Congress Examines Reported Problems With DoD-VA Health Care Transitions

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Congress Examines Reported Problems With DoD-VA Health Care Transitions

By Matt Pueschel
Posted: 22-May-2007
WASHINGTON-Officials expressed concern at a hearing in early March that some injured soldiers may not be receiving rehabilitative care as soon as they should due to a burdensome transition of care from the Department of Defense (DoD) to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).


A March 8 hearing before the House VA subcommittee on oversight and investigations coincided with the release of a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) regarding challenges encountered by injured servicemembers during their recovery process. "We found several problems in the efforts to provide health care and rehabilitative services for OEF/OIF (Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran) servicemembers," wrote Cynthia A. Bascetta, GAO's director of health care, in the report. "DoD and VA had problems sharing medical records and questions arose about the timing of VA's outreach to servicemembers whose discharge from military service was not certain. Furthermore, we found that DoD cannot provide reasonable assurance that OEF/OIF servicemembers who need referrals for mental health evaluations receive them."

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