The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) provided limited guidance to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers (VAMC) on the governance of its patient advocacy program and its guidance, a program handbook, has been outdated since 2010. VAMCs are still expected to follow the outdated handbook, which does not provide needed details on governance, such as specifying the VAMC department to

The extent to which persons with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) need housing assistance is not known, in part because the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) estimate of the housing needs of persons with HIV, including those with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), is not reliable. HUD does not require Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) grantees to use

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has taken some steps to disseminate comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER), as required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), but has not taken other actions to help it fully address its dissemination requirements. The steps it has taken inc

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA)--within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)--significantly underestimated caregivers' demand for services when it implemented the Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers (Family Caregiver Program). As a result, some VA medical centers (VAMCs) had difficulties managing the larger-than-expected workload, and some caregivers experienced

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Healthcare & Insurance--Federal Employee Insurance Operations office, which we refer to as OPM's contracting office, monitors Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) carriers' compliance with requirements and other guidance for preventing, detecting, and eliminating fraud and abuse. These requirements include establishing a program to assess vuln

The Medicaid Integrity Group's (MIG) hiring of separate review and audit contractors for its National Medicaid Audit Program (NMAP) was inefficient and led to duplication because key functions were performed by both entities. Review contractors analyze state claims data to identify aberrant claims or billing anomalies while audit contractors conduct postpayment audits to determine if payments to

From March through September 2008, we reported on shortcomings in EPA's IRIS process that limited the agency's ability to complete timely and credible IRIS assessments. For example, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) required and managed interagency reviews of IRIS assessments, and OMB determined when assessments could proceed to the next process step, frequently resulting in delayed IRIS

Officials in several offices and divisions in OGAC, USAID, and CDC coordinate and manage PEPFAR program planning and reporting procedures at headquarters and in PEPFAR countries and regions. These procedures, which include PEPFAR-wide annual operational planning and periodic results reporting, support internal agency-specific program management as well as provide information for external reportin

This report provides information on contracts awarded (including to consultants) by HHS to help implement PPACA. We identified one consultant in our review retained by HHS's Assistant Secretary for Administration. This report provides similar information for contracts awarded by the Department of Labor, the Department of the Treasury, and OPM, respectively. We did not find that the Department of

From March through September 2008, we reported on shortcomings in EPA's IRIS process that limited the agency's ability to complete timely and credible IRIS assessments. These shortcomings contributed to our decision to designate the IRIS program as a high-risk area. Specifically, beginning in 2004, OMB began requiring and managing two interagency reviews of IRIS assessments by OMB and other feder