appears to be largely the result of VA's implementation of a new system, known as the reasonable charges billing system, which allowed VA to move from a flat-rate billing system to one that itemizes charges. However, long-standing problems in VA's revenue operations persist, and VA's collections performance is poor when compared to that of the private sector. VA's attempts at consolidation using either in-house or contractor staff have provided little basis for selecting the best alternative to VA's collections problems. Also, VA's recent 2001 Revenue Cycle Improvement Plan does not call for a comprehensive comparison of alternatives, nor does it focus on net revenues--collections minus operations costs. To collect the most funds for veterans' medical care at the lowest cost, VA needs to develop a business plan and detailed implementation approach that will provide useful data for optimizing net revenues from third-party payments.

Oct 3, 2018

Sep 28, 2018

Sep 27, 2018

Sep 13, 2018

Sep 5, 2018

Sep 4, 2018

Jul 31, 2018

Jul 24, 2018

Jul 19, 2018

Jun 26, 2018

Looking for more? Browse all our products here