On Monday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the Veterans Administration (VA) were slow to act or failed to report on 90 percent of its doctors within the system when concerns were raised about the performances of those doctors.
The five VAMCs GAO selected for review collectively required review of 148 providers from October 2013 through March 2017 after concerns were raised about their clinical care. The GAO found that these reviews were not always documented or conducted in a timely manner and identified these providers by reviewing meeting minutes from the committee responsible for requiring these types of reviews at the respective VAMCs, and through interviews with VAMC officials.
The selected VAMCs were unable to provide documentation of these reviews for almost half of the 148 providers. Additionally, the VAMCs did not start the reviews of 16 providers for 3 months to multiple years after the concerns
