Elder Law

VA Continues To Underestimate The Costs Of Long-Term Care For Disabled Vets

By dvanar

The long-term budget plan developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for rehabilitating veterans in nursing homes, hospices and community centers is flawed and underestimates costs by millions of dollars, according to a Government Accountability Office report released recently, the AP/Philadelphia Inquirer reported.  The report comes two years after VA announced a “politically embarrassing $1 billion shortfall that imperiled veterans’ health care” and “highlights the Bush administration’s problems in planning for the treatment of veterans that President Barack Obama has pledged to fix,” the AP/Inquirer reported. In 2005, VA informed congressional lawmakers that the department faced a $1 billion shortfall after failing to take into account the additional cost of caring for veterans injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. GAO subsequently determined that VA repeatedly miscalculated — possibly deliberately — figures using questionable methods used to justify Bush administration cuts to health care amid the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the AP/Inquirer reports. The new GAO report determined that VA used similarly unrealistic assumptions and projections in the department’s budget estimate that was submitted in August 2007.  According to the report, the VA’s strategic plan for 2007 to 2013 inflated the number of veterans that would be treated at hospices and community centers based on a questionably low budget and did not account for nearly three-quarters of its veterans, about 25,000 patients, who receive treatment annually at nursing homes that VA and state governments operate. According to the report, “The VA’s use, without explanation, of cost assumptions and a workload projection that appear unrealistic raises questions about both the reliability of VA’s spending estimates and the extent to which VA is closing previously identified gaps in noninstitutional long-term care services.” In addition, the report states that VA is believed to have undercut its 2009 budget estimate for nursing home care by about $112 million; underestimated costs of care in noninstitutional settings by up to $144 million; and overstated the amount of noninstitutional care.  In the report, VA acknowledged problems with its long-term care plans. The Inquirer reports that in many cases, VA officials told GAO that the department was aiming to be “conservative” in its appropriations requests to Congress to “stay within anticipated budgetary constraints.”

Source:  Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report/GAO ( January 23, 2009)
Full story:  http://kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=56579
Read the GAO report: gao-report-va-health-care

Full post as published by Law Office of Donald D. Vanarelli Blog on February 03, 2009 (boomark / email).